My journey towards the three stars (3*)

[Storker]

Con't.

So realizing I'm more narced than I appreciate, I lead us up a few meters and handed over the lead to my buddy. The fog cleared, and since I wasn't leading the dive anymore the task loading decreased. I was good. I'd probably been able to continue the dive at the nark level I was, but I wouldn't have had much spare mental bandwidth left to deal with anything unforeseen. Not my cup of tea.

Buddy lead us upslope to some 12-15m, where we levelled out and turned to port. We passed the jump point and continued until he found a place to run the drills. I topped from bottom only twice, firstly when I suggested we went upstream instead of downstream to escape the silt cloud we'd (nearly) unavoidably stirred up by doing drills over a silty clay bottom, and secondly when I suggested that we'd ascend and land on the other side of the pier. He wasn't quite as receptive to the second suggestion, so I just signalled "ok, you're the boss".

At 5m we did our safety stop, and then it was time for me to become unconscious. Which I did to the best of my abilities. I was brought to the surface and towed ashore, and then we climbed out.

 

[Storker]

Con't

After surfacing, we got out of the gear while the second group got ready to splash. When they'd descended, it was idle time, so we got our feedback. Yes, we kept a much better formation than last time, both above and below water. And we generally had behaved according to standards. Then some comments about finning techniques, buoyancy control and trim finally being at the level it should, and we were told that we had passed the 3*. I have to admit i felt some childish pride. Look at me, damn I'm good! I wallowed in that feeling for about two minutes before sobering up. But yes, even at serious middle age I'm a tiny bit proud to have passed the "Advanced recreational scuba diving" certification.

 

[Storker]

So to sum up, what have I gotten out of my 3* class?

I've already mentioned that in a good club environment, you're mentored a lot, both under water and topside. Quite a bit of the topside skills like boat operation, dive leadership, compressor operation and basic maintenance, are learned outside formal classes. So if you - like me - have been active in a decent club for a couple hundred dives, what's the point of taking the 3*?

Well, for once I now have a formal qualification, a piece of plastic (when it arrives; I wont be holding my breath while waiting for it) showing that I'm certified for quite a few of the skills I've acquired informally during my diving career. That's always nice. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I have gone through a proper, decently thought-out class where all - or at least most of - the holes in my knowledge at that level have been filled out. That's nice. REALLY nice. And thirdly, I've been pushed quite a bit on personal diving skills, both as an individual diver and as a buddy/team member/club outing resource. And I like to believe that I've become better at that. But that's really for someone else to decide.

 

[wnissen]

Bravo! I have read your thread with interest. Did you have a threshold where you would have called the dive after being narc'ed?

 

[Storker]

Did you have a threshold where you would have called the dive after being narc'ed?

No definite threshold. I just found out I was more narced than I appreciated and did two things to alleviate that (ascend a bit and reduce task loading).

I don't think I'll thumb a dive due to narc; ascending a bit usually clears the fog pretty well.

 

[Germie]

I teached yesterday about decompressiontheory in the old 3* (allowed this year to teach). Was not that hard. We also discussed the books from Hahn, Buhlmann and Wience (as I have them all and expecially the ones from Wiencke are completely ununderstandable and unreadable).

 

[Storker]

I teached yesterday about decompressiontheory in the old 3* (allowed this year to teach). Was not that hard. We also discussed the books from Hahn, Buhlmann and Wience (as I have them all and expecially the ones from Wiencke are completely ununderstandable and unreadable).

Decompression theory is covered briefly in the Norwegian 3* textbook and in more depth in the Danish book that I've had a chance to browse. The Danish book has a fairly decent treatment of Buhlmann, but skips the bubble models completely.