Last Days in Vela Luka

So I have been back in Vela Luka for a while now, and I have been working hard ever since then. I was doing divemaster work mostly, because I was working on clearing up an insurance problem. Supposedly I only had recreational diving insurance and I was supposed to have professional diving insurance. Marjolein of course was not happy and was asking everyday if I had gotten my insurance. I had no idea what insurance I needed, and everytime I wasn't working I was trying to figure it out. I would ask her for help and she would get a little annoyed and tell me to get on the Padi website. I finally just bought insurance through Padi and it turned out I had to wait a week and a half for my request to be processed. This was way to long for Marjolein, and she had some choice words for me about how I was supposed to be her instructor and not her divemaster. I got equally mad telling her if she had helped when I asked we would not have any problems. This made her back off a bit. Turns out I bought this type of insurance that was way more expensive than I needed, and Marjolein knew this. Needless to say, I can not wait to say goodbye to her.
However, she was leaving for two weeks, so luckily this gave me a break from her for quite some time. My insurance finally went through, and I was immediately put on course work. I had no idea what I was doing, and I was quite uncomfortable teaching people how to scuba dive. After doing several sections of the scuba diving course, I finally felt a bit more confident and Bobby gave me the task of certifying this German/Italian kid. He was taking the course with his father and older brother. They had taken the course before, just 5 years ago, so they were taking it again to refresh themselves. The father and older brother spoke some English, but the kid didn't understand a word I was saying. Luckily though, we do not use words underwater and somehow we were able to make our way through the course. The family was brilliant, and I really enjoyed spending time with them. I even made friends with the mom and she was so sweet. She ended up telling me all about the history of the small northern Italian town they were from, and why they only spoke German. It was great fun getting to know them. After my first certification, I was given more course work and this time it was with these two Dutch boys. They were quite funny and they had this vision of how an American guy should be. They thought I was all about booze, and getting trashed everynight, just the typical stuff they see in American movies. I was quick to set them straight of how it really was.
It is really a lot of fun teaching scuba, much more so than I thought it would be. Meeting new people from all over, and getting to know them a little is probably the best part. But then when you have a student that is having trouble and you help them get past it, they get really excited and happy, and that is the greatest feeling. There was one lady that was sitting on the bottom, and it was time to flood the mask and clear it. Her eyes filled with fear when I gave the sign to proceed. She flooded her mask and you could see how uncomfortable she was. I grabbed her arm so she wouldn't bolt to the surface and it took her 3 minutes to do what most people can do in 10 seconds. She finally got it and I was so happy for her. Afterwards she was so appreciative of how patient I was and how I had her helped her through it.
Besides teaching and work, I have been trying to secure a job for when I leave Croatia. I sent out around 100 CV's and maybe got 25 responses, with only 3 or 4 being promising. One of the places was in Vanuatu, which excited me the most. My goal was to eventually end up in the South Pacific, and Vanuatu is in the middle of that. We wrote back and forth and finally I took the job. It was going to be for 3 to 4 months and they wanted me to be there 3 weeks after I finished in Croatia. This was perfect because I wanted some time to travel around Europe. I set to work trying to plan everything, getting flights, hotels, plans and everything. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and flights were so expensive. I finally found a flight from Paris, France to Sydney, Australia for a reasonable price, and I bought it. The only problem now was how to get to Paris, and also I needed a flight from Sydney to Vanuatu. I decided that I am going take a ferry from Vela Luka to Ancona, Italy, and in the same day take the train from Ancona to Rome. I will stay in Rome for 7 nights and then take the train from Rome to Paris. I will have 10 nights there, and then I will fly to Sydney. I leave Paris on the 20th of August and arrive in Sydney on the 22nd. It is going to be a total of 28 hours of traveling. I am going to be so jet lagged. I then believe I will have about three nights in Sydney, and then a three hour flight to Vanuatu. That is the plan now, but for some reason I think things might change a little. I just hope that my money lasts till then. Haha......Well, I start the journey on Tuesday morning, the 3rd, and I will be sure to fill everyone in on what goes wrong. Please keep me in your prayers.