to teach in California, I always had my students put their fins on in the water. Trying to get through the surf zone backwards with your fins on was just asking for trouble. Just a small wave would send a diver rolling in the white water. You had more control getting out to chest deep water, putting one fin on, turn on your back and kick like hell just as the waves were about to crest. Once past the surf zone, put the other fin on and kick out to the dive site.
My group was now underwater kneeling on the sand. I dropped under and gave them each the OK sign. They all gave me the sign back except for the fireman. He just looked at me with oblivious eyes. Suddenly, he stood up quickly. Fine Caribbean sand clouded the water like smoke from a rocket ship during take off. I gave the rest of the group the sign to wait right where they were then stood up. “You OK?” I asked like I was genuinely concerned.
The firefighter was too busy coughing and choking on sea water to answer me. Finally he said, “I got water in my mouth.”
“You’re in the ocean, you’re going to get water in your mouth,” I said. “The trick is to do what I just went over if that happens again.”
“What’s that?”
“Just spit the water right back through the regulator like spitting water out of a straw.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes. I already explained it to the group twice. You can puke through the regulator if you wanted to,” I said. “Now put your mask back on and your reg in your mouth and drop back down.”
“OK,” he said. Snot was hanging out of his nose.
I went back underwater and started going over some skills that the students needed to do before I could take them out to deeper water on the dive. Fireman dropped back down. He was under water for less than thirty seconds, then he shot back up. I finished doing the skills with the rest of the group then I popped back up.
“I … I don’t know what’s wrong,” The firefighter said shaking his head in disappointment. “I use Scott Air Packs all the time.”
“This is scuba. You have to get use to breathing through your mouth. You’re going to have to forget your nose is even there until you have to use it to clear your mask of water.” I was starting to lose my patience with this dude. I have a lot of patience when it comes to teaching diving. You have to have patience if you want to be an instructor. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t teach. This is true for anybody that teaches anything. This fireman without a mustache should have been a little more humble and a lot less cocky. “Look, all the girls are doing it just fine. I heard you saying this would be a snap, a piece of cake.”
“Damn it,” He said slapping the water. He was now clearly pissed at himself. “My wife is going to think I’m a wuss.”
“No, I doubt it.” I couldn’t help but smile at the macho firefighter. “Give it another shot. Just relax. All you have to do is breathe.” I dropped back down and waited. Everyone was doing fine, even the nappy head lawyer. I was ready to get this group going. I still had one more resort course to take out before heading back to the dock and picking up the afternoon lunatics. The fireman knelt on his knees once more, his head was only inches from the surface. I watched him for a few seconds. His eyes grew wider.
And Wider.
And Wider.
He spit his regulator out of his mouth and stood up again. I didn’t waste my time talking with him. I blew my whistle that I kept attached to my BCDs’ power inflator hose. Randy, who was beachmaster at the time, came down to the waters edge. “No, wait I can still do this. Let me try it one more time.” Said Fire Marshal Bill.
“Your holding everyone up. You better stick with burning buildings and Scott Air Packs.” I said before going back down. Randy led the macho firefighter back to the staging area and stripped him of his scuba gear like an Army Sargeant being stripped of his stripes.
Finally. I started taking my group out to deeper water. This was what was nice about doing a resort course from the beach as opposed to a boat. You didn’t have to screw with taking the students down to about twenty plus feet one at a time using a descent line. This was a rope tied to a float with a weight at the end that hovered above the ocean floor. The float was secured to a drift line that was attached to the stern of the boat.
We were going out to the fish feeding station where the fish had been getting fed for like twenty years. I was, and still am against the feeding of marine animals because we don’t need to screw up the eco system down there any more than we already have with oil spills and shit like that. Plus, the marine animals have been doing just fine without our help since before we ever magically appeared here on Earth. But I still fed them anyways. This was the attraction for snorkelers and divers at Coki Beach just like the stingrays on Grand Cayman Island; However, the stingrays are much cooler than a bunch of parrot fish. And I wasn’t going to throw a shit fit over it, it wouldn’t do any good anyway. When in Rome, right? The lawyer was having trouble with her buoyancy. She kept messing with the inflator hose that adds air into the BCD and lets it out.
Buoyancy is the one skill that a diver works on well after getting certified. Buoyancy is key to good air consumption, it conserves energy and makes it an enjoyable dive. I never expected my resort course divers to be proficient with their buoyancy and stay nice and neutral in the water column. I was always adjusting those bastards buoyancy for them. At VIDSS anyway. But that wretched lawyer was exceptionally bad with her buoyancy. I would motion to her to dump a little air out of the BC and she’d dump it all out to where she would be back on the bottom kicking up sand and busting coral. Then she would add too much air in and be back up at the surface again. This was getting old quick. She just couldn’t get it.
I got tired of this so I just let her hang out at the surface for a bit while she tried to fight her way back down. I started feeding the fish dog food; those little shits loved the stuff. After feeding the fish, I took the group over to a huge cluster of fire coral. Nasty stuff. You touch it and it lives up to its name. I gestured to my students not to touch that’s when I notice the lawyer more frantically trying to get back down. She forgot that her body needed to be vertical, legs pointing down, to let the air out.
I swam up to her, positioned her scrawny torso so that it was vertical, grabbed her power inflator and pressed the deflate button, dumping all the air out of her BC. She started sinking like a rock. She was too busy trying to equalize her ears to notice that her legs were drifting up, jack knifing her body into a “V”; Butt first and still sinking.
Holy crap, she is going to land on that fire coral! And she did, ass first. There was no way I could have gotten to her in time. I watched as her body sprang back up like she’d just sat on a porcupine. Oh man, that hurt.
When we got back to the beach the lawyer was actually in good spirits. She thanked me and even gave me a tip. I said good bye as I watched her and the rest of the group walk back to the gear area. Her ass was hellish, it looked like it had been flogged repeatedly. She had vicious red welts from one ass cheek to the other. She would definitely not be sitting down the rest of the day. Oh well, she signed the waiver.
Island Hopping in the Belly of a Cruise Ship
The Radisson Diamond was not the average looking cruise ship. It was much smaller than the standard Carnival, Norwegian or Holland American lines; however, the vessel was, by far, more posh and ritzy than the others. It was geared towards the more high end cruise ship passenger and they paid top dollar for it. There were more crew and staff than passengers, so that tells you how well the filthy bastards
