The day finally arrived when 3 of our
Wicked dive master trainees entered the big wide world of diving professionals and have become divemasters! Here they are shown with their mentor Marcel and other divemasters Becky and Robyn.
Throughout the divemaster course the girls had a lot of help from all our instructors and staff but they get allocated a mentor specifically to them who helps them throughout the course.
Marcel was the lucky one to be responsible for their development and has helped the girls in many ways from the theory side of the course to building up their experience and confidence practically in the water. Now the girls are all set and ready to work... anyone have any offers? To complete the last part of their training the last thing to do was a dive master challenge. The location for this spectacular event was
The Happy Snapper, Khao Lak.
Step ONE...
Challenge number 1To guide a dive and find animals of interest, whilst staying together as a group.
Dive Site : Happy Snapper
Dive Time : 5 Minutes
Marine Life : Turtle
Shark
Whaleshark
To put their team-working skills to maximum use the girls were all joined together (the use of tape was handy here) , and Beyla and Mel were given a mask which they could not see out of at all (because they were covered completely in tape) However Anna
was able to see out of her mask meaning that her fellow dive master trainees were going to have to trust her completely... This was of course carried out whilst drinking a potent cocktail of alcohol from a bucket.
As things do at DM Challenges, things may not go quite as planned, and ended up with Keith rescuing them from planting their heads into the bar! After a lot of time spent on the floor, maybe they still need to practice some of their team skills!
Challenge number 2Exam time...
As all the girls hated the exams we decided to make them answer exam questions in front of the whole bar. You can see the worried expression on there faces as they have to deal with the pressure of it all, luckily the questions weren't too hard and there was no pass or fail...otherwise who knows what the result would have been.
Challenge number 3
The songbird...
Whilst not part of the divemaster course Beyla, has been earning a reputation for her brilliant voice in the Happy Snapper on open mic night, and what better way to finish her divemaster training than a song with backup from her 2 fellow divemasters?
The celebration carried on and at some point Marcel foolishly got out the permanent marker pen. Combined with just a little alcohol consumption... people were drawing
on each others t-shirts and all over their bodies. The girls had many messages wishing them good luck amongst other things, although I think Beyla was a little disappointed to find that her message from Marcel had been written on all the girls t -shirts.
A lot of people woke up with blue stained sheets or in the case of Marcel, arrived at the wicked office to be greeted by a lot of laughter from a bunch of our guests, it took him a while to realise that he had forgotten to clean the attractive moustache that had been painted on his face the night before.
So we just want to say from everyone here at Wicked Diving thank you Beyla, Mel, and Anna for all the good fun over the last months and good-luck with everything in the future!
Khao Lak Diving
Throughout the divemaster course the girls had a lot of help from all our instructors and staff but they get allocated a mentor specifically to them who helps them throughout the course. Marcel was the lucky one to be responsible for their development and has helped the girls in many ways from the theory side of the course to building up their experience and confidence practically in the water. Now the girls are all set and ready to work... anyone have any offers? To complete the last part of their training the last thing to do was a dive master challenge. The location for this spectacular event was The Happy Snapper, Khao Lak.
was able to see out of her mask meaning that her fellow dive master trainees were going to have to trust her completely... This was of course carried out whilst drinking a potent cocktail of alcohol from a bucket.
Challenge number 2
on each others t-shirts and all over their bodies. The girls had many messages wishing them good luck amongst other things, although I think Beyla was a little disappointed to find that her message from Marcel had been written on all the girls t -shirts.
It's not easy to see, because I go in only at night, but the Happy Snapper got a nice addition this year and it looks great. better than great, it is gorgeous.
And of course, everyone's favorite....MBK. 7 floors of stalls with a massive amount of things. One entire floor is just mobile phones and accessories. I mean this is where phones geeks go to talk super phone geek talk and there are bidding wars on the best phone numbers. It was also the scene of a fire about one week ago. Interesting to think about how anyone could possibly escape from this place on a normal day, let alone a fire. But there are cheap DVD's so....
So after a bit of a snack (Su cooked a huge meal of Lobsters, shrimp, and several other marine life - perfect for a room full of divers, as most of us are veggies or at least don't eat fish!) I headed down the fabled Happy Snapper. The best Place in Khao Lak for a beer, music and atmosphere.
Khao Lak Weather
