I certified my first student on Wednesday. He completed an Enriched Air Diver course in 5 hours of classroom time. The PADI recommended course time is 12 hours. I remember my own took about an hour and half, but I did all the reading, exercises and knowledge reviews in advance.

If you go through the complete curriculum, it is quite involved. Even more so if you answer all the student’s questions. Being a technical diver it is quite easy to get into detailed explanations beyond the scope of the course. I did this a bit, because my student (I only had one) was interested and appeared to be absorbing it pretty well. His biggest challenge was lining up the rows and columns on the various dive tables, but he understood the concept of EAD, MOD, Contingency depth, CNS percentage, etc., without difficulty.

Iain was certified one year later than me, in 1983, and has done a lot of diving around Vancouver Island and in other places. He lost the use of his legs in an accident a while ago, and last fall decided to go through the entire certification process again to make sure he could dive safely in spite of the disability. I remember when the call went out for divemasters to help in the pool when he was going through it, but was unfortunately tied up that weekend and couldn’t make it.

He told me that both he and his wife used up their air slowly, and found that the NDL was limiting their dive times, and so wanted to get EAN certified. I recommended he invest in a computer as well, but he didn’t seem convinced. Strange that, as I done of lot of dives on air within my computer’s NDL that lasted an hour, even when the first phase was in the 80-100 foot range.

Anyway, that’s one down, and 24 to go before I can get my MSDT. I’ve kept a copy of his temporary certification for my own posterity. If I keep teaching students one at a time It’s going to be a long hard road…