Crazy and Hectic

So the past two days have been filled with lots of activity. Yesterday, we arrived at the shop and started pulling gear and tanks for the 6 divers that are diving with us all week. Of course I had gotten only two tanks on board when they showed up. They were 45 minutes earlier than we told them to be and they were expecting to show up, walk on board, and leave the dock without having to even lift a finger. That is the way it usually works but since we had no time to get ready for them, it looked bad on us. However they were happy to help up and set up their tanks and equipment. I felt bad, but what could I do. Regardless, we were off the dock by a quarter of 9.
So, it was the 6 divers, me, Claire and then Steve. All of us were interns so this was going to be rather interesting. Especially with Ariel being one of the divers (i found out later her name is Barbie and everything she owns is pink). I decided to give the first dive briefing and lead it. The site was Rockstar which I am quite familiar with. The dive ended up being quite a success. I found a black and white spotted nudibranch, a spotted drum, three lionfish, two large puffers, and a large filefish. As we were doing our 3 minute safety stop I noticed one of the divers had a large, hot pink, lace bra attatched to the back of their tank. Yes, not the most normal sight underwater. As we surfaced all of them were laughing and really enjoying themselves. Always a good sign, and even better when you are doing your first fully fledged dive leading.
The second dive was for Steve to lead, and it took place at Emily's Escape. Everything went well, except it definitely wasn't as good as my dive. We didn't see half as much and Steve sorta lost the boat and I had to show him where it was. I got a huge confidence boost when one of the divers was following Steve and then swam to me and motioned if Steve was going the right way.
We got back to the docks and had our lunch. Then we got the boats ready for the afternoon, and unfortunately I was chosen to stay at the shop while everyone else went diving. When the group of 6 found out about this, they complained and told me they were going to miss me. Another confidence booster.

When they got back the shop owner, Patrick showed up and was wanting to take someone with him to pick up the van. Of course he asked me if I could drive stick and I just told him I've done it a few times. I failed to mention that it was on a BWM that was super easy to drive, and not a 16 passenger van. I ended up going and the entire time I was slightly freaking out. Let me just say that the roads here are not the best and that if you have access to a car then you are qualified to drive here. Anyway, I didn't have any problem and only stalled out on one hill. Pretty uneventful, but now everyone knew I could drive it which is not the best thing as you will see later.
Of course, here it is the rainy season and we are seeing that full force nowadays. Last night it was raining so hard it woke me up, which is not the easiest thing to do. This morning it was even worse and conditions at the shop were to rough to dive. However, since we had 8 paying divers, along with 4 cruise ship guessed, Patrick decided not to cancel the dives but just taxi all the equipment to the intern house and leave from the docks by the house. This was totally different since the shop is on the Northeast side of the island while the intern house is at the Southwest.
The first truck went to the shop to get the gear and tanks for the morning dive for the cruise shippers and 2 of the guest divers. There was only so much room in the truck for interns so they left me at the house and told me to go with Claire to get the people from the cruise. That was fine with me, and once we got to the dock, the rain had stopped. We waited for a while and the first set to cruise people got off. Claire took them to the van and had me wait for the next set. They finally arrived but as soon as they did the heavens opened up and poured down rain. This continued for the rest of the day. We finally got them back to the intern docks where we got them on the boat and off to dive. After this instructions got miscommunicated and everything went downhill. Claire and I were supposed to go back to the dive shop and get the next 6 divers gear and tanks for their afternoon dive. However they wanted us to only take the truck which we figured would never have enough room for all that. Therefore they told me to take the truck and Claire would take the van. As we made our way through the rain up to the shop, I, of course, stalled out in the middle of the town on the biggest hill. That wasn't the biggest problem because after that the truck refused to start. After several minutes of praying, trying and keeping the sliding truck on the road it finally jumped back to life and chugged up the hill. I was shaking from all this and a little less keen about driving. However, I made it all the way to the shop and got everything loaded.


As soon as it was all loaded up I had to turn back around and head back to the intern house. By this time it was 40 minutes from when I started my trip, in the middle of the mountains, where there is a full monsoon in swing. I was just a little nervous, needless to say. As I made my way down to the house, I found that the truck's wipers were old, slow and unfaithful. There were times where I could not see out of the truck and even then couldn't tell where the road was because it was in the process of being washed away. I just kept praying, all the while trying to stay on what I thought was the road. You have to remember that I was all by myself, in a 4X4 (which I needed) stick shift, without my license, in a country where I didn't speak the language. Maybe I was just a little over my head. Praise the Lord I made it and I didn't even stall out.
Finally, back at the intern house I set up all the gear and tanks and just waited for everyone to get back. I had to face Marshall (the shop manager) which was not fun because his plan was thrown out the window and he got to the dock and had no idea what was going on. He handled everything well, but he was really pissed off. Not at me of course, I was doing things interns are not even supposed to be asked to do. Everything worked out and my crazy group of 6 divers got to the docks and were ready to go. I had snuck my gear into the truck along with extra tanks so I was able to hop on board with the 6 divers and the divemaster Mike. I was so psyched, since interns never got to dive the South side which has the best dive sites since it is in the Marine Park. The other divers were really happy I got to go because they swear I can see things other people can't.
The dive site we went to was Mary's Place which is world renowned and on Jacques Cousteau's top ten favorite dive sites. It easily lived up to the hype. The site is a series of 8 foot cracks in the ground that are in the shape of a Z. They drop to 130 feet and are encrusted in coral and sponges. It was absolutely beautiful and the life there was quite abundant. There were the yellow headed jawfishes, which look like little ghosts hovering above the seafloor, then I found a decorator crab, which cover them selfs in sea junk to blend in, a scorpinfish, a school of large permits, and the neatest thing was a large octopus I found that was out in the open. Only me and one of the dive guests saw him and we stayed with him a while. He went through three color changes from a blue color, to white and then red. Very appropriate considering it's Veteran's Day. This dive was way worth all the trouble I went through today. Plus my dive group was in love with the dive and couldn't say enough...the lady who saw the octopus with me kept giving me high fives and wouldn't shut up. It was quite gratifying.
Anyway, that was about it and now I am super tired. I am sorry for such the long post and I apologize. Just so much happens in two days and even then I have to leave out so much. Like the rasta Cat in the Hat, and the rat and bat in the house, along with the horse I met in the shopping center. No, I am not making all this up and yes it really did all happen. Anyway, I'll have more later....