Finally done! I only had the pool skill
evaluations and swim test to complete, and got this done finally. Ken Dunlop
had a sidemount class in the pool at Simon Fraser University, and Amy was kind
enough to evaluate Linda and myself. In a happy coincidence, Andre and Patricia were
doing the sidemount class, and it was great to see them again. Heather and I
had met them on the Topline in March. I told them that we would get a
dive going on the Topline soon.
It
was a packed 3 hours, as we had a lot to do. The underwater gear swap went much
better than I had anticipated. Before we started, I didn't realize that it
was swapping fins mask and BCD, and that you had to end up in the
other person’s gear, all while sharing a single regulator. There was some complication in
that my feet were bigger than Linda’s so fin swapping required different fins
for both of us. Not something I would ever have thought about to prepare for.
Who swaps their fins, ever??? But I understood it was all about problem solving
and task loading under water, not realism.
Linda had a good suggestion which
helped a lot. We purposefully started out in each other’s gear. That way, as
the exercise went ahead, we’d progressively be back in our own gear. It worked
great. The rest of the skills went well, with not much to comment on. My
demonstration quality was not that great. If I was going to do this more often,
practice would definitely be needed.
Watching Youtube videos of the skills helped some, but hurt sometimes as
well. Each shop and instructor had a few differences in skill demonstration. So
on one skill, we had to do it a different way, which was no big deal. Just a
general note, one should not assume that an online video is correct! What? The
Internet is not all facts? A good reminder.
Back at the shop, it was a lot of
paperwork, and soon, I should get my card!
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