Sea Survival day 1

What an amazing facility the RNLI college is. I was up before seven for a hearty breakfast as I'd been warned I'd need it, then we mustered in one of the communal areas for eight. We were introduced to Lee and Alex two of the instructors we'd be working with then had a briefing abut our week here. After that we did course outline and a morning of Sea survival theory. A lot of it had been well covered in station already, however it was well worth going through it all again to make sure it was fresh for our afternoon session. After the theory we were issued with our kit for the week then taken in two groups to see life raft contents and be taught how to pack a lifejacket.

After a short break for lunch we were taken to the Sea Survival pool to put a lot of what we had learned into practice. First off we had to put on immersion suits withing sixty seconds and do a swim across the pool in them. After that we did entering a life raft without getting wet, then had to jump in the pool in ALB gear to do a swim in that to see how it protected us.

From there we got our lifejackets on and we had to do abandon ship drill. This involved heading up to the platform you can see in this photo, which is five metres above the water, and jumping off in full ALB gear. Once our jackets inflated and took us back to the surface we had to form up into a huddle as that, keep everyone together, preserves warmth and would make an easier target to spot for Search and Rescue teams in the real world. After that we had to do a crocodile swim, which is a means to move together as a group in the water.

Once all this was done we then had to enter life rafts from the water in our previous groups and do a full prep on the raft as if it was a real situation. At this point they put down blackout blinds, turned on the wave machine, the wind machine and hoses for rain along with thunder and lightning effects and we had a not too comfortable twenty minutes in the life raft. All I can say is I hope I never have to do that for real, and if we ever have to rescue people out of them it will give me a real insight into how they will be feeling.

After that we had a little bit of time to dry off before a last hour of theory in the classroom. We finished up at six in the end and, although it had been a long day of training it had been packed with great stuff and flew by.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow now where we will be doing capsize drill and fire fighting.