wanderlust

i found the boat!

moojieturtle — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:27:00 GMT

i did it! i'm a divemaster! woohoo! go me!

the last couple weeks have been incredibly hectic, filled with lectures, exams and assisting on courses. as part of the divemaster requirements, you have to pass exams on decompression models, physiology, dive physics, equipment and dive skills/environment. i'm a total nerd, so i actually enjoyed learning it all - most of the concepts were familiar, but it was interesting to see them applied to diving. in addition, i had to assist on several courses - enough to get five confined water and five open water sessions.

one of the courses i worked on was an open water course - what made it challenging was that three of the students were from spain and the fourth was from montreal but also spoke spanish. entonces, the course was taught in spanish. i could follow what the instructor said since she spoke slowly, but once one of the spanish guys would start talking, it would be so fast i had no idea what they were saying. however, as the instructor reassured me, once we got underwater, it didn't really matter. i was the only DMT on the course, so i had the joy of sweeping the tarps by myself. at UDC, the confined water sessions are held on one of two tarps (shallow and deep) off the dock at the dive center. silt naturally tends to accumulate, so it is the job of the DMTs to sweep them off before the class starts, otherwise visibility will be terrible. being an underwater janitor isn't especially glamorous, but i found that sweeping the sand was somewhat therapeutic, maybe like a submersed zen garden. my main task during the course was to keep the students together and make the instructor's life easier. things went pretty smoothly, except one of the students was really nervous and during our first open water session, let things get to him. after the first dive, he began to panic, was unable to unclench his hands and complained of tingling. we put him on the emergency oxygen and the boat returned to the dive center, where he was taken to the doctor. in the end, it turned out he had been both dehydrated and very nervous, but was fine overall. i was really happy that all of them came back to finish the course over the next two days - we were worried that after that experience, they would have been turned off completely to diving.

i also had the opportunity to wreak revenge when i assisted on a rescue course. the experience was made even better since it was with the instructor i had from my rescue class as well as my buddy, mark. rounding out the teaching team was my friend claire, who spent the course pretending to be an alcoholic diver (taking pre-dive swigs of beer). mark and i were the klutzes - after the first class session, he took a tumble down the stairs of the dock while i tripped and impaled myself on my snorkel. a generous amount of expo marker fake blood rounded out the scene as other DMTs and instructors played the part of unhelpful onlookers. the open water session was a riot with the students dealing with a 'drunk' claire and mark and i being rowdy, having gotten our dive certifications online in a land-locked country. the class were good sports by putting up with the abuse and passed the course with flying colors. it was generally agreed that mark should get a job as an actor in PADI videos, based on his antics.

the last requirement i had to fulfill was my lead, meaning i had to lead a group of certified divers for a fun dive. the crucial part of this task is being able to find the boat again. i ended up doing mine as part of an advanced open water course - i was a bit nervous to be leading actual students and not just other DMTs pretending to be students. the class also grew in size on the day of my lead, so i ended up having seven students and two instructors behind me - yikes! complicating the issue further, we went to a dive site i'd never been to. the dive went pretty smoothly - everyone stayed at a good depth and i checked people's air periodically. on our way back, we saw another group from our boat headed in the opposite direction and i got worried for a moment - i was pretty sure we hadn't passed the boat yet, but why were they going the other way? decided to trust myself and continued on and was indescribably elated to see the dark outline of the boat above me a few minutes later. and with that, i'd finished all my DM requirements! hooray! i got to relax during the second dive while the students played underwater during peak performance buoyancy and go on another awesome night dive.

the final order of business is the snorkel test, which i mentioned in one of my previous posts. turns out that shortly after that entry, we had a staff meeting where we were told that both the thursday night bbqs and the snorkel tests would no longer happen at the dive center. as such, i've avoided this rite of passage so far, though hints of an unofficial snorkel test have been given..

i saw a whale shark!

