Junior Advanced Open Water Diver!

Congratulations to George! He is now an PADI Advanced Open Water Diver (Junior)!

The above photo was taken upon the completion of his second dive of the day and he was, at that moment a newly qualified Advanced Open Water Diver. Well done George. We're so proud of him. He really is a natural at diving. Buoyancy is no problem. He is sensible and he has fun doing it.

His instructor, Holly said that he was a little cold at the start of the second dive but as soon as he saw the trout in the water, he forgot that he was cold and got on with the business at hand.

Both Henry and George were doing the open water dive portions of their next qualification. Henry was going for the dry suit diver qualification that I did back in February. There wasn't a dry suit small enough for our George, so this tough kid donned a 7mm wet suit and completed his Advanced course in place of the dry suit course!

I went along with Henry and George to Capernwray, the nearest inshore diving location. I did the driving, dive support and took photographs.

It was very busy for a Saturday. The weather was calm, breeze-free and quite bright. Perfect for diving. This is George and Henry getting their gear on in preparation for the first dive of the day. You can see the boot (trunk to you folks back in the US) of my green Honda Civic. A couple of cars down you can see the Deep Blue Dive Centre's van and Holly (in her sunglasses) getting ready too.

This is George, Holly and Henry before the first dive. You can see behind them some of the other divers that were using this facility today. It was quite crowded. It was crowded because 1. it is a Saturday 2. the sea is still too cold to go in just yet. Doesn't this trio look to be full of enthusiasm? Water temp today was 8 or 9 Centigrade - pretty cold.

Here they go!

This is them coming out of the water after the first dive.

Henry looking and feeling pretty hunky going into the second dive.

George is smiling and waving befor he does his "deep" dive. 19 meters. Behind George in this photograph, it looks for all the world like Holly (wearing my mask) is trying to drown my husband. She's actually helping him get his mask to seal properly and not flood with water.

This is the three of us in the cafe having big mugs of tea and chips while Henry and George fill out forms and write in their dive log books. Sorry about the strong back light in this picture. We're not used to it and it makes for poor photographs.