Fun times!

So I told myself that I wasn't going to do another post for a few more days. Right now the days are becoming much the same with not much happening. The last two days have been spent at the shop; studying with several exams and just a few dives. Not much else to report. However today was a bit different and forced me to write, while it was fresh on my mind.
Today was a cruise ship day and we had about 8 people to pick up from the ship. We were all going to go down there to get them and then all ride together in the two pickups back to the shop. However right when we were going out to the trucks, the heavens opened up and released everything it had. We took a moment, decided that Marshall along with 2 divemasters and 1 instructor would go, to get them started on their dives and snorkel trip. Then Marshall would return with the truck to pick up all the interns. Fortunately, after they left the rain stopped and the interns just walked to the road to jump in the back of the trucks as they passed.
I believe that around four of the guests were going on a canopy tour, so on the way to the shop we stopped to drop them off. The canopy tour place has this pet monkey that is on this jungle gym contraption were tourists can have pictures taken with him. Everyone of course jumped out of the truck and wanted to go see him. Then one of the cruisers got real close and the monkey jumped on her. Of course everyone wanted the monkey to sit on their shoulder. I was smart (due to all the youtube videos I watch of monkey attacks), saw the evil lurking in the monkey's eyes, and stayed in the bed of the truck warning everyone to stay away from him. Eventually all the tourists left the monkey to get started on their incident release forms, so now some of the interns wanted to visit the monkey. Mike was already down with the monkey, and had it wrapped around his waist. Amanda was in the bed of the truck with me and was trying to talk Claire and I to come with her to see the monkey. I refused and so did Claire, which was quite a smart move. Amanda jumped out and slowly approached the monkey. I was closely watching everything and the reality of what was about to happened was revealed to me. I watched the monkey turn it's gaze on Amanda, clench it's fists and tighten it's hold on Mike. As Amanda got closer it prepared to jump. It let out a scream, grabbed her arm, and brought it's mouth to her forearm. Amanda freaked out, added her scream to the mix, which in turn scared the monkey. He quickly let go, jumped to the safety of Mike and landed wrapped around his head. It continued screaming all the while gyrating on Mike's head. He reacted to the monkey's humping movements my throwing it off and running to the safety of the car. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. I could not stop laughing and afterwards felt really bad. However, Amanda is fine and just shaken up, while Mike is still washing his face trying to rid himself of the horrors of being molested by a monkey.


I had finally controlled myself by the time we reached the dive shop. We got everything ready for the divers and then found out that Steve and I were going to be taking the lone snorkeler out to the reef. It was to be a two hour snorkel, but usually they only last about 45 minutes because people get tired or bored. I was not looking forward to it because I hate snorkeling. I never see anything, I always breath in more water than air, and well....it's just not worth it. However, I needed to do it to get one step closer to my Divemaster rating.
We headed out to the reef, and Steve and I introduced ourselves and tried to warm up to the snorkeler. She turned out to be a middle aged lady, from Chicago, with not the most friendly attitude (you could tell she wanted nothing to do with us, an elitist, I think). Anyway, we were going along, trying to find stuff to point out to her, and we looked up and noticed she was just bobbing along letting the current and waves take her wherever. She was halfway out in the channel and was about to be sucked outside the reef into the open water. Steve and I of course swam straight over and made her kick her way back towards the boat. Along the way I found a lobster, along with a eel, and pointed it out to her. She stopped, starred at me (not the creature), and then kept going on her way. That taught me not to show her anything else! We kept going along, and about an hour into it, Steve approaches me and asks me for the time. I tell him, and he replies "My hour is up, she's all yours." At this point she is back at the mouth of the channel, flirting with danger, so I swim over to her and coax her back to safety. This is probably about the 5th time that Steve or I had to do this, and each time she glared at us from under her mask and reluctantly followed us. As I lead her back to the reef, I looked up and noticed Steve was nowhere near. He had decided to just leave and climb back on the boat, since his time was up.
I thought for sure that she was going to give up snorkeling soon but the minutes went by and she showed no sign of stopping. Every time I looked back for her, all I saw was this large, neon blue butt up in the air as she was trying to get under the water to look at something. You would have been laughing had you heard what was coming out of my snorkel. I was constantly moaning, whether it be about the snorkeler who wouldn't stop, how cold I was getting, how Steve had just left me in the water, or whether I was trying to prevent myself from drowning due to all the sea water in my snorkel. Let me just say that this sealed how much I hate snorkeling. Eventually I had to tell her to make her way to the boat and she grudgingly obliged. Back at the shop no one believed how long we were out there, and they said that was the first time anyone stayed for the whole two hour snorkel.

After drying off I just fell asleep and waited for everyone to be ready to leave. Tomorrow, we only have two divers and we have a night dive planned. I am sure something will happen so you will hear from me soon.