Local divers pass their PADI OWSI Scuba Diving Instructor Exam.

Well done to my friends and buddies who recently joined the ranks f the professional scuba diver.  They passed their Instructor Examination (IE) in Bristol recently and are now actively teaching others the joys of scuba.

The completed their instructor course with my local dive centre in Portsmouth, The Dive Connection.  The evening saw a lot of merriment and celebration.  The least said the better.

All of those who sat the dive instructor examinations have been diving for several years but they still had to undergo a further amount of specialist training in order to be accepted onto the examination weekend.

The seven achieved exam success following an intensive 11 day preparatory course, The OWSI course which involves both the Assistant Instructor course and also the Open Water Scuba Instructor course to make sure they were fully prepared for the 2 day event of the actual Instructor Examination. Which they completed in Bristol, UK.

“The development course was intense but great fun and I felt I was ready for the two day examination,” said Colin McAdams, who has been diving for five years but started on the route to becoming a dive professional just over two years ago.

“I was elated when I passed. It is the culmination of two years hard work in progressing through the ranks to become a dive instructor.”

During the course and final examination they also had to master an awful lot of regulatory standards and safety questions to show that they were able to apply their skills and knowledge in a proper and safe manner once they were qualified.

The instructor candidates; Di Hall, Roger Godfrey, Colin McAdams, Kevan Chippindall-Higgin, Asgeir Solli, Martin Robson and Jamie Gathercole sat their two-day exam under the watchful eye of independent examiners from PADI, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, the world’s largest diver training agency with whom over 60% of the world’s divers learn to dive.

In passing their exam, the candidates upheld The Dive Connection’s 100% success rate at PADI Instructor Examinations with over 25 new instructors being successfully trained by the Pompey dive centre in the past 3 years.

The newly qualified instructors will now go on to work both here in the UK and abroad, following in the footsteps of previous Dive Connection staff who now work in such exotic places as Cyprus, Sydney and the Pacific island of Vanuatu. Lucky people.