Passed my DM

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Congrats on the passing. :biggrin:

As for me, I'm gearing myself up for a lot of swimming tomorrow night. If they let me, I should be able to do the 25-yard underwater swim, the 450-yard swim, the 20-minute survival float/swim, and the 900-yard snorkel (in that order). I'm up past two minutes of breath-hold time, so I'd like to try the 10-pounds retrieval and the Skin Ditch and Recovery if they cover it (since they've expressly forbidden us to try it unsupervised before we cover it). Anything else from the swims that they'll let me try, I'm up for, but I haven't worked on the rest yet.
 
Congrats on the passing. :biggrin:

As for me, I'm gearing myself up for a lot of swimming tomorrow night. If they let me, I should be able to do the 25-yard underwater swim, the 450-yard swim, the 20-minute survival float/swim, and the 900-yard snorkel (in that order). I'm up past two minutes of breath-hold time, so I'd like to try the 10-pounds retrieval and the Skin Ditch and Recovery if they cover it (since they've expressly forbidden us to try it unsupervised before we cover it). Anything else from the swims that they'll let me try, I'm up for, but I haven't worked on the rest yet.

whew I am tired just reading that... are you doing DM swims? why are you having to do UW swims? are you sure you want to do all that in the same day?

reason I ask is my CD gave us good advice on what order to do the DM Stamina swims in:
1. Float/tread water
2. Tired Diver Tow
different day
3. 800 yd mask/snorkel fins
different day
4. 400 yd free swim

the last one was definitely the hardest for me. I actually thought it would be the easiest but I was wrong. If these were not timed then yeah, no worries but you need the points and the more the better. Just a friendly bit of advice from someone who has been there.....fwiw:D
 
I believe NAUI and SSI have tougher 'stamina' sections for Divemaster Candidates than PADI does.

Their swims are longer and they throw in a couple extra requirements. (Someone please correct me if this is wrong)

Good luck on that ClayJar! We're pulling for ya!
Just make sure to get some rest between your swims.
 
I believe NAUI and SSI have tougher 'stamina' sections for Divemaster Candidates than PADI does.

Their swims are longer and they throw in a couple extra requirements. (Someone please correct me if this is wrong)

Good luck on that ClayJar! We're pulling for ya!
Just make sure to get some rest between your swims.

Gotcha, thanks for that.

and yes best of luck with these!
 
whew I am tired just reading that... are you doing DM swims? why are you having to do UW swims? are you sure you want to do all that in the same day?
They're swims for DM, but NAUI not PADI. We're not using a "Score X points for the win!" system (*sniffle*... no fun for us :( :D), but rather, simple pass/fail on the various watermanship requirements:
  • Swimming skills:
    • 25-yard underwater swim
    • 450-yard swim in 10 minutes (with 25 yards of resting strokes after the timed 450)
    • 50-yard swimmer transport
    • 20-minute survival swim/float
    • 10-pound weight retrieval from at least 8 feet
  • Skin-diving skills:
    • 900-yard snorkel in 18 minutes
    • 100-yard skin-diver transport in 4 minutes
    • Skin ditch and recovery (to the bottom, remove fins/mask/snorkel, surface, back to the bottom, recover and replace fins/mask/snorkel, ascend, surface with snorkel and mask clear)
    • Skin-diving rescue
  • Scuba skills:
    • 100-yard scuba transport in 4 minutes
    • 4-minute buddy breathing (2 minutes without mask) while swimming horizontally at depth
    • Scuba ditch and recovery (like the skin one, but full scuba kit *and* you must swim 25 feet horizontally away from the gear before ascending, then descend and swim 25 feet back to it before gearing up on the bottom)
    • Scuba bailout (hold everything in your arms and jump in, settle on the bottom and gear up, then surface and tread water for five minutes without using reg or snorkel)
    • Scuba rescue
  • (Plus the usual demonstration-quality scuba skills, CESA in OW, and so on.)

reason I ask is my CD gave us good advice on what order to do the DM Stamina swims in:
1. Float/tread water
2. Tired Diver Tow
different day
3. 800 yd mask/snorkel fins
different day
4. 400 yd free swim

the last one was definitely the hardest for me. I actually thought it would be the easiest but I was wrong. If these were not timed then yeah, no worries but you need the points and the more the better. Just a friendly bit of advice from someone who has been there.....fwiw:D
I've been training for the swims for some time now (this week is 1500 yards of laps each session). If I'm starting fresh, I can make the 25-yard underwater swim no problem. As for the 450-yard swim, I can sprint the first 100 yards, easily, and then settle into a semi-fast pace for the next 300 yards before sprinting to the end. Taking 20 minutes to catch my breath in the survival swim will have me basically fresh again to make the 900-yard snorkel (which is probably the easiest, since breathing is so trivial, and if my arms are tired, that doesn't matter, since you're not allowed to use them). The 10-pounds retrieval is lagniappe -- I did that for fun in my first OW pool session, and I'm in better shape now.

I took it easy for the last 500 yards or so this morning just to make sure I'm extra-fresh for the swims tomorrow night. If anything is going to catch me, it'd be dehydration-limited performance on the 900-yard snorkel, but I'll mix up a bunch of Gatorade. :D I'll certainly say that if I were to have tried the swims before starting the training regimen, they would've eaten me for lunch (and had room left over for a pizza buffet).

