Almost there!

I can’t believe it really is day 6 already, and tomorrow is the last day of the IDC!

Today it’s another pool day. The plan was to go into the pool first thing in the morning again, but there was a slight problem; the Spanish group had the same plan… And the pool just wasn’t big enough for all the holidaymakers plus all the IDCcandidates.

And so it happened we changed our plans; the Spanish group would go in first, whilst we did our briefings for our confined water skills for the afternoon, and later our knowledge development presentations. We sat outside on the picnic table with the sun on our heads, and presented our briefings to the group and to Tim and David.

Compared to the beginning of this week, I was hardly nervous at all for my briefings. After that, it was time for our Knowledge Development presentations. My third and last presentation went really well, and turned out to be another 5.0.

We also listened to the “adventures in diving” presentation, had our lunch break, and got ourselves ready for the pool. We got into the water and just like last time, we started with the surface skills. My skills were “remove and replace scuba unit underwater” and “distressed diver underwater”. The first one went really well, I spotted the given problem and solved it in a correct way.

The second skill was a bit more difficult, as it was part of the rescue course, so I haven’t done this skill very often.

I demonstrated the skill, and then got my students to do it. It all started wrong and confusing, as my students switched their roles around because of a misunderstanding or perhaps they had been too nervous to listen to my briefing this morning. I panicked a bit, and stopped them immediately. Then, nervously, I got them to do it again, ready for the next problem. Every time there was a problem, and I corrected it. By the fourth time, the course director stopped us, and from the faces of my fellow candidates, I could see that I had done something wrong.

Back in the classroom, it turned out that I had scored a 5.0 for the first skill, and I had missed the given problem on the second skill. Despite the fact that I had corrected all the other problems, missing a problem always means a score of 1.0. That means that I have joined the “famous one club”. They say that every good instructor will get a 1 for something on the IDC/I.E.. Let’s hope it brings me luck for the future.

After warming up from the cold water again, we listened to one more presentation: “rescue diver”.

And so we suddenly realize that tomorrow will be the last day of our IDC course! We all got used to being here very quickly, and now it is almost over. Plus… the I.E. (instructor examination) will start in three days!!!

We only have a little bit of homework for  tomorrow, which is preparing our briefings for the second half of the open water exercises. I will spend the rest of my time reviewing my theory for the I.E.

Love, Alice

Into the sea

Into the sea

Today was the day we were all back to what we were like all those months or years ago, when we got into the ocean for the very first time… Nervous and scared!

When we arrived at the Dive Center, the first thing we did was to present our briefings for the Open Water Exercises. We had to combine the two skills into one briefing, and my skills for today were the regulator recovery and clearing, and the partial mask flood. I think I am very lucky with these skills, but before I get to excited, we’ll just see how they go.

We drove to the Marina in several cars, fully loaded with tanks and equipment. When we got there, we set up our equipment, gathered our slates and thoughts together and got onto the boat.

It was a cold, windy day, so we are hoping that we won’t be in the water for too long, as you start to cool down very quickly after about 30 minutes.

The candidates with surface skills were up first, and the waves didn’t make it easier for them! I was lucky to have two underwater skills. Some of the skills were done very quickly, but others took about 10 to 15 minutes to complete both their skills and get their students (us) to do it. My skills went fine, really good actually, maybe to good! I am afraid I might have missed a problem that the Course Director / Examiner gives out, but we’ll see when we get our scores. Let’s hope it was all fine and I achieved a good score.

Because some of the candidates took so long to do their Open Water Exercises, we ended up in the water for 72 minutes, and this was only the time we spend under the water! Obviously, we were all shaking and wanting to get out by the end of it. Fortunately, when we were back in the marina, the sun was out to warm us up quickly.

We did our debriefs in the marina, packed up our equipment and had a nice English Breakfast for lunch.

Back at the dive center, we got our scores, and it turned out I had been worried for no reason at all. I scored two straight fives on my Open Water Exercises.

