By Tim Lekas
Principal Rimbey JSHS
During the second week of November, 18 students and 4 chaperones from Rimbey Jr/Sr High traveled to Cuba to do some open water diving, in order to complete their open water diver certification. This is the 6th such trip the school has taken,with the first being to Victoria, B.C back in 2009 and all subsequent trips to the tropics, where the water is clear and warm.
The trip and the open water dives are the third part to the certification process. The students must first complete the theory portion of the PADI (professional association of diving instructors) diving course, which for the first time this year, was done online. The second portion of the course was done in the pool in Ponoka, where students learned a set of 20 standard skills,that they were tested on again during our dives in Cuba.
Once again, we were pleased to see all students pass their skills requirement and become certified. On some trips, we have students who had been certified on a previous trip, who then pursue an “advanced” open water certification. On this trip, we had two such students. These students completed a different online course, which included sections on advanced buoyancy control, navigation, current diving, night diving and deep diving, and completed a different set of dives. The country of Cuba was beautiful and the diving spectacular.