moojieturtle — Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:58:00 GMT

the weekend was pretty relaxing as i wasn't assigned to assist on any classes yet. at first, it felt a little strange to not have something specific to do (there is a ton of reading i could be doing), but then i realized i should do what i came here for and got myself put on some fun dives.

yesterday morning i was on a boat going to the north side - these are the good boats to get on since the sites on that side of utila are generally better. usually, the class boats stay on this side of the island, so whenever there's an open spot on a north side boat, you should try to get on it. the first dive was at jack's bight and was beautiful - we swam through a coral canyon and the fish life was abundant and diverse.

on the way to the second dive, the boat slowed in the open ocean and we wondered what was going on. soon exciting news spread back to us - a possible whale shark sighting! whale sharks are the world's largest fish - they are sharks, not whales. the whale is more of an adjective describing the enormous size of these creatures (~12m in length, up to 18m!), as well as the fact that they are filter feeders like many whales. although they're enormous, they don't pose any danger to humans and have been even known to be playful with divers and snorkelers. here on utila, there is much research going on to help in their conservation and people are no longer allowed to dive with them, unless they have special training. there is absolutely no touching of the sharks allowed. if anyone gets caught trying to, they make you get back on the boat and leave immediately. check out the wikipedia page for more info as well as pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark

the captain had spotted a school of tuna which meant it was possible a whale shark could come to feed. he told us to get ready - we all put mask, fins, snorkel on and bunched at the back of the boat, an excited mass of people with fins poking in every direction. we had several false alarms and were constantly told to be ready to jump off the back. sitting there breathing in the boat engine fumes, we wondered if we'd see a whale shark even if there wasn't one, we were getting so high. then the captain shouted at us to go, go, go! i was one of the first people off the boat and was so excited i didn't even have my snorkel in my mouth, but all that was forgotten because i looked down through the deep blue water and underneath me was the spotted back of an enormous whale shark! it was truly magnificent, but started swimming away quickly as it realized we were there. we swam after it, but it was much faster and gradually the white spots disappeared as it descended beyond our reach.

we clambered back on the boat and sat ready for another encounter. the captain found the same shark as it was resurfacing and we hopped in again - this time i had my snorkel in and was closer to its front and could see its head. it was hard to gauge how big it really was, but then two guys from my boat skin dove beneath the surface and i could see that the shark was at least 5 or 6 times bigger than them. amazing.

after getting back on the boat, everyone had huge grins on their faces and chattered excitedly about how cool it was. the second dive was also great - i saw a stargazer (funny fish that gives off an electric charge and uses its pectoral fins as shovels to burrow into the sand) as well as a big (size of a cantaloupe) octopus. the octopus kept changing colors from pure white to mottled red - really cute.

all in all, a fantastic morning - now i just have to see an eagle ray and of course, a turtle. :)

drinking from the fire hose

moojieturtle — Fri, 1 Feb 2008 21:03:00 GMT

the mit undergrad experience has been described as 'drinking from the fire hose' - i started my divemaster course this past monday and it's been pretty crazy thus far. perhaps not up to the fire hose level, but it could be described as 'drinking from the snorkel', which, incidentally is foreshadowing of what happens later in the DM course (more on that later).

part of the craziness is due to the organized chaos of the dive shop - UDC is the first and biggest dive shop on utila and there's a constant flux of people of all levels of diving coming through and taking classes, from open water all the way up to instructor. the instructors are all first-rate and great people, but they're also constantly running around teaching courses, manning the shop or meeting the ferry in the hopes of attracting new dive students. some of the other DMTs have complained about not getting enough personal attention, but i guess i'm still used to the grad student mentality of needing to track my advisor down when i need to talk. once you find who you're looking for, they're usually more than happy to give you the time you need, whether right then or at an arranged later time. the key to surviving (and being happy) here is to be flexible and realize that schedules are more suggested rather than actual realities.

