Long day

Yesterday was an exhauting day!!! I don't remember the last time I was that exhausted at the end of the day. We stayed the night at Sea on a mooring ball of the Benwood (see post below). I woke up at 7am and started my stamina skills. There is a 400 meter swim (bathing suit only), 800m (mask, fins, snorkel), 15 min tread (hands out of water), and a 100m tow (towing a diver, both in full gear). While most Divemaster students go to the pool to do these, I was at sea in 3-4 foot waves. I was swimming in between 2 mooring balls 100m apart, but dive boats kept coming and made me swim around them. So I bet my 400m was over 500m. You need 12 out of 20 points to pass (based on time), and I received 13. Just squeaked by. I am sure I could have gotten a 17 or 18 in the pool or canal.
After those skills, I ate a sandwich, then did 2 more dives on the Benwood to finish the mapping project. Then a dry suit dive. At the end of the dry suit dive I was told that we were to do the rescue assessment before we got out of the water (dry suit has very little mobility, and I was carrying 8 pounds of extra weight). Wore me out!!! I got my victim (dad) to the boat, and fireman carriend him up the ladder.
Then we did our 20 demonstration skills, followed by my favorie exercise the course. We had to go down, and completely switch all gear (SCUBA unit, Maks, fins, weights). The catch is we had to do it while sharing one air source (buddy breathing). So we are exchaning all of our gear while passing back and forth the regulator. Needless to say, I didn't breathe much. It was a great high stress exercise (the whole not breathing thing takes a toll too).

So I am all done with the course. I am studying today, and will take my exams. Tomorrow I start the Instructor Development Course.