Skip to content

Rimbey Junior/ Senior high students go to Costa Rica to enjoy some scuba diving

Over the March break, 19 students and four supervisors from Rimbey Jr/Sr High School travelled to Costa Rica to do some scuba diving.
73491rimbeyTrip041514
Rimbey Junior/Senior High School students gather after experience zip lining in Costa Rica.

Over the March break, 19 students and four supervisors from Rimbey Jr/Sr High School travelled to Costa Rica to do some scuba diving.

This is the fifth such trip organized at the school, to allow our students to do some open water diving to complete their open water diving certification.

Students began the program last summer when they started working on a large Marine Biology project. After completing this over the summer, they then began attending the scuba sessions at the pool in Ponoka in the fall, where they learned 20 standardized scuba diving skills.

Once in Costa Rica, they were then tested on these skills in the open ocean, and performed very well, with all 19 students becoming certified.

Of the 19 students, 13 passed their open water diver certification and six were repeat customers who received their advanced open water diver certification.

In addition to the diving, our students took part in some local excursions, travelling to a Volcano where they did some horseback riding, had a mud bath in the hot springs, played on a 500 metre long waterslide, and did some zip lining in the rainforest canopy. A day of shopping in Liberia was an interesting experience, as very few local speak English.

Some snorkeling at our resort rounded out the week. Lots of very interesting wildlife was observed, including huge toads, butterflies, numerous bird species, wild howler monkeys and white-faced monkeys and much more. Temperatures did not vary much from the 37°C all week.

All in all, a great trip and experience. We look forward to organizing another group of students for our next program in the 2015-16 school year.

SUBMITTED