We listened to one more presentation; “Keep Diving”, and went home to do our homework for the next day; preparing more presentations!!

Wish me luck!

Love, Alice

A long day of listening

A long day of listening

Today we had a lot of presentations to listen to. 

We started with “Teaching in Open Water”, because tomorrow, we’ll be going into the ocean for our Open Water presentations.

David presented everything we needed to know for tomorrow, and we also had a group discussion, in which we got some very useful tips for tomorrow. 
One of the most important things is to try and help each other out, and not make things more difficult for each other, as everyone will be nervous anyway.

So we made sure we all knew who had which skills to do, and confirmed with our fellow candidates that everyone was able to perform the skills.

The next presentation on the list was about the “Open Water Diver course”. It was very enlightening to learn how to actually teach the Open Water Diver course in real life, toreal students, perhaps very soon!

Than we listened to the two very long presentations about “Risk Management”, that were similar to the presentations I listened to on my A.I. course.

To wake us up a bit, we spend the next two hours doing our own Knowledge Development presentations. Mine was about Rescue Assists, which turned out to be a fairly easy subject. There is a lot you can talk about, but you can make clear what you want to say without making the presentation too long.

I was a bit more relaxed for this second Knowledge Development presentation than for the first one, and I felt it went very well.  I was extremely pleased to get a 5.0, as these presentations where the assignments I was most nervous about in the whole IDC.

After that, we only had to listen to “The Marketing of Diving”, which was presented by Phil. He did really well, only he seemed a bit nervous, but I’m sure he’ll feel more confident soon, after doing a couple more presentations in front of the group.

After this long, long day of listening, I am looking forward to go diving again tomorrow, even though it means that we’ll be doing our Open Water Exercises tomorrow, one of the few things we are not allowed to do over, in the unlikely event of (PADI’s favorite quite, you should remember this if you’re thinking of ever doing your IDC course!) failing them!

Keep up to date about my experiences!

Love, Alice

Pool stuff and first presentation

Pool stuff and first presentation

When I arrived at the Dive Centre  it soon turned out we were going in the pool first thing in the morning.

 Everyone was trying to spend a couple more minutes glancing at their slates, trying to make the last few notes and changes. We got our equipment ready, and 45 minutes later we were lined up near the edge of the pool.

First, we did our skill circuit. Tim was with us in the pool, demonstrating every single skill, after which all the candidates were to copy the skill at the same time. There were no problems at all on the skill circuit, and after a 20 minute break, warming up from the cold water, we went back in for the Confined Water presentations.

My ConfinedWater skills were the Controlled Seated Entry and the Five Point Descent. Because of that first skill (the entry is always the first thing..) I was the first up! I had a small issue with my tank in the morning, as I would obviously have to sit down in full kit at the edge of the pool.. Well, that’s easier said than done when your tank is about half a meter longer than you! I am by far the shortest person in the group, which is no surprise and I am also the only female. Luckily, one of my fellow candidates agreed to swap his tank with mine.

After we had all done our briefings, I got my “students” to sit in a line at the edge of the pool, and I demonstrated the skill, that I had never actually done before! I am used to doing the Roll Back Entry and have done the Giant Stride a couple of times, in my previous diving courses and just to practice it. I was relieved to have no problems demonstrating the skill.

Than my students got into the water one by one, and after two people, I got the “cut it” signal, which can mean you are doing really well, or really bad. We’ll soon find out which of the two it was.

My second skill, the Five Point Descent, started off well, I did my demonstration, organized my Divemaster and students, got them to do the skill, corrected any occurred problems and remembered to reinforce them. Then I discovered my Divemaster had decided not to listen to my briefing and stay at the surface instead of staying with us.. So it turns out that your fellow candidates can be your friends, but also your enemies on the IDC! I am a bit wary about my score on this skill.

