IDC August 2013 ~ Opening Day

Here we are at Crystal Divers and time to do another IDC. This time we have : Sabrina and Astrid from Germany, Julie and Stefano from USA, Josephine from Hong Kong, and Kiyoshi from Japan. In staff instructor side will be Rakhmat from Indonesia and Indo from Australia.  Mari, Greg, Robin and Wulan will be on and off for staffing.  Of course under our Course Director Minni and Taka.

It will take 16 days and 3 days for IE. They will develop their knowledge, skills, and attitude during these days and of course afterward.  These 3 elements work together but the most important is attitude, with a good attitude you will be a good instructor for your students and your surroundings.

The course starts with orientation, this time you need to introduce yourself, where do you come from and why you want to become an instructor. Minni and Taka gave presentations for the IDC candidate as well as assignment during the presentations. Greg explained us about learning, instruction and PADI system nicely and finally we learn to make Knowledge development. The IDC candidate got their very first assignment for the Knowledge Development Presentation. Let’s the fun begin!

Join Crystal Divers and the evolution on ScubaEarth!

Join Crystal Divers and the evolution!

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Find all Crystal divers staff on Scuba earth share logged dives and pictures you enjoyed together with us.

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Teaming up for our Ocean

World Ocean Day beach cleanup and Project AWARE fundraiser!

Every End Has A Start

Vintty, oneng -my beautiful roommate and my only sister in this internship, she always said it’s ok for everything to me, especially in cooking. She also always helped us to learn about diving, a good teacher can I say especially for one of us (you know what I mean right ;)) . Good luck with your new journey we will meet again someday.

Imam, the thinker, he is a good person but at some times he tends to make simple things to be really complicated. Remember KISS imam and don’t think too much ok. He is a friend who is always there for you when you need it and he’s a hard working guy. Thank you for the bike and I wish you all the luck in Gili Air! You need to take me diving if I go there 😉

 

Crystal Diver’s Shout Out For Sharks

A desire to protect sharks and have fun led the Crystal Divers team to organize a massive month of fundraising for the Big Shark Shout Out.

Holly and Crystal Divers launched their Big Shark Shout Out month with a huge barbecue and shark themed drinks night. The shark shots proved very popular and 76 people enjoyed the amazing barbecue, with even more for drinks!

A try dive day in Crystal Divers pool with Poseidon’s new rebreathers raised more money and our yoga teacher Pinglan is very generously donating all of April’s class fees to the cause.

“Our sincere thanks go to Bali Crystal Divers.  The Foundation relies on champions like Holly to go above and beyond and raise much needed funds for our ocean. Holding fundraising events is a great way to get your dive community together for a good cause,” said Joanna McNamara, Coordinator Project AWARE Foundation.

The Big Shark Shout Out is a shark month of action aimed at protecting sharks from overexploitation – overfishing, finning and bycatch.

This Earth Day and throughout April, Project AWARE and divers worldwide call on local communities to rally support for the protection of the world’s most vulnerable shark species by signing and organizing petition signatures to protect heavily traded species.

Well done Crystal Divers. Over 1000 signatures for the shark petition and over $1,200 raised so far to protect sharks.   Keep up the fantastic work.

Crystal Divers Shout For Sharks!!

Self reliant Diver Course

PADI Self reliant Diver Course with one of the few platinum  Course Directors in the world, Minni Vangsgaard at Crystal Divers Bali

Do you trust yourself and your gear enough to become a certified PADI Self Reliant Diver ? This is not a speciality course for everyone, but is designed for divers who are often in circumstances when they do not have a buddy to rely on, in particular dive guides, photographers, videographers and instructors.  Self reliant training involves emphasizes the importance of effective dive planning whilst incorporating elements of tec training in calculating your bottom time. Training dives focus on how to manage a range of problems and safety drills using an independent alternate air source, thus expanding a divers skill basis and developing a new perspective on their diving. Overall, self reliant divers gain more confidence during any dive regardless of whether they dive with a buddy or alone. Also you ones your certified your insurance is more likely to cover you if anything goes wrong, since insurances normally states that your covered as long as you dive within your certification level which both divers on this course now will be next time they go on their own.