each week, a new DMT course starts on monday. the DMT class of the week of january 28 consists of me, mark (from my rescue class) and nacho (from chile). our DMT orientation was scheduled for 4.30p. i arrived a bit early, only to find out it had been changed to 4p. scheduling changes usually appear as messages on one of the many whiteboards around UDC, but since i hadn't been around the shop until then that day, i didn't know about it. not a big deal, since mark didn't either. tash told us no worries - instructors have to be flexible as well, after all. we then found out who our mentors were - although you're taught by all the instructors, each DMT is assigned one as a mentor to see you through the program. presently, there are 3 people in charge of training the DMTs - tash, frank and tracy. having been around for a week already, i'd heard from the DMTs ahead of me about each one. tash is super smiley (almost scarily so), does things by the book and demands perfection. frank is extremely experienced and knowledgeable, but really busy and hard to pin down when you need help. tracy has a lot of experience as well but isn't as strict and is more approachable. the instructors are on some sort of rotation, so i was told initially that frank would be my mentor. however, on monday, i found out it would be tracy instead. i'm pretty happy about the switch - i think frank ended up with nacho instead because he speaks spanish (frank is from guatemala). tracy is the first person i met at UDC when i arrived and taught my advanced open water course and of the three, i feel most comfortable with her. having frank sounded as if it'd be like working with one of my old grad school advisors, professor peraire (mom and dad, that's advisor b), which was great fun, but also draining.

we had our orientation and were given our DMT manuals, which contain all our exam answer sheets, evaluation sheets, a huge list of all the DM requirements and lots of other relevant information about the course. then we jumped right into the first chapter of our divemaster manual textbook (yes, i have homework and reading to do all the time now) before being dismissed.

tuesday morning, mark and i managed to squeeze in some fun dives with cross creek, UDC's sister dive shop. the dives were chill (i saw a HUGE crab) and we spent most of the time on the boat listening to one of the cross creek divemasters describe to us how mind-blowingly awesome argentinian ice cream is. in the afternoon, we met with tracy to cover another chapter in our manuals about how to work with dive students. it actually sounds very similar to being a TA, so i'm pretty psyched to get to start assisting in classes as part of my internship. on wednesday, we covered a long and boring chapter on how to supervise certified divers. after each chapter, we had to take an exam - multiple choice and pretty easy.

thursday was a long day - we met at 6.30a, supposedly to have our skills circuit briefing. instead, we were told the schedule had been rearranged and we covered another chapter out of the manual with frank. at 9a, we got our skills circuit briefing from tash and got started with the actual skills circuit at 11a. the point of the skills circuit is that we have to go through the 20 basic scuba skills you learn in open water and be able to do them with demonstration quality. the reason is that if you assist on courses as a divemaster, you would need to show students how to do these skills underwater. we then became mute for the next couple hours - the goal is that you should be able to demonstrate the skill clearly to someone who speaks a different language from you. and obviously, there's no talking underwater. oh, and we had to make it look easy. our first skill was equipment setup, which we did on the dock. tash watched us and i was nervous since i'd heard she is such a hard grader. things were proceeding okay until i turned on my air before connecting the low pressure inflator hose and had to backtrack. despite doing everything else correctly, that out of sequence mistake got me a score of 2 out of 5 (usually a 3 is passing, but at UDC, they require us to get a 4 or 5). off to a great start.. frank then joined us and we proceeded to demo buddy checks and then deep-water entry. the next set of skills were underwater. tash or frank would show us how to do it (tash must have been a flight attendant in a previous life) and then we would try it ourselves. if we made a mistake, they'd stop us, remind us of what we'd done wrong and make us repeat the skill. i did an entire mask removal and replacement well except forgetting to brush my hair out of the way and had to do it all over again (by the way, i was pleased my contacts didn't fall out underwater). i felt clumsy and like i was doing terribly and as time went on, started getting cold. we were probably underwater for about 90 minutes - towards the end, my thought process was something like this..

