Archive | Dive Certifications

Divemaster Training: Fish ID

By admin on July 5, 2012 in Blue Season Bali, Dive Certifications

Can you name those fish?!? I can! Humphead Parrotfish.

We spent the last few days doing an overnight trip at Tulamben. Tulamben is a diving area that is about 2.5 hours north of Sanur. It is home to the USAT Liberty wreck, a 125 m ship that was beached after being hit by a Japanese torpedo during World War II and then pushed back into the water when Mt. Agung exploded in 1963. Juliette and I joined Henley, Baz, and Tom MacKenzie on an overnight to assist them with some Advanced Open Water courses. It was a lot of fun and great company!

We also completed our Fish ID specialty while we were there. T-Mac and Henley spend a lot of time going through fish books and drawing pictures explaining to us how to identify different species of fish. Then we completed 2 dives with out slates and wrote recorded all the different species that we could identify. I learned a lot and am now much more comfortable identifying the fish I see while diving. My new favorite, surgeon fish!

Divemaster Training: Mapping

By admin on June 28, 2012 in Blue Season Bali, Dive Certifications, Divemaster Training

Working on a map of Seraya.

Today I worked on my mapping project for my divemaster training. Juliette (another intern from New Jersey) and I worked together to map out a dive sight called Seraya. Seraya is a muck diving site and is known for macro including lots of nudibranch, shrimp, crabs, and the occasional frog fish! We spent a total of 4 dives writing down landmarks, distances, topography, sites of interest, marine life, depths, and other information about the dive site that would be helpful to someone who is diving there for the first time. It was cool to take a closer look at the site while thinking about what types of information other divers would find useful. I also enjoyed navigating the site by myself, it gave me a chance to apply the navigation skills I have been learning.

Becoming a Rescue Diver with Blue Season Bali

By admin on June 1, 2012 in Blue Season Bali, Dive Certifications

Rescue Diver Course: Day 1

Our instructor Niels and divemaster Dayne.

I arrived at Blue Season Bali yesterday morning ready to start my rescue diver course. For those of you who don’t know a certified Rescue Diver is someone who is trained to handle diving emergencies. Becoming a rescue diver gives you the skills and knowledge that you will need to be a leader should you ever encounter a problem while diving.

Day 1 began in the classroom where we did some theory and completed our knowledge reviews. This gave us the foundation that we needed to start practicing our skills. We spend the next couple of hours in the pool practicing everything from approaching panicked divers in the water to surfacing an unconscious diver. It was great practice and I found it more difficult than I expected to react quickly during the practice scenarios.

Rescue Diver Course: Day 2, Out in the Ocean

Day 2 was when the challenges really began. We spent the day diving at Sanur and practicing all the skills that we had learned. The idea is for you to experience as close as possible what it would feel like to be in a real situation. With this in mind our instructor sends out divemasters Tegan and Dayne to play the victims. We had to practice doing search patterns to find unconscious divers. We also practiced surfacing them and giving them rescue breaths while towing them back to the boat. It was a long day and super tiring but also really fun. We really had to be on our toes, knowing that a diving emergency could happen any time. Now I feel like a much more capable diver. It is nice to know that I will know what I can do to help if an emergency should ever happen.