Our latest students were Darren, a very experienced diver  and keen  underwater photographer , along with Holly our very own Course Director who wanted to expand her own experience and continue to teach the self reliant course.

Early morning on a sunny day we started with theory , focusing on air consumption calculations, equipment requirements and what to consider when planning and conducting a self reliant dive.  Many of the points provoke interest and prompted discussions  and anecdotes based on different points of views of diving which added  to a very enjoyable theory session!

We then proceeded to plan for the logistics for our  3 Training dives in Tulamben the following day.

Training dives,

Awesome day, Sun was shining and visibility better than it has been for the last 4 weeks in Bali; I think we owe Darren a thanks for bringing some good weather with him to Bali. . . .

Dive 1

Self reliant diver course with Crystal divers Bali

Dive 1: The Drop Off (Tulamben)

This dive was all about getting used to diving with the additional gear, practising buoyancy  control whilst carrying an independent alternate  air source and learning how to switch to a redundant air supply.  Darren and Holly then  performed a Surface Air Consumption (SAC) rate timed swim to determine their air consumption per minute whilst diving. To conclude the dive they made a safe ascent deploying a DSMB.

Dive 2: USAT liberty (tulamben)

Self reliant diver with crystal divers bali

The performance requirements in dive 2 focus on more on ‘diving your plan’  recording your depth and air consumption at pre agreed points throughout  the dive.  We also mask conducted a 2 minute swim without a mask, navigation skills and an out of air drill, all completed with no problems at all!

Dive 3:  5 Meter Reef (Tulamben)

Dive 3 was spent refining  the skills practiced so far and applying the air consumption calculations from previous dives to establish turn around pressure.

All 3 dives was very relaxed and the students had absolute TOP Score on all skills, Crystal Divers are proud to certify them both as Self Reliant Divers!

So  BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Darren and Holly!!!

Try the new rebreather on April 5

Join us for a day to try out the new generation of diving

Be one of the first people in Indonesia to try the new recreational rebreather from Poseidon together with Crystal Divers. We will be having 2 pool sessions on April 5 where you will have the opportunity to experience rebreather diving! We will have rebreather instructors and technicians from Poseidon right here to look after you and answer your questions regarding the NEW WAY of diving.

Its a once in a lifetime chance so don’t miss it, for more information please contact us at info@crystal-divers.com or call us 0361-286 737.

There is limited spaces available so if you want a spot let us know as soon as possible.

Instructor Development Course

It was fun and tired course actually but it all paid with our good score during the course. Minni, Holly, Taka, Giovanni (as Staff Instructor Candidate), Else, and Paul presented and helped us through this course. We already know a little bit about the IDC because we have been here for 1 year and we saw many IDC before our own IDC but still it’s different from sit backside to front seat. Some of us joined two times IDC so they know and more confident to make some presentation and the theory as well.

Our progress was really good. All the mark was more than passing score. Maybe one or two mistake on the pool presentation because of breaking standard but it’s a learning process. We knew what the mistakes were and we learnt to avoid that in the future. Thanks to the entire instructor who patiently taught us to be better instructor. This course is

different from other courses, we need to stand in front of the class to talk about mistake question, selling some con-ed and dive equipments. We need to identify the mistake on the pool or open water that usually new students have it.

One more step to be a diving instructor and all of us would achieve a good score and wouldn’t let down the entire person who already spent many time to teach, trust, and support us all. Three days of IE started on 2^nd of April and like Minni said not good luck because we all have the knowledge already.

Mapping Trip

Mapping is one of the Dive Master requirement, we need to make an underwater map of one dive side in Bali. Seven of us will make one dive site map and the choice goes to TULAMBEN DROP OFF “The fantasy wall”. Minni helped us out to make a choice this time because almost all other dive sites have been made before. So we need to prepare all the things to bring to Tulamben because we wouldn’t do only the paper map, we would also make the 3D map so need more preparation than others right. We planned what we need to do, the tools we need to bring, the equipment to make the 3D structure, transport, tank and the accommodation. We haven’t been going in one go because we will be in the car with the other customer so it saved some transport money. Three of us – me, jink and imam – went first because we need to do the deep specialty before we begin our Mapping diving. The second group planned to arrive in Tulamben at night with motor bike and the last group would be arriving next morning with motorbike as well.

