Instructor Exam: Day 1

First day of the widely feared Instructor Exam (IE). Our orientation didn’t start until 5 PM. This gave me some time to get ready and study for my dive theory exams (Physics, Physiology, Recreational Dive Planner, General Skills, and Equipment) and PADI Standards.

At orientation, we all met our examiner, Colin, who is very nice. He tries hard to make the whole IE more fun and relaxing than it’s known for. It’s good to know that the examiner realizes the amount of stress going through the instructor candidates. His friendly attitude and encouraging advice actually made me feel more relaxed. He mentioned that we (the candidates) have gone through so much training already we should feel proud of just that. That the IE is just a review, or a chance for us to show PADI what we have.

I briefly met the other instructor candidates—Father Gerry (yes, a priest), Ivan, and Jesse from Manila, Jay, Dave, and Caroline from Atlantis Resort in Puerto Galera. Everyone was very friendly coming from various backgrounds. I didn’t get much time to talk with them though because we were in the class.

After orientation, Colin gave us our dive theory exams that we had to do in 1.5 hours. The physics and RDP were the hardest followed by physiology, skills, and equipment. I finished the exam with 20 minutes to spare. I checked my answers several times over because I had nothing else to do. I was surprised by my score, 100% on everything except skills and equipment (92%). Hm, ok, good start.

After our exams, I ate dinner with Caroline and Dave at El Galleon Resort. I had a fish soup with garlic bread. Caroline is French-Canadian and Dave is from London. Dave told me that he visited South America for a few months, then dived in Central America for sometime. He decided to go back to London, sell his house, quit his job, and live abroad. He’s lived abroad for over two years and hasn’t worked since. I’m starting to see a common trend of people ditching everything and living abroad.

Back at home, I needed to prepare a knowledge teaching presentation about finding a divers maximum bottom time and also prepare a pool lesson for “No Mask Breathing” underwater. For some reason, these presentations took me a long time to do even though it doesn’t feel like it’s taking long. After finishing my presentations, which I started at around 11 PM, I noticed it was 1:30 AM! I thought it would only take me an hour!

To help prepare, I did a lot of mental rehearsals. I’m beginning to think this really helps.

- jason