..brr, cold, please please let the next skill be 5-point ascent. drat, it's buddy breathing. okay, watching their buddy breathing demo - must remember all details so i only have to do it once, but i'm so cold. crap, i just missed that whole sequence of steps. uh oh, now they're pointing at me to demonstrate it. okay, buddy breathe, buddy breathe, buddy breathe.. all right, done with buddy breathing. come on, 5-point ascent! rats, it's CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent).. etc.

finally, 5-point ascent came and i happily surfaced. we then did a few surface skills before getting out for our debrief. tash started off by saying some positive things to us, but we'd learned the other day that they HAVE to start off with something nice to encourage us, so we were skeptical. however, it turns out we actually did better than we thought we did. i only have to redo 2 skills - the equipment setup and underwater weight belt removal and replacement (my weights weren't distributed properly and i kept falling over). by the time all this was over, it was 4p and we were utterly exhausted, but happy to have it over. that night, we went to the weekly UDC bbq and were able to relax and hang out.

all right, back to 'drinking from the snorkel'. the main event at the bbq is the snorkel test, which occurs if anyone has finished their DM that week. this final test is not something they advertise ahead of time, and i am quite frightened at the prospect of having to do it in a few weeks. the general procedure is that they seat you on a stool and give you a mask and snorkel with a makeshift funnel attached to the top of the snorkel. they then ask if you'd like coke or sprite, and proceed to pour the opposite of what you asked for along with rum into the funnel. then, it's all topped off with a beer. i think the goal is to last for 30s, but your judges can deem your performance inadequate and make you repeat. if you do exceptionally badly, they threaten to fill your mask with beer and make you clear it. (i haven't actually seen this happen yet, but it sounds terrible.) i am definitely not looking forward to this particular rite of passage, but i've been gathering tips on how i can do it without actually drinking a whole lot. and hey, if i could get through qualifying and generals exams, i bet i can get through this too.

on friday, our one activity was taking our swim test. we arrive at 9.30a and of course, it is the one morning when the water is super choppy. there's no use in complaining, however, and we hop in and swim 400m without any aids, float/tread water for 15min (last 2min with hands out of water), then swim 800m with mask, snorkel and fins. during the snorkel, sea grass churned up by the waves kept getting tangled on my mask and snorkel. when i got out of the water, i found a whole bunch in my swimsuit as well. but, at least that's all over. we still have to do a 100m tired diver tow, but tracy had to run off to meet the ferry, so guess we'll be doing that one later.

and so went my first week of DM training. it's funny how much i feel like i'm back in school - there are assignments to read, a workbook to fill out, lectures, a scary test to anticipate and a swim test. now that most of our silly prerequisites are done, we move into getting to assist on classes and learning subjects like dive physics, physiology, decompression models and equipment. i suppose i'll never stop being a student as i'm actually looking forward to all of this (bring it on!). one awesome thing though is that most of the time our classroom is windowless, by which i mean we're out on the dock or in the ocean.

getting things done on utila

moojieturtle — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:25:00 GMT

since my rescue class ended on thursday, i've had a lull in activity as my divemaster class doesn't start until monday. other than getting some fun dives in on friday and saturday, i've been focusing on getting two things done before the hectic DM program starts. first is moving out of the dorm at the mango inn and into either an apartment or house. second is procuring a bike for tooling around the island. let's see what my progress on those two fronts has been.

tuesday afternoon - saw awesome apartment near dive center with mark, my buddy from rescue class - he's starting DM at the same time as me - it seems to be good timing and we're pretty much set to take it.

wednesday morning - find out from mark that his girlfriend has decided to get 2 jobs on utila and spend the next 2 months hanging out with him instead of continuing traveling. as a result, i no longer have a roommate.

