CESSAN - Sea Survival

Just came back from my sea survival training. Phew...nearly died..haha..but here are the highlights of what we did.

Training was divided into 3 days.

1st day: Lectures and briefings on the survival kits..medicine..dangers..and briefing for winching. In the afternoon, we went to the indoor swimming pool to do some training. We had to keep our breath, and dive underwater for a distance of 15metres and a time period of 30secs. You cannot surface before 30 secs and before 15metres. Haha, it may seem simple but swimming with ur flight suit and shoes...its not. But anyway, this was the easiest of all trainings. After that, we swam to another part of the pool where we had to do 2 exercises. 1st, was to dive 3 metres and touch the floor before swimming up. Note: You have to do a certain manoeuver otherwise ur ears will hurt due to the pressure change. 2nd exercise was to dive down again, reach for another rope, and follow it to a professional diver who'll push you away from the rope, then you have to inflate your life jacket. It was ok. Haha

2nd day: This was seriously scary but an enjoyable experience. First thing in the morning, we all geared up with our wet suits (which are REALLY tighter than any tights i've ever worn), together with all our gear we set off for the big wide ICY ocean. We practiced with a few equipment that we can find in our survival kits and after.....we jumped into the icy cold ocean and continued with a few exercises like getting on our life rafts...etc. In short, we were literally in the cold ocean for 1.5-2hrs. Shivering like crazy. Then came the fun part....we were to be rescued and winched from a helicopter. We waited....and then...it came....goodness...if theres anything you don't want, is for a helicopter to hover directly on top of you over the ocean. Because of its rotors, the waves became extremely rocky and was splashing and splattering all over, honestly, the splatters were really really painful. So we got off our life rafts, and the diver hooked us up...and up we went into the heli. Boy, what an experience! Haha...

That was just the morning though, the afternoon was the training that I didn't really like. We were strapped on tightly onto a cockpit that looked exactly the same as our aircraft. This cockpit however, will be put underwater...and you will have to do the safety actions, unstrap yourself, and swim out in the proper direction out of the aircraft (otherwise u'll be stuck) ALL IN ONE BREATH. And if you thought it was crazy, heres sth else....we got to do it 4 times. 1st and 2nd, will be during daytime (Thus you have lights around the swimming pool), 3rd & 4th will be during night. (Thus, NO light, pitch darkness), all underwater. That's all? NO. Heres the last bit... for the 2nd & 4th exercise, the cockpit will be INVERTED, that means u'll be upside down to simulate as if you crashed invertedly. I tell you it was really scary. I only did the 1st one before the day ended, so we continued on the next day.

3rd day: I continued with the 2nd, 3rd & 4th underwater cockpit today. Boy, was I happy I cleared it. Still remember that on the 3rd one, I breathed in too late (as it was pitch darkness and couldn't tell when the water was gonna cover my face) and instead of air coming in, it was water...I nearly....urgh...inside. Fortunately, I unstrapped fast enough and got out. Phew. In the afternoon...it was pretty relaxing already. We practised on Parachutes..whats the position to take when dropping into the water...etc...how to be winched in the different manner....and how to save ur self when being pulled by the parachute. Quite fun though. Haha...

So after all the training, it was time to head home. Well, about 6hrs drive back and I'm finally back home in Tours. Comfort of my own bedroom. Haha...

So well, that's all I have to update in regards to what I've been doing...hope to chat with you guys soon over msn! :)