That afternoon we also did our Knowledge Development presentations. My subject was solution thinking underwater. Although I was very nervous, I didn’t do too bad on my presentation.

Score time!! David announced everyone’s scores on today’s assignments, and I turned out to have scored a 5.0 and 4.6 (out of 5) for my Confined Water presentations! I was also very pleased with my 4.8 for my Knowledge Development presentation.

Tomorrow we will be doing our second Knowledge Development presentation and the rest of the day we’ll be listening to more presentations.

Back soon!

Love, Alice

Exams and more exams

Exams and more exams

Today is the second day of my IDC, and after a quick coffee, we all started our early morning with some exams! What more do you want when you just got up?

We have two different sets of exams to do; the General Standards, and the Theory Exams. The General Standards Exam is all about the PADI Instructor Manual and PADI Instructor Guide.

It is an open book exam and we had 1,5 hours to complete it. When English isn't your first language, you also get 50% more time to do any exams. Fortunately, I had already done a similar exam on my PADI Assistant Instructorcourse, so I knew more or less what to expect. 
In the last couple of weeks, I have been studying my PADI Instructor Manual almost daily.

After that, it was time for the Theory Exams. There are 5 chapters:

Physics                                (the one I struggle with most!)

Physiology          (I struggle with the long, unfamiliar words in this chapter)

Equipment         (I’m okay with this one, I learned a lot about equipment at work in the last months)

RDP (Recreational Dive Planner)              (I struggle with the tables, although I’m fine with the eRDPml)

Skills and Environment                 (No real issues with this one)

Again, we had 1,5 hours to do the second part of the exams, and I even had time left on these, because most of the questions were easier than I had expected!

After the exams, we had a lunch break, and very patiently (not!) waited for our exam results. I turned out to score 100% on everything! I knew I had done my best on my studying, but I did not expect the result to be that good, so I was thrilled!

In the afternoon, we listened to David’s presentations about Teaching in Confined Water and Developing Knowledge Development.  

Now we know what to expect about those, and tomorrow we will be doing our first Confined Water presentations in the pool and also our Knowledge Development presentations in the classroom. 

Lots of homework for tonight! 

After feeling quite relaxed today, from the moment I started my exams, I’m a bit more nervous about my upcoming presentations!

You can read about the presentations next week!

Love, Alice

The Big Day has come!!

The Big Day has come!!

Today is the big day, I’m going to start my IDC course! I didn’t really believe it yet when I woke up, but it really is time now.

Pete had offered to drop me off on the first day, so I didn’t have to stress about how to get there. On our way, it really became clear to me; “This is it!” My hands were shaking, that’s how nervous I was!

We arrived on the scene, I mean, Dive center, and walked through the door. I was lucky to had already met some of the people there; David, our PADI Course Director and Tim, our PADI Master Instructor.

I also met all my fellow IDC-candidates, and soon discovered we would be divided in two groups; Spanish and International. I was of course in the International group, who could all speak English. We had people from England, Ireland, Latvia, Hungarian and another Dutchy! Then there were also our two assisting (to be) PADI Staff Instructors: Phil, from Teide Divers, who I already knew, and Alexandro.

Pete stayed around for a little while, which was very reassuring, and David, our PADI Course Director, started the first presentation: Orientation. We received a schedule for the 7 days of the IDC, introduced ourselves and it soon became a lot clearer that it wasn’t all as scary as thought!

The IDC is developed to (as the name Instructor Development Course suggests) develop new Instructors, and to teach you everything you need to know. No one expects you to already know everything, because you’re only a Divemaster or Assistant Instructor! We are here to learn.

I feel very reassured, and already less stressed than in de last couple of weeks. Pete went back the Dive Center and the rest of the day we listened to more presentations about General Standards and the Business of Diving.

Tomorrow we will start the day with practice exams, to see where we are all up to, and what we need to work on over the next week.