I don't think I'll offer to try the tows/transports, as I haven't been working as much on power kicks yet. I wonder if the Y will let me bring a drift anchor to the pool. Kicking against all the extra drag of a "water parachute" would certainly help me work out for the tows. :biggrin:
 
You go! I had to do the UW 25Y swim to qualify for the Tennessee Aquarium Vol dive team. I did it no problem with some practice, it was harder than I thought it would be the first time I tried it. good luck with these!

They're swims for DM, but NAUI not PADI. We're not using a "Score X points for the win!" system (*sniffle*... no fun for us :( :D), but rather, simple pass/fail on the various watermanship requirements:
  • Swimming skills:
    • 25-yard underwater swim
    • 450-yard swim in 10 minutes (with 25 yards of resting strokes after the timed 450)
    • 50-yard swimmer transport
    • 20-minute survival swim/float
    • 10-pound weight retrieval from at least 8 feet
  • Skin-diving skills:
    • 900-yard snorkel in 18 minutes
    • 100-yard skin-diver transport in 4 minutes
    • Skin ditch and recovery (to the bottom, remove fins/mask/snorkel, surface, back to the bottom, recover and replace fins/mask/snorkel, ascend, surface with snorkel and mask clear)
    • Skin-diving rescue
  • Scuba skills:
    • 100-yard scuba transport in 4 minutes
    • 4-minute buddy breathing (2 minutes without mask) while swimming horizontally at depth
    • Scuba ditch and recovery (like the skin one, but full scuba kit *and* you must swim 25 feet horizontally away from the gear before ascending, then descend and swim 25 feet back to it before gearing up on the bottom)
    • Scuba bailout (hold everything in your arms and jump in, settle on the bottom and gear up, then surface and tread water for five minutes without using reg or snorkel)
    • Scuba rescue
  • (Plus the usual demonstration-quality scuba skills, CESA in OW, and so on.)

I've been training for the swims for some time now (this week is 1500 yards of laps each session). If I'm starting fresh, I can make the 25-yard underwater swim no problem. As for the 450-yard swim, I can sprint the first 100 yards, easily, and then settle into a semi-fast pace for the next 300 yards before sprinting to the end. Taking 20 minutes to catch my breath in the survival swim will have me basically fresh again to make the 900-yard snorkel (which is probably the easiest, since breathing is so trivial, and if my arms are tired, that doesn't matter, since you're not allowed to use them). The 10-pounds retrieval is lagniappe -- I did that for fun in my first OW pool session, and I'm in better shape now.

I took it easy for the last 500 yards or so this morning just to make sure I'm extra-fresh for the swims tomorrow night. If anything is going to catch me, it'd be dehydration-limited performance on the 900-yard snorkel, but I'll mix up a bunch of Gatorade. :D I'll certainly say that if I were to have tried the swims before starting the training regimen, they would've eaten me for lunch (and had room left over for a pizza buffet).

I don't think I'll offer to try the tows/transports, as I haven't been working as much on power kicks yet. I wonder if the Y will let me bring a drift anchor to the pool. Kicking against all the extra drag of a "water parachute" would certainly help me work out for the tows. :biggrin:
 
We were well behind schedule for various and sundry reasons (including a monster line of thunderstorms and torrential downpours), but we made it to the pool eventually. While we were waiting for it to be available, I got a chance to do a couple swims. (Of course, it didn't help that I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got in. I was yawning all the way over.)

The 25-yard underwater swim wasn't easy, to be sure. I'd never actually tried it before, but I'd read tips about how to do it. Probably the hardest part about it was that I had no idea how far I'd gone and how far was left, as without my glasses or a prescription mask, I could likely run headlong into the wall before I see it clearly (and this wasn't a 25-yard pool, either). Starting with no momentum due to not being allowed to dive in from the side or push off also makes it seem much longer. Anyway, I'm told I made it past 25 yards before deciding it was as far as I could push it. (If I could see, having an ending marker under the surface would have been nice, but I couldn't so hey.)

As for 450 yards in 10 minutes or less... Well, let me just say that I was tired going into it, and I was *really* hungry, too. The pool was also several degrees cooler than the pool in which I've been swimming; it's also not chlorine, which means it tastes completely different. So, basically, it wasn't exactly ideal, and that's before I choked down a good bit of water. (Coughing up water while swimming isn't the best way to keep up a pace.) *Anyway*, in the end, I made it the 450 yards, but it took me about...

...eight minutes and forty-five seconds. :D

One of the other two guys commented on how high I was running out of the water. I said I was trying for "planing". :biggrin: The instructor noted that my form was terrible: my head was high, my breathing wasn't streamlined, and my kick was somewhere between bad and nonexistent. He seemed entertained by that and congratulated me on my time. (I believe he also mused about what my time would be if I had good form, hehe.) I make no justifications for my form other than to say that it's hard to keep your head down and your breathing proper when you're coughing and choking all the way back and forth... or perhaps to note that when you're jumping in to go rescue someone, you'll have to keep your head up to see them, so I *could* say I was doing the swim in a manner more relevant to actual real-world applications. :wink: :rofl3:

We didn't have time for the 20 minute survival swim or 900-yard snorkel in 18 minutes or less, but considering I'd packed all three pairs of boots in my mesh bag... and promptly left it in the carport,... I don't think it bugged me too much not to do the snorkel. :D (I actually wore an old beat-up pair of slippers under my fins. The backs of my ankles are a bit raw, but you do what works. :D) Obviously, we didn't have time for the other skills, so those get to wait until later, too.
 
Congrats!!!! It is just such a neat feeling to get those sign-offs. I am also NAUI, and have now completed most of the NAUI water requirements. I hope to be done in the next couple of weeks. Yee-hah.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom