Help! Help! Unresponsive diver...

.. Is what I have been shouting a lot over the last few days completing my rescue diver course. Usually trying to shout it whilst towing a dead weight diver pretending to be unconscious towards the boat, whilst trying not to drown myself as waves slap me in the face and the driving rain pours down on top of us (sorry.. Is this Thailand?!). Luckily that weather was contained specially for our assessment day and it is now back to lovely and hot and sunny.

The rescue course was very challenging, physically mainly but it was also a lot to remember. We started by doing a basic first aid course (ie a land based one) and then day 2,3 and 4 were spent trying to transfer these skills to be able to do them in water... Easy!

The last day was the assessment and this involved a few dive-master trainees and instructors flinging themselves over the side and coming up with a whole number of scenarios in which we had to 'save them'. This ranged from the 'panicked diver' (a diver having a breakdown on the surface and trying their very best to drown us as we tried to assist them) to the 'unresponsive diver' 10m down at the bottom, which we had to pull to the surface and then tow to the boat whilst resuscitating them and as if that wasn't enough then haul them up the ladder onto the boat. Exhausting! But it was really good fun and I hope I never have to use it but I can see how it is definitely worth knowing. Plus if I teach scuba diving I am bound to come across a few panicked divers!!

So after doing all that I spent most of yesterday lying horizontal on the beach/in a hammock. Not a bad view for a Sunday evening...