wednesday afternoon - mark and i walk around looking for other apartments/houses near the dive center, but don't find anything. decide to flip a coin for the apartment - i lose, so now i also no longer have an apartment. :(

wednesday evening - meet darlene, who is about to finish her DM, but will stay on for an instructor course. she shows me her house and says her roommate is moving out on sunday - looks great and since it's my only viable option at the moment, i say i'm in.

thursday evening - at dive center bbq, meet darlene's roommate - she says she's not leaving until mid-feb - does that mean the room in the house won't be available after all?

friday morning - i post note on dive center message board - "Anyone have a cheap/old bike to sell? -Shannon (short, Asian girl)"

friday afternoon - darlene's roommate is on the same boat as me for my fun dives - i find out she's finishing her DM in another week or so, but is moving out of the house early to avoid paying another month of rent - whew!

saturday morning - after finishing up fun dives, get introduced to ulises, who says he has several bikes for sale - asks me to meet him at the dive center at 3p so he can show them to me.

saturday afternoon - i show up at 3p and see that ulises is about to go underwater for a scuba refresher - know it will be at least an hour before he's back out. end up not talking to him until 4.30p at which point he says he's ready whenever, but then proceeds to spend another hour doing various other things around the shop. finally, at 5.30p, we head out - turns out the bikes are actually his friend's and not his.

saturday evening - we head out down the main street (there's really only one big street in utila) and every ten feet or so, ulises stops to talk to someone. there's also a scare that his bike has been stolen, but turns out one of the instructors had just borrowed it to meet the ferry. get to his friend's place just before 6p, only to find out he can't show me the bikes until monday.

sunday morning - pack up all my things and check out of the mango inn - go to my new house to try and drop my stuff off - nobody's home, so i leave my things in the mango inn lobby. decide to head down to the dive shop and try to find christine, who left a note on my note, saying she had a bmx bike to sell. look at dive board and see she is on one of the morning dive boats - wait until boat returns and see her bike - it's really small (even for me!) and the brakes don't work - she wants 500 lempiras (~$26) for it. doesn't seem like a good deal to me..

sunday afternoon - run into ulises and ask him about seeing his friend on monday. he offers to go with me, but after trying to pin him to a time, decide i'm probably better off just going on my own and muddling my way through the spanish, rather than risk waiting 3 hours for him again. start walking back up towards mango inn and run into darlene who gives me keys to my new house - hooray! finally move my stuff in and get to unpack. :) :) also get to go grocery shopping and eat at home - eating out on utila actually isn't super cheap, so i'm very happy to have a kitchen.

it is now sunday evening and the final result is i successfully moved into my new house, but i'm still working on getting a bike. will let you know how that goes. getting things done here definitely requires patience - you wander down to the dive center and hope to run into the right person. it may entail waiting around for a few hours. wandering up and down the streets also seems to be effective since you'll eventually bump into anyone you need to talk to. it's a good thing i really don't have much to get done right now - if i was back at home, i'm sure taking five hours to see a bike and get keys to a house would seem ridiculous, but here, it's no big deal.

more ill-fated than the ss minnow

moojieturtle — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:52:00 GMT

i passed my rescue diver class today! got to the dive shop at 6.45a to start prepping for our open-water rescue session. my buddy, mark, and i were in charge of putting water, first aid kits, emergency oxygen, floats and the dive flag on the boat. we were also responsible for getting the insurance list signed and a boat roster made up. the whole time we were paranoid as we'd walk by our instructor (anna) and divemasters-in-training (graeme and marion) and hear things like, 'shark attack during the safety stop' and 'missing dive buddy.' it also didn't help matters that in addition to our instructor and two divemasters-in-training (DMTs), the rest of the boat was a small open water course, one snorkeler and six other DMTs. rescue class seems to be the hazing class here - all the DMTs have gone through the course recently and based on their own experiences, have varying amounts of revenge to take out on the new rescue classes. mark and i were the only ones in our class and the thought of the two of us having to save our instructor AND eight DMTs was a bit daunting.

