Diving with Others

Okay, so I just need to write about everything that is going on. I have had several long days back to back and I am just slightly on edge. It has been great to have lots to do and be back in the water after a few days out. However, whenever you are not feeling 100% and having to do everything to get the boat, clients, and everything else ready, it gets to be to much. Also I find it hard to deal with stupid, new, bad, and annoying divers. Luckily, I haven't really let my frustration be shown, and I try to remind myself how grateful I should be and that things could be WAY worse. So please don't think that I am ungrateful or complaining.

Yesterday I started an open water course. Of course he showed up with only two of his knowledge review worksheets filled out, so I had to take the next hour and a half to explain everything and go over the other three worksheets. He was not off on the right foot to becoming my friend. Those worksheets are for you to understand.......I already know that stuff by heart, so please don't make me answer all those questions. Then we hopped in the pool, and he wasn't terrible with all the skills. He had a hard time with mask skills. He was able to do them, but just before completing them, he would quit and shoot to the surface. I was slightly frustrated because he was not telling me what was wrong, or why he was not completing the skills fully. Anyway, we only got through half the stuff we should have because I had to quit early to do a night dive.

I, for one, HATE night dives. I was trying to be optimistic for this one since I was doing a night diving course. It is not the fact that they are done at night, but the fact that I never see anything, and they are a complete pain in the butt to lead and watch after others. Also you get back to the dock late, and then have to clean up everything. They always make for a long day. Anyway, there were no problems with that dive. It was just really boring, and the most I saw was a crab. I could even tell the other divers were disappointed and that made me feel even worse.

Then today I started another open water course. This one was better since they had already done all the knowledge reviews and book work online. All we had to do was go through the pool sessions in the morning. After the pool session, we had a break and then this afternoon we were going out for his (and yesterday's student) first dive. This morning's student also was bringing his 14 year old daughter to do an intro dive, which is the same thing as the first open water dive. Of course once in the water, we had trouble with equalizing and we spent 15 minutes on the descent line. That is never fun, because once down on the seafloor everyone has only half a tank left of air. After 10 minutes of swimming bouancy issues arise, and two of my divers are on the surface. One is the girl and she decides to give up and swim back to the boat. The other was the father and so I take him back down. As I was sorting this out, my other diver somehow forgot about his bouancy so now I was trying to get two new divers back down in open water. Luckily we got back down and we proceeded to continue the dive. Okay, so my biggest peeve with diving has to do with the fact that we are in an OCEAN of water. That means there is tons of room to move, so I don't understand why all my divers have to swim right next to, behind or on top of me. I can't even turn in any directions because then I will run into them. I always feel like a cow being herded in a direction I don't want to go. NOT fun! So after my two divers ran me off my course they decided to not pay attention to my direction and they ended up both going 180 degrees away from me. I decided not to give chase and just watch them to see how long it would take for them to realize they were not following anyone, and were essentially lost. Not nice, but lesson learned. After 4 minutes of wandering like lost sheep I decided to rap on my tank to get their attention and call them back. So yeah, rapping on the tank (no matter how hard) did not get their attention. I was making so much noise that literally all the fish had fled the area I was in. Finally, I saw them realize I was gone, and that something (me) was making a TON of noise. We got back on track and I managed to check their air. After I checked their air once, they became paranoid about me knowing their air pressure. I really couldn't even look at them without them checking their air pressure and telling me. It brought me to the point where I wouldn't even look back to see where they were because I didn't want to know their air pressure. Finally I decided to take them back to the boat and we made it back to the boat and everyone (but me) had smiles on their face. I can't wait to finish both their courses.....I am sure I will have some moments of exasperation.

Okay so now a funny dive story. I was supposed to be diving with these two certified divers on the outside of Pango Point. This dive site is right on the outside of the island and it can get rough so we have to enter the water by doing a giant stride off the front of the boat. It can be a little nerve racking for the new or inexperienced diver. Anyway, my two divers were a couple and he was experience but the lady was new and very nervous. She said that she was going to have problems and that I would have to help her. Of course I did not want to hear this because usually this means that terrible problems can happen. Even worse, this particular site is not forgiving for when problems occur. Anyway, I talked to her and told her exactly how things would happen. We got to the dive site and I decided to get my guys in the water first. I got both of them in (she did a very nice giant stride off the front) and both were feeling better since getting into the water. I hopped in and after checking with them we decided to drop down. The husband was fine and had no problems and went straight down. He did not care about his wife and left her at the surface. She of course was having trouble going down....not because she didn't have enough weights, but because she was afraid to go under. I grabbed her hand and coaxed her down. Her mask just got underwater when she FREAKED. She jerked upwards and spat out her regulator and was fighting to keep her head up. I was slightly uneasy with this and asked her to calm down and tell me what her problem was. Her response was “I couldn't equalize.” I almost started laughing and told her quite condescendingly and sarcastically that “Well......you have to be underwater to equalize.” You should have seen her face when I told her this. She was so shocked I would be so uncaring and she quickly shouted at me to “Shut up!” It was priceless! I put my regulator back in and dropped down. Her only option was to follow. Afterwards she had no problems, and she only had confidence issues so I held her hand through half the dive. After the dive, and back on the boat, I apologized for my sarcasm and she just laughed and told me that was the best thing I could have done. She told me it just showed her how stupid she was being. It turned out that they were a great couple and enjoyed diving with me so much that they signed up to come diving with me the next day. She was still lacking confidence on her last dive, and so her husband went to hold her hand. However, she swam to my side and grabbed my hand. I could tell that he was not happy with this, and even when she let go of my hand, he quickly picked it up and wouldn't let her drop his hand. It was pretty funny.

There really are so many other stories I could tell. Tomorrow we have a busy day with cruise boat people and they always turn out some good stories. I promise to write more often and let you all know what is going on her in Vanuatu.