Andreina Gomez began the PADI Open Water Certification class on 14 May 2019. She attended classes on the 15th and 19th of May which was when she had scheduled her pool session. We discussed Chapters 4 and 5 in the Manual and she took but failed her final examination on that date. She did successfully completed her pool session, however. She completed her first two Open Water dives on June 2nd, but suffered a panic attack on one of those dives which kept her from diving again until today. 
Both Evan and Andreina insisted that 10 pounds would be too heavy for them, so we went with 8 pounds, each. We got in the water at 7:30 am and swam on the surface out to the Eastern Edge of the First Reef line to make the two ascents required for Andreina's certification. I towed Andreina a good part of the way because without assistance she would drift off to the North.
When we got to the Ledge, I went below to tie off the flag line. I expected Evan and Andreina to descend along the flag line when I signaled them by pulling the flag sharply twice in a row. I watched Evan approach the flag and I signaled and I waited but no one showed up. I was concerned that they may have had some trouble descending, but I surfaced and there was no one at the surface near the flag. A long 5 minutes later I spotted Evan and yelled to get his attention. They were together, but they had drifted about 100 yards to the North.
They swam back to the flag and I explained that in low visibility environments like what we experienced that day, divers should follow the flag line down to ensure they would not drift away. Andreina descended slowly but seemed to have no trouble clearing her ears. Once she got to the bottom we quickly made the alternate air source ascent.
Then we tried the CESA. I had explained that I wanted to take and exhale two complete breaths then take out the regulator and ascend once we had inhaled the third breath. She aborted the first attempt within seconds of starting the ascent. I went through the explanation a second time with hand signals. Our next ascent was fine. We went up slowly and controlled. She continuously exhaled all the way to the surface.
We made a final descent to untie the flag line and then swam underwater back to the beach. I had hoped to find the Big Coral Knoll along the way, but we did not. Still, no one ran out of air. They were light, however, as they ran out of air. I gave them each rocks to hold and to make them neutrally buoyant.
Our bottom time
was 55 minutes with a maximum depth of 35.5 feet. My SAC was 17.46 psi/min and the RMV was .45 ft3/min.
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