So today was the first day of bronze medallion training. There are only three of us doing the course and we are all from Shoalhaven: Tim, who works as a “casual,” which I have taken to mean part-time, Dan, and I. We are being taught by Angelo, a guy form India who just finished his 9month internship here and is now teaching and taking courses. Michelle is also helping teach the course; she just spent two years in CA w/ her husband at a Christian camp in San Diego learning and writing curriculum for YouthWorks. Such a neat company. Youthworks is very organized, very Christ-centered, and just totally awesome!!!! They have 3 locations and lots of programs. They offer so much training and opportunities to their employees.
Anyhow: we spent the morning indoors watching videos and filing in workbook pages. But then after lunch we headed out to the cold, dirty outdoor pool. So I mentioned it has been fallish weather but with everything here being in *C I’m still not sure exactly what the temperature was today, although I would say in the 50s or 60s and windy.
Can I just say I was soooooo happy I brought along my wetsuit. That water was icy, freezing, soooo cold. I would say it was in the upper 50s lower 60s but idk. Yup, you can bet my toes were going numb, turning white as they do. Luckily my fingers stayed with me as we were moving around a bit.
They first had us doing different types of entries so we would just go in then hop out asap. But then they had us doing different rescues and tows and it was just freezing. The two guys only had on their bathers / swim shorts so you can imagine just how cold they were, poor things.
They finally had us get out and drive to a pool in town. But pool Dan was showing very clear signs of hypothermia so we had to turn around, take him back to the house and warm him up before heading to the pool. Poor guy. Luckily we had just learned about this and Michelle had experienced it not too long ago. So we had him take off his wet swimmers, wrap up in a sleeping bag and some blankets, put him in front of the heater, and gave him a hot drink.
Yup, so that was an experience. Michelle stayed back with him while Tim and I went with Angelo to the pool. We did some towing exercises and such in the outdoor, 50m long, heated pool. It was 25*C so much better then the cold, cold pool at Port Hacking. We did our 400m swim and got that out of the way. 4 diff strokes in under 13min – I did it in 12:50 – phewww, maybe I should have taken swimming lessons as a kid! The side stroke was a new one for me but it went okay I guess. Tomorrow we have to do a 50m tow with a person in under 3min. We start fully clothed, have to swim 50m to the person then tow them back all in under 3min. I’m a little worried but hopefully I’ll do okay.
Bronze medallion is apparently a step below a lifeguard but man I wonder what lifeguards have to do.
Alright, I think that’s it for tonight. Two guys are up here helping out from Shoalhaven and one has an external modem so I’m jumping off his wireless – isk how it works but yeah it’s nice to use my laptop :) :)
I put up some pics on the older posts!!
This one is for Allison!!! Had a Kebab last night and thought of you :) :)
No comments:
Post a Comment