A Busy Day at Work

Just before sunset, from Trudi's restaurant.

I had to wake up early to be at Genesis by 8:30 AM to begin Ross’s Open Water (OW) course. Oatmeal for breakfast as usual. I was running late to work and had to get gas for the motorbike. Sounded like a stressful morning but really, it wasn’t all that bad. When I got to Genesis, Ross was already there reading his OW manual.

I casually made an instant coffee, and went over his Knowledge Review (KR) answers—questions about the section the student just read—from section 1 that I assigned him yesterday. Any questions he got wrong I had to explain the answer to make sure he understood why he got it wrong. It was simple. Afterwards, I had him watch the video corresponding to the last section he read. While he watched the video, I wrote in my journal at Coco Vida.

I scheduled a Confined Water (CW) dive with the boat crew initially at 11 AM, but we were running late, so I changed it to 11:30 AM. By the time I briefed Ross and we suited up, we were again late into the boat. I felt bad for the boat crew because they strictly eat lunch from 12 to 1 PM and don’t like to get interrupted. Ross and I did some simple skills in shallow water before going into deeper water.

When walking out to a sandy spot in the shallows, Ross was overly concerned about stepping on a sea urchin so I was excessively concerned to point out any I found. There was a good amount of surge in the shallows which made it difficult to stay in one place. Ross though had no problem clearing his mask and recovering his regulator. Thankfully, Ross was comfortable underwater.

In deeper water, Ross’s mask frequently leaked and fogged up. Lucky for me, he was able to easily clear his mask and wasn’t too bothered by it. After doing some skills, we swam around the reef to get him more used to swimming around. Even in the deeper water, there was a good amount of surge because it was low tide. We surfaced after about 40 minutes underwater.

For lunch, I ate a chicken fillet sandwich which is my new favorite dish from Hayahay. Not only is it tasty, but it’s only 100 pesos. After lunch, I debriefed Ross and we scrubbed his mask with more toothpaste so it wouldn’t fog up anymore. Mask manufacturers put a protective film on the glass of masks to protect it but it prevents the mask from defogging. At 2:30 PM, I went with Ross on his Open Water dive 1.

The first Open Water dive doesn’t require any skills to be performed other than general diving skills. In other words, the first dive is a “fun” dive. We went to the Sanctuary dive site which is close by and a fairly straight forward dive as long as there aren’t any aggressive Titan triggerfish. We started the dive off slowly in the shallows and eventually swam over the water to deeper water. I did see one Titan triggerfish but it ignored us because we were too far away. Visibility was bad and there was a decent current. To avoid any further triggerfish encounters, I swam away from the wall.

Ross’s mask frequently leaked which concerned me during the dive. I always worry that others aren’t having a fun time underwater and feel bad when it’s spoiled by equipment that should work correctly. Every time Ross cleared his leaky mask he would ascend about a meter and then attempt to deflate his BCD. He did this regardless of his BCD being completely deflated. He wasn’t overweight because he would still sink. Why was he doing this? 37 minutes underwater and we surfaced to big swell—it felt almost like swell in Southern California.

Back at Genesis, we cleaned up and I debriefed Ross on his dive. He told me that when he looked like he was deflating his BCD it was just his way of descending a little after he cleared his mask. It’s a little weird to do it that way, but, well, I guess it’s better than him thinking he’s underweight. For homework, I told Ross to KR 2 and 3 and have them ready tomorrow.

After work, I went to Coco Vida to go on the Internet and meet up with Kenny. For dinner we went to Trudis’ where I ordered a broccoli and squid dish. It was cooked in a Chinese style sauce and was delicious. After dinner we went home, watched a little TV, and I fell asleep by 7:30 PM! I’m getting old or something.


- jason