Norway - Summer 2011

After only two dives in a dry suit at Vobster training with the club, I was not sure how good an idea it was going to be working as a Divemaster in Norway’s Oslo Fjord, but applied for the job anyway.

I have been in three other dive centres before, in Greece, Gozo (Malta) and the Dominican Republic. Here the water has ALWAYS been above 25 degrees.

My first dive working for Dykkersport AS the weather was not good. There was a thick cloud in the fjord and was raining heavily. I had four students. Two of them spoke very little English and at that stage I spoke no Norwegian!!. I was taking them on a refresher dive after a ten year absence from the water.

As I dropped under the surface I realised that this was going to be a difficult dive. The visibility was less than a metre and almost pitch black. The next few minutes was spent locating my divers and the route that had been explained to me half in English and Norwegian while driving to the site. After half an hour in the 6 degree water I decided that the divers were all suitably refreshed. And signalled to make a safety stop and ascend.

This turned out to be my worst dive. The next few weeks the water warmed up to a baking 16 degrees! And the water did get slightly clearer.

As it got to August the diving in Oslo got busier, my job now was to spend hours at a time in a swimming pool assisting with up to three open water courses each day. I also managed to get involved with some of the advanced courses which dived on some of the many wrecks in the fjord. I was also one of the dive masters that took the twice weekly boat dive. This was one of the more difficult jobs, trying to give an elaborate dive briefing in English to over twenty Norwegians.

After I picked up a little bit of Norwegian and was able to make myself understood I spent most of August sat on the back of a boat with a clip board or following more experienced divers deep into un-explored areas of the fjord.

Instead of the colourful fish and other sea life that I was used to, I was now seeing grey and silver fish. These included massive flat fish and lobster. Including occasional glimpses of Cod and the elusive Wolf fish.

During my time there I also managed to get my DSAT Tech Gas blender. Following this I spent a good few day in the compressor room filling various levels of nitrox and helium, but I quickly managed to get out of this job and back under the water. My last dive there was the best, with visibility up to 15m. This was taking Lina & Jorgen (yes that Lina & Jorgen, SUCS alumni) on a guided dive around the Søndre Håøya area of the fjord.

 

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I am planning to return in December to Divemaster under the ice and get my own ice diver course. Tom

 

Personal RADAR is where it's at, sat-nav is so yesterday Light saber's are cool in tech mode Tea? Bit of marshalling, well it's kind of BSAC'ish