the boat managed to leave the dock with relatively little fuss, though i had to calm marion down over her irrational fear of sharks (there are no sharks here in utila) when she appeared to be withdrawn and rubbing her hands together in a distraught manner. once at the dive site, the mayhem began. somehow graeme ended up in the water, panicking, and didn't manage to grab onto the float that we threw to him (making sure to tie the other end to something on the boat). he drifted beyond our reach, making an in-water rescue necessary. i donned my fins and snorkel and hopped in. halfway out to him, i realized i'd forgotten a flotation device and called back to mark to toss me one (yay for buddies!) - he did and then had to enter the water himself as marion had fallen off the boat as well at this point. i made it out to graeme and kept my distance while offering the life jacket to hang onto - didn't want to get too close as there was danger of getting dunked with all his flailing about. finally got him to hang on and calm down enough that i could tow him into the boat and help him back up. mark had managed to get marion on board as well. first crisis averted..

suddenly, anna, usually the cool-headed instructor, turned into a non-certified diver wanting to jump in right away without putting her gear on correctly and doing a buddy check. graeme and marion followed suit and talk of sharks came up again - they decided they would quickly jump in and descend to 50m (beyond recreational dive limits) since they believed sharks wouldn't go that deep. mark and i tried to dissuade them from jumping in and tried desperately to get them to stop and put their gear on correctly - anna's regulator and pressure gauge were all twisted up and graeme had his mask on backwards. after doing buddy checks on all of them, we tried to get our own gear on and check each other whilst preventing them from jumping overboard, or at least having them enter correctly with a giant stride. unfortunately, it was 3 against 2, and eventually marion got through and launched herself into the water, surfaced and didn't give the normal fist on the head to let us know she was okay. i shouted from the boat to find out if she was and she grumpily shouted back, 'what do you want?'. meanwhile, anna went in and then graeme belly-flopped in. mark and i quickly got our own gear on, entered and got the group to gather on the surface.

we managed to descend without too much incident, but then i had to go chase after marion who wanted to look at a fish and separate from the group. meanwhile, mark had to deal with graeme's leg cramp. after i got marion to rejoin the group, she started panicking and i had to slow her down, calm her and get her to take breaths. she then ran out of air, so i offered her my alternate air source which went smoothly until i found myself running out of air - anna had snuck up behind me and turned my tank off. i signaled out of air and we switched to marion's regulators. satisfied, anna turned my air back on. i looked around to check how mark was doing and saw he was dealing with an unconscious graeme. i turned around and realized marion had also passed out underwater, so i dumped the air from my buoyancy control device (BCD), knelt on her tank and slowly ascended using her BCD and making sure to hold her regulator in. she seemed to recover and we were continuing the dive, when both graeme and marion were attacked by invisible sharks and suddenly, invisible wounds were spurting invisible blood. we surfaced them again and then had to tow them back to the boat and administer first aid. they'd lost a lot of invisible blood by the time we got them back and we had to give rescue breaths and CPR (on the cheek and on the ground). they came around, but we thought it best to give them some imaginary emergency oxygen just to make sure everything was okay. thus ended our first rescue scenarios.

while mark and i switched our tanks over to fresh ones, anna and marion went back in to set up the next exercise. just as we were finishing up, we heard marion shout that she was missing her buddy. while getting our gear on and doing a buddy check on each other, mark and i asked her for information about where to look, assigned spotters to look for bubbles, arranged a recall signal in case the diver was found and set up a search pattern. we entered the water and went to where the diver was last seen, descended and started an expanding square pattern. i had the compass and every couple kick cycles, mark would tap me and we would turn 90 degrees, gradually increasing the length of our sides. after a couple rounds, we spotted the 'missing diver' - a BCD weighted down to the bottom. at this point, the BCD miraculously turned into one of our DMTs, who was face down and unresponsive. mark and i each surfaced a DMT and began procedures for an unresponsive diver at the surface - established buoyancy, removed masks and regulator and checked for breathing. my DMT was not breathing, so i began rescue breathing while mark helped me start towing her back to the boat and removing her gear. once back to the boat, i finished removing the gear while mark climbed out and i handed her arms up to him. he managed to exit her from the water and we administered first aid.

