CRIA swim race

We, the interns Anna and Matthias together with Sio helped the crew from the Costa Rica International Academy (CRIA) to execute their swim race.

The staff from CRIA organized everything and assigned the ConnectOcean crew as lifeguards and Sio as race director.

The participants of the race were the primary school from CRIA. The youngster swam 25 meters with the kickboard and the older kids from 25-meter freestyle, 25-meter breaststroke, 25-meter backstroke to 50-meter freestyle, 50-meter breaststroke and 50-meter backstroke. Three kids swam the medley, 25-meter butterfly, 25-meter backstroke, 25-meter breaststroke, and 25-meter freestyle.

The swim competition was well organized, and the kids had a lot of fun. Many school kids and parents joint the race and there was a loud crowd for all the swimmers.

All the kids did a fantastic job and we from ConnectOcean are really proud of our swimmers. The swimmers from the ConnectOcean swim academy won nearly every they participated in.

Bubblemaker

A special day for our Nipper Lifeguards were coming up. They had the possibility to do a PADI Bubblemaker Course. With this course kids that are older than 8 years old, can get their first experience of scuba diving. Under the direct supervision of an instructor, the kids can take their first breathe underwater and explore the feeling of being a diver. The idea is to inspire the kids and make them curious about diving so that they hopefully continue with their PADI Diving education and join the Open Water Diving Program.

Instructor Sio, Rescue Diver Helene and divemaster in training Matthias (me) gave the kids a briefing and explained the physiology of scuba diving and taught them the most important rules. We showed them the equipment and how to use it.

 After the briefing, we split the eight Nippers up into two groups of four. The first group geared up and blew their first bubbles with Sio and Helene in the Pool. The second group did together with me a Beach clean-up and collected trash from Playa Danta. After 45 minutes the groups switched around and the second group jumped into the pool. 

The feedback from the kids was consistent, they all enjoyed it so much. 

Winterline

For four days we had the pleasure to certify 18 teenagers from the Winterline gap year program. The Winterline program provides hands-on learning and real-world skills combined with traveling and exploring the world. The youths travels with their different leaders around the world and learns in every country some new skills. These are skills you don't get taught at school. Like scuba diving for example. During their trip, they learned everything from business skills to outdoor skills to global society & leadership skills. Some of the skills they mightb use a lot in their future while some of them might never be used at all. But the objective is to open their mind and get a diversity of experiences. Teenagers from all over the world join this program as a gap year between high school and university.

We, Anna and Matthias, helped the instructors and divemasters to supervise the students. We were also responsible for all the dive gear and that every student had the right size of equipment in every of the four half days of exercise. This was a logistic a challenge. But these guys did a great job, and everything worked well and the students were able to concentrate for the lesson. 

Because 18 students were too many to handle all at once, we split them up into two groups. During the first two days, one group spent the morning in a classroom to learn the basics about dive theory and the afternoon in the pool to learn the basic skills for scuba diving, and vice versa.  

Nearly all students mastered all the skills in the pool and passed the theory exam. They were then ready for the open water dives in the ocean. 

On day three and four, we had one group come out in the morning on the boat with us to their open water dives and then the other group did it during the afternoon. That meant for the instructors and their assistants four dives a day. But we had a lot of fun with the students and they did a great job. We were able to certify the most of them to PADI Open Water Divers. All of them did a great job!

The ConnectOcean Team wish the group good luck and hopefully a lot of nice dive experiences in the future. 

Intertidal Explorer

Our Nippers Lifeguard Kids and the kids and their parents from Futuro Brillante are exploring together the Beach of Las Catalinas today.

 The focus was on discovering the intertidal ecosystem. We started with an introduction to learning more about the five tidal zones (splash zone, high tide zone, mid tide zone, low tide zone and submerge zone) and reminded them in a playful way that all the different ecosystems are connected. 

We divided the kids into 4 different groups. The exercise for the four groups consisted of exploring four of the five different Intertidal zones and collecting different species that live in each zone. In this way, the kids can find out, how diverse and teaming with life the different zones are. And in which zone the most life can be found. The groups started to explore the beach and the rocky area, which contains many small pools and they collected different species.

It was so much fun, that after 90 minutes the kids would still be looking for crabs, sea cucumbers, small fish, etc.

 The groups presented their collections. We then used microscopes and magnifying glasses to take a closer look at these fascinating animals and their adaptation to their environment.