I got a ride home from Lorcan, one of my fellow candidates on the IDC who owns a Dive Center in Gran Canaria, and after a quick drink with some of the DM interns and Pete and Melissa, I went home to do some of my last studying!

Wish me luck!

Love, Alice

Only a week to go now…!!

Only a week to go now…!!

It’s a strange feeling, I have known I would be doing my Instructor course this month,  but I now realize I got used to the feeling that it’s still do far away.
Now it is suddenly coming very close, and that’s a bit scary.

I have been studying a lot, starting a couple of months ago, when I did my PADI Assistant Instructor course.
The problem is, as soon as you don’t use the information for a while, you forget most of it!
I have seen two more A.I. courses, of which one was only a couple of weeks before my Instructor course.






My experience is that it was very helpful to do my A.I. course and repeat the information a couple of times.
The first couple of days are always just trying to figure out what it’s all really about, and than it starts making sense.
It’s not as difficult as it seems at first, as long as you try to look at the bigger picture instead of focusing on the details too much.




The chapters Equipment, RDP (Recreational Dive Planner) and Skills and Environment were no big problem.
It was all about just reading all my PADI manuals again, plus I learned a  lot from the PADI Diving Knowledge Workbook!

My problem chapters were Physiology and Physics.
Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have a very helpful and experienced Master Instructor to help me out!

Many thanks again to Pete, for always being there for me as my mentor!

Another thing that helped me a lot with remembering all the things I needed to know, was visualizing.
I have been working though my manuals and writing all the important stuff down, in pictures!

My sheets won’t make any sense to anyone else, as things like hemoglobin’s turned into Goblins who liked carbon monoxide and stuff like that… get it? ;-)


So now, closer than ever to my upcoming Instructor course,
I feel like if I keep repeating these last things, I will be well prepared, or as good as I can, for my IDC.

I have no new things to learn anymore, only repeating what I (should!) already know.

On the other hand, despite all the stories I’ve heard around me from other divers and Instructors, I still have no idea what to expect!



I will keep y’all up to date, for now, I’m off studying again, don’t want to waste one more minute! ;-)

Keep reading,


Love, Alice

Welcome to the IDC (Instructor Development Course) blog!

Welcome to the IDC (Instructor Development Course) blog!

My name is Alice and I am a newly certified PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. On this page, I will share my experiences starting from my studying for my Instructor course, to my experiences as a new PADI Instructor.

Over 11 months ago I started my internship at Dive and Sea Tenerife. I came to Tenerife as a non-diver, looking for a new adventure.

In 8 weeks i managed to complete;
PADI Open Water Diver
PADI Advanced Open Water Diver
PADI Rescue Diver
PADI Master Scuba Diver
PADI Specialties
PADI Divemaster

After my internship, going back to the cold Holland where diving wasn’t an option (it’s cold!) for me, didn’t really appeal to me. So I stayed on for an additional 5 weeks to gain some more experience. The thing I had to work on most was navigation.. I seemed to end up in places I didn’t intent to go to more than just a few times..

After my 5 extra weeks, I was finally able to lead dives without getting lost, I gained a lot more diving experience (I went from just over 60 to 101 logged dives!!) and I had also completed my PADI Discover Scuba Diver Leader internship.

After my extended internship, I had been back to Holland for only a couple of weeks before I got a job offer from Dive and Sea Tenerife, which was more than I ever dreamed of! So within a very short period of time, I was back in the lovely Tenerife and started working as a Divemaster!

If you would like to read about the experiences of our Divemaster interns, check out our Divemaster internship blog's;

In English 
Or Dutch

In the last months, I have gained so much more experience with diving, customers, DSD’s, assisting with courses, all the other work behind the scenes that diving brings, I became a PADI Assistant Instructor and last but not least; a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor!

I hope you will enjoy reading about my adventures, and I hope to give everyone who might be interested in doing the Instructor course a clear insight about what it is like!

Love, Alice