First day…

We were ready to do the first dive now!

The first group is me and Eri, the second group is Jink and Vintty, and the last group is Nico, Imam, and Made. Each group have their own duty. My group’s duty was checking the compass heading, finding the distance for the place we mapped, and surface compass heading from entry point. We did the dive for 60 minutes and we had lunch with Minni and Tony (from PADI). We were talking a lot about what we gonna do after we finished this course and he adviced us about how to find a job. It’s really a good advice for us and a reward for our 1 year course. The second dive, my group need to count the kick cycle from the wall, the details of the wall, and the distance from the block. We were done with the diving for day 1 now! We made the structure for the 3D Drop- Off map. We have been doing it together and it looks like we are a good team. We made it from cement and all of us have our own speciality in this thing Like Nico is good in mixing the cement First structure was done in first day and we need to make it dry then we can continue to the next structure. Not an easy time because if we use cement for all of the structure it will be really heavy (it’s still heavy like hell even with the steroform inside!!).

Second day…

This dive was focusing in the wall contour and the interesting points. We need to find the distance and the depth for all of that. It took us not so long to do that because Eri and Jink already familiar with Drop Off. We were finished earlier that day and we were playing in the beach for a while collecting the rocks, the sand for our map and Jink took us to the edge of the beach and we dug a hole about a couple meters from the sea and yes, the water indeed not salty. It’s so weird but that is the mystery of Tulamben. The rest of the day we spent to finish the contour of the 3D Map. We discussed a lot about the contour and we need, is to wait again to do the next dive because there was still something missing in our mind. We also went to the hill on sunset, Eri showed us the place where we can see the Agung Mount and the sea in high place. It was a good view and really nice to end our Mapping Trip to Tulamben. We also a made sketch for the paper map that night. We had fish grill dinner like always and Eri’s family and friends came to join us there and we had a little party that night because this is the end of our trip to Tulamben. Thank you for the hospitality of Eri’s Family!

Third day…

Final dive today because some of us will go home today and we needed to finish the contour at Crystal. We were diving for 1 hour to make sure again the interesting point of the place. And that was it. We finished our mapping dive and time to go home now. We were separated into 3 groups again to go home…

This Journey was also the first journey for all of us and it tightened our friendship. We will do it again for celebrating our Instructor maybe That was our 3 days Journey to Tulamben and for finalizing the map we were doing it in Crystal with our document. We put the rock and the sand to the structure, made Jukung miniature, the coral, sponge and paint it. The hardest part was searching for the material for the miniature because we can’t use play-do! The play-do cant be hard and we need something that last forever. So we need to skip this part first and focus to another map. The paper map is not so hard to be finished because its only drawing so we finish it in less than a week.

I was searching the material to create the miniature and with Milan help, I found the shop where they sell CLAY! I could move forward then. I made some miniature of jukung, coral, sponge, and the block. We put all the miniature in the place and paint it. It Looks pretty cool now and we need 1 month to finish all the things.

Oxygen Provider in Crystal Divers

One afternoon in Crystal Diver when our Dive Master – Alex; Dive Master Trainee – Gael and Robin; Interns – Eri, Wulan and Imam; and our new Instructor – Tony and Milan; gathered in the class room to listen about oxygen provider lesson. Some of us already certified as oxygen Provider but it doesn’t mean we don’t need to refresh our skills for these lessons. We still need to practice more and more so we can be confident if something happened in the future.

Else taught us about Oxygen Provider while Taka was teaching the AI course for Yaiko and of course Mari with her Dive Master Course. We were not only set up the oxygen normally but we need to set up it blindly. It is because if emergency happened, it would not be in the calm situation so we need to handle any kind of situation that can be happened in the future. I can tell you that afternoon all of us did a good job for setting up the oxygen.

Thanks for the lesson and bandana Else!! And of course congratulation to ALEX and GAEL  for their Oxygen Provider Certified 😉 If you want to join us like that fine afternoon, just come to crystal divers and join our course here!