 The kids learned that the most life can be found in the low tide zone and how important it is to protect these areas. During our exploration we also collected a bunch of rubbish and cleanednthe beach a little bit. It is important that these kids understand what a bad influence all this rubbish has on the different ecosystem and how we need to stop plastic from entering our oceans. 

Rescue Diver

As the first step on our way to becoming a divemaster, the two of us had to complete our PADI Rescue Diver Training. We built, together with three other enthusiastic divers, a training group of 5 divers.  

Our training started with an Emergency First Response course (EFR). We had the possibility to do the course together with the crew from Marlin del Rey on their catamaran. What a nice classroom.

In two days, we learned a lot about the first response, first aid, and CPR. We trained different skills to handle Emergency situations and learned how important it is to act fast but safe and that we must handle a situation out of our comfort zone. Able care given is better than perfect care withheld. It was two intense days with a lot of information. But it was good training and now we all feel more comfortable to respond if we encounter an emergency.

In two pool sessions, we trained the practical skills to rescue a diver in different critical situations. We learned how to handle a panicked diver or a tired diver on the surface. We trained different skills as well for an unconscious diver on the surface or during a dive. The different exercises were intense, but it was necessary. Time is here also very important! It is necessary to act on a plan. And that’s only possible with proper training.

Next thing we did was to go out in the ocean to practice different search patterns. And this training was like a real situation. The visibility was really bad, like 20 cm (8 inches). It was really difficult to find the missing object. But we were able to train our navigation skills and learn that we must trust our compass. Any kind visual orientation was impossible. But it is in exactly in these kinds of conditions that it's more likely a diver goes missing.

We repeated the navigation pattern workshop on another day on a different dive site. The visibility was much better and all of us completed the exercise successfully. On this point, we were ready for the final scenario, the missing diver scenario. Our dive instructors and divemaster set up a scenario for us and we as a team of 5 rescue divers were to handle the emergency. The scenario started, and we ignored the first rule of Emergency First Respond. Stop-think-act. All of us started to act and it ended up in chaos. We were just able to rescue all the divers with help from the instructor. At the debriefing, we spoke about all our mistakes and what we did right. Then, out of stress, we realized how we could have handled the situation better. The result of our final scenario was clear. We failed. But we learned a lot in this scenario. So maybe it was good to fail first because now we know how not to act. We get a second chance to pass our final scenario on another day.      

We, Anna and Matthias, got another chance one week later, We were on a dive with other students and during the surface interval our instructors started a new rescue scenario. We were not prepared for this scenario at all and but remembered to stop, think and act. Anna took the lead and together we were able to rescue the panicked diver and interview him for his missing friend. We asked the captain if he can look for bubbles on the surface and he finally found them. Together with the information from the interview and the observation from the captain we could find the missing diver. We were able to rescue the diver and started with emergency first response, like CPR and rescue breaths. This time we acted really good as a team. We passed the final scenario and we are know official rescue diver.

Happy Day

La Paz Swim meet

La Paz Community School organized together with ConnectOcean the first interschoolar swim meet from La Paz on December 1st. The three local private schools, La Paz, Costa Rica International Academy (CRIA) and Educarte participated in the event.

ConnectOcean was involved in three different parts. Leo and Sio helped and supported the staff from La Paz to organize the whole event. They spent days preparing for this race. They worked out the race schedule, did all of the administrative work and found volunteers for timekeeping and organization.

Ernst with his Nipper Lifeguards joined the event, keeping everyone safe. This was the second real task for the Nippers in three weeks.

And we, the interns Anna and Matthias,  together with Sarah were timekeepers together with three other volunteers.

The whole crew from ConnectOcean together with the Nipper Lifeguards worked for this event. It was a special event for us as an Acuatic Academy and swim school, as our students raced, lifeguarded, and worked hard. We were so proud of all of our swimmers! They did such a great job!

It was a great event and the kids had a lot of fun. The goal of the swim meet was not to find out which school had the fastest swimmer, but to make sure kids could have fun, compete against new swimmers, and grow together as a community. Hopefully it inspired more kids to start swimming and worked as a helping hand in expanding the sport within the local area.

ConnectOcean will continue to support events like these in the future. Swimming is not only a very important life skill, but also a very important step in increasing the understanding and engagement in taking care of our oceans. The chance of a person connecting with the ocean increases exponentially with the ability to swim and we look forward to seeing the sport grow more.

The first swim meet at La Paz was a big success, the team from La Paz and Sio and Leo can be proud of what they created. The whole community got behind this event. Hopefully many other races lie this will follow.

Thank you to all the volunteers and all the staff who made this event possible! We truly appreciate your support!