Kenny - My New Student Disco

Vonch, an instructor that grew up in Switzerland that now lives in Philippines. His hair reminds me of Bruce Lee.

Kenny made breakfast using instant noodles, eggs, and leftover ground meat. I made coffee. Breakfast was good. Just before we left for Alona Beach, I finally talked with my landlord about our noisy night swimming. She wasn’t as mad as I thought she would be and just told me what I already knew. She doesn’t want anyone she doesn’t know to use the pool or anything at the house. She seems quite paranoid about other people which is obvious from her two guard dogs and gated in house.

At Alona Beach, I checked in to Genesis to see if anything was going on but there was not much happening. I didn’t feel like just sitting around so Kenny and I went to Coco Vida to use their Internet. Kenny ate some pancakes while I worked on my journal. At 1 PM, I ate lunch at Coco Vida.

Kenny wanted to buy a mask, snorkel, and fins so I went with him to Scubaworld. There he bought a Tusa “Liberator” mask, snorkel, and small snorkel fins using my instructor discount; I think he’s benefitting more than me by me being an instructor. We then went to Genesis to hang out.

At Genesis, we met a nice German girl named Kerstin who was staying and diving with Genesis. Fairly spontaneously, Kenny signed up for an Open Water Scuba Diver certification course with me. Even more spontaneously, he wanted to start immediately and jump in the water. I gave him some books and had him fill out some paperwork. It was already a little late in the afternoon to start—3 PM—but we managed to setup his gear, go through a Discover Scuba briefing and do the first Confined water skills in the shallow water before it got dark. I at first thought I might need to prepare for the lessons beforehand and didn’t want to start the course so quickly but it all turned out fine. I think having previously done the instructor internship at Asia Divers has helped me prepare for my courses a lot more.

Like my first Open Water student during my internship, Kenny was completely comfortable and confident at what he was doing in the water. And again, I felt a little silly demonstrating skills to him that I knew he could do if I just told him to do it. He wanted to move quickly through skills while I wanted to move slowly to be sure I was doing everything correct and according to PADI standards. I needed some time to stop and think because I’m still new to this.

For the Confined Water session, I was used to and trained doing them in a swimming pool. Genesis doesn’t own a swimming pool so we had to do it in the shallow water ocean with “pool-like” conditions, in front of Genesis. PADI terms this a Confined Open Water environment. We did some simple skills in a shallow sandy area that was no more than 1.5 meters deep then swam far out to a distant buoy. It was a pain swimming out to the buoy because it was low tide and we had to go through sea grass with a lot of sea urchins in it.

The area around the buoy was nice though because of a large sandy bottom and lots of fish. Visibility was great and I have to admit it was the best damn “pool” I taught in. About the only thing about the area around the buoy that resembled “pool-like” conditions was the relatively shallow depth of 3 meters. After Kenny did his required skills, we swam around the area so he could practice buoyancy control and to get used to diving. Kenny did really well in the water. We swam back to Genesis where we cleaned up and hung out and decided what to do next.

Rums and Cokes.

Kenny and I decided to eat lechon minok (BBQ chicken) at a local eatery with Kerstin. We were hungry so we ordered two whole chickens with rice and a large San Miguel Beer. Food was good and it turned out to be the perfect amount. After dinner, we drove home where I cleaned up a little and reviewed the PADI standards and procedures. I needed to figure out what skills to teach Kenny tomorrow and maybe do a little planning for the course. Kenny and I decided to go back to Alona Beach to Oops before happy hour was to end at 10 PM. We ordered a full set of rum and Coke to get the evening started. Sander and Kerstin hung out with us at Oops bar. Later we went to Coco Vida and then back to Oops.


- jason