Dec

Extensive BSAC training at Emperor Divers

In October and the beginning of November Emperor Divers Sharm El Sheikh had four instructors that crossed over to BSAC Dive Leader in order to take part in the BSAC Advanced Diver course that took place from 17 — 25 November on Emperor Asmaa, one of our fleet boats.

Emperor Divers is always looking at the quality of the service provided to their guests and it could not miss the opportunity to give their guides the chance to gain precious extra knowledge. The expanding and ever changing market requires dive centres to broaden their horizons, services offered and special needs for experienced divers and new professionals.

Emperor Divers wants to create new challenges, new trips and new possibilities for their guests as well as for their employees. This requires a high standard and top quality, which is achieved by getting the right training and the experience required.

The Advanced Diver programme seemed to tailor very well on us (read dive guides) since it involves deepening the knowledge about meteorology, tidal movements, organizing trips on small and big boats, setting up emergency equipment and emergency procedures, and leading rescue teams in case of emergencies. The candidates have to be able to work with Admiralty Charts, undergo rescue workshops, lead diving trips and extend their depth limits learning how to perform decompression stops in the proper way.

Sophie Rennie was our BSAC National Instructor (highest level in BSAC). She has been diving for almost twenty years and has seven year’s experience in instructor assessment and high level diver training. In order to qualify more Advanced Divers in the future, we also trained two more guides as BSAC Advanced Instructor. This course is a complex path and a comprehensive study of how to improve your teaching skills, how to grab a teaching opportunity when it arises and how to infuse more knowledge and enthusiasm to the course takers and/or qualified divers. It covers small lectures, specific briefings, progressive teaching and broad study of diving related topics such as meteorology, tides, dive managing and rescue leading.

Another important aspect of the training was the boat handling and boat coxswain training. RIBS were the boats we learnt how to drive, to steer and to use to recover divers from the water. The qualification is the CDA (Combined Diving Agencies) BSAC ICC (International Certificate of Competence) and is widely regarded as the best training available.

These eight days together aboard Emperor Asmaa have been fantastic. The Emperor team made a big effort to dovetail all the puzzle pieces together, to encourage people that needed a nice word, to pat others on the shoulder and say “Well done” immediately after another tick fell in the box. We also had to face another hitch, which turned out to be very positive; we had to drive to Hurghada to board the boat and this made our training even more challenging and interesting because we were not in our usual comfort zone of known dive sites (Sharm El Sheikh). So we were forced to plan all of the days in dive sites we barely knew and we could really see the spirit of the Emperor team: everybody contributing to let the day run smoothly.

But probably the weirdest task was that we had to pretend to train or brief other instructors who are colleagues and friends and at the same level of knowledge. But guess what? Nobody neglected to be part of the audience and actively take part in all the activities.

New BSAC Advanced Instructors: