Posts tagged ‘Koh Tao’

DJL Minigolf evening

By djl_team, 14 July, 2011, No Comment

This week at DJL we decided to have mini-golf tournament with the instructors and staff taking on the divemaster trainees and a few of the days students. We all met for a few pre-round beverages after the days diving before heading down for the DJL Koh Tao open. It was a close contest with the instructors taking an early lead thanks to Simon ‘Tiger Woods’ Daunt sinking some amazing trick shots and Chris ‘Jack Nicklaus’ Smith with a hotly disputed hole in one early on. The divemasters then got into the swing of things (or maybe the beers were telling on the instructors) and hit back with some fine work from Niral ‘Happy Gilmore’ Patel and Dan ‘Chubs’ Cribben. With the contest in the balance it was left to Sonja ‘Shooter McGavin’ Geier to sink the winning shot for the instructors. We then headed back to the DJL pool bar where we disputed some of the decisions left on the course and how Si’s club head ‘fell’ off after a missed shot. Needless to say we all had a cracking time and the DMT’s challenging us to a re-match shortly.

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Cobia mistaken as shark at Hin Pee Wee

By Simon, 5 July, 2011, 1 Comment

During the morning of 26th DJL was doing their first dive of the day at one of the local deep dive sites Hin Pee Wee just off sairee beach. As we jumped in to the water and took a quick glance below we could see straight away we were in for a great dive as the visibility was amazing at least 30 meters. Once we had descended me and my open water group headed south just beyond the pinnacle as I looked below I noticed a fishing box net and a large shadow moving along the bottom. I turned to my student and pointed for them to look down, at first we thought it was a shark as I have seen black tips around that area many years ago, but I could not see any black on the tip of the dorsal fin and it was difficult to tell what it exactly it was as I was at 17m and the “shark” was at about 25m. During the dive we were being filmed and the videographer had caught the “shark” on camera, when we got back to the shop we checked the footage but we were still unclear what the un identified fish was and due to the shape of the face I was starting to believe it could be a very big Cobia. The following day DJL went to the same dive site again and there was another sighting in the same place. This morning I was teaching Deep Specialty with the Divemasters which was great so I could get deep and get a better glimpse! We were correct it was not a shark it was a Cobia. A Cobia is not from the Shark family but from the Tuna family this is due its extended elongated dorsal fin which means it denotes it to the Tuna family. Hopefully this cobia will keep hanging around at Hin Pee Wee because he’s very interesting to look at.

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Going Pro

By neilisnaked, 4 June, 2011, No Comment

I arrived on Koh Tao to do my PADI Open Water Diver course. I’d already booked with DJL Diving so I got picked up at the pier and started the same day. After four days of diving I decided to do my advanced course. This was the most fun I’d had so far.

After finishing my open water and advanced I left to continue my travels, but I soon realised I wasn’t finished diving on Koh Tao. I returned a week later to start my Divemaster course. I’m almost finished now and still enjoying it. I dive almost everyday and assist on open water courses when the instrucors need an assistant.

I’ve enjoyed everyday of my Divemaster course and it’s a shame I have to leave in three weeks, but I’ll be a certified Divemaster.

Andy Richards – DJL DMT

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A new face in the shop

By Kath, 28 April, 2011, No Comment

Hello all!

I am the new face of the DJL shop. Along with Nicki , I will working to make sure that you all have the supplies and equipment that you need to enjoy diving and snorkelling with DJL.

A little about me….

I come from a back ground in emergency medicine, which began years ago with my NDip EMS back in South Africa. Back then there was a lot of violence in my particular province and we got very experienced very quickly in managing critical patients in remote areas with very little support or equipment. I left the provincial ambulance department and moved to Dubai to work for a famous hotel group, in the attached waterpark. It was here that I got the diving bug . I started my openwater in January of the first year and was an OWSI by that November (even though I could only dive on weekends). I taught for a while and then found a great amount of enjoyment cleaning the giant aquarium tanks in the Lobby and restaurants of the world’s only seven star hotel, diving off a hookah system with suction cup handles for the glass and a toilet brush to scrub the artificial coral!

A knee injury pretty much killed my ability to dive for so long that I decided to do my IMCA Dive Medical Tech course in Plymouth UK. This is a course offered to commercial divers and provides a great insight into the world they work in. I combined this with a chamber operators course which had me operating the nine seater Krug chamber for the daily HBO treatments as the exam!

I am now able to combine two of my favourite things. Diving and medicine! Proof that there are a great many facets to the diving world!

Last year a course like the IMCA Dive medic program was put together by DASPAA (www.DASPAA.org ) for recreational diving. I quickly moved to become an instructor in this program and look forward to having the opportunity to teach this here at DJL.

The course is based on the Remote EMT program which is aimed at the first responder that is in a place where immediate access to care is not always possible, which is exactly what the situation is when you are off on a dive boat! We teach divemasters, instructors and centre managers the physics and physiology of diving and the pathophysiology of diving accidents. Basic risk mangement ,  emergency action planning and evacuation are all covered. The course teaches advanced airway management, IV line insertion and many other lifesaving skills that we generally rely on a hospital to do for us. By the end of the course a recreational dive medic is able to conduct a complete neurological examination and will be able to assist and advise doctors that are not experienced in diving in what treatment is required. Valuable in a remote area!! The course includes a bit of time in a local ER, a chamber visit and lectures by a diving doctor and nurse.

We are looking at running this through DJL, so if you are interested, come in to DJL shop and have a chat with me!

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5 New Open Water Students!!

By Harry, 25 April, 2011, No Comment

Congratulations to 5 new PADI Open Water students, Hannah, Nicola, Laura (UK), Christian (Denmark) and Lucy (UK). All five completed the PADI Open Water course, with great diving conditions throughout the course.

The highlight of the course was seeing a turtle on the third dive of the course, with all five students continuing onto the PADI Advanced open water course.

Good luck and we hope you continue to enjoy diving – The DJL Team

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