and with that, we were done! yay! anna said we'd done great and showed good teamwork and that now we'd get to go and actually have a fun dive. i think we were both a little suspicious, but the dive was actually a dive and no fake accidents happened along the way. it's been a few days since i've actually gotten a real dive in, so it was nice to look around and see a school of zebrafish or a giant barracuda swim by instead of keeping a sharp eye on anna, graeme and marion. the sun had come out and the visibility on the reef wall was amazing. definitely a nice way to end the rescue class. :)

so now i'm a rescue diver! it's been a tiring couple of days and i'm glad i get a few days off to relax before my divemaster course starts on monday. we're scheduled to go on some fun dives tomorrow afternoon and maybe i'll get a chance to explore the island a bit more. once divemaster course starts, we're allowed to go at our own pace, so i can ease up then as well if i like. regardless, it's great to have all the prerequisites done and i'll soon be an official DMT!

storms and rescues

moojieturtle — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:09:00 GMT

finished my advanced open water course a few days ago. as we got back on the boat after our second dive, the skies opened up and rain began sheeting down. cold rain. i took a deep breath and went back to take my gear apart. the rain was coming down so hard that it knocked one of my contacts out of focus, so i was blinking and trying to dismantle my regulator setup all at once. the one good thing is the rain meant i didn't have to rinse my gear off when we got back to shore.

ventured out that night for dinner with my buddy (adam, most awesome buddy ever - he had to leave today..wah..), his girlfriend and her buddy from open water class. huge puddles had taken over the streets and we literally waded our way out of the hotel. had gotten a recommendation of an awesome bbq place from our instructor and headed there. on our way, a little kid about 5 years old or so, comes running by us with a plastic bag completely over his head and yelling. it was probably the funniest thing i've ever seen. thankfully, he didn't seem to be suffocating - whew!

yesterday, started the rescue diver phase of my training. took emergency first response and went over CPR, rescue breathing, injury assessment, etc. watched a video in the morning where all sorts of terrible accidents befell people - the scene would open with a close-up of some saw blades lying on a wood shop counter, then pan to a guy using the saw and then move to a blurred reflection in a nearby metallic object. then you'd hear this awful noise and next thing, the guy would be bleeding and a nearby person, who happened to be an emergency responder would perform textbook care. or an elderly man would be gardening with a sharp hoe (specifically zoomed in on to show it glinting), suddenly have a heart attack and collapse on the hoe. thankfully, his neighbor also was trained in EFR and saw the whole thing happen. whew! the afternoon was spent practicing all the skills - i saved my buddy's life about 8 times and risked dying myself about the same number of times.

today was the first day of actual rescue diver class and the weather was finally nice once more. again, we watched a video where all sorts of divers were just having a terrible time. then we got to practice in-water skills with our instructor and two divemasters. they definitely had fun play-acting panicked divers and would randomly start "drowning" or "collapse" suddenly and we'd be expected to save them. sort of makes one a little paranoid to be walking around the dive shop. we have another day of class and skills tomorrow and then on thursday, we go out on the boat for our open-water session, which should be a riot, as i'm guessing every possible thing will go wrong and we'll be expected to manage the emergencies. will let you know how that goes..

first 48 hours on utila

moojieturtle — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:03:00 GMT

i've been on utila for a little less than 48 hours and it's been a crazy time. i can't believe i arrived only 2 days ago! it seems like an eternity has passed.

after overnighting in la ceiba, caught the 9.30a ferry over to utila. during the ride over, i started to get really excited. after such a long time of planning, reading and imagining this experience, it was finally really going to happen! not even the rocking and choppiness of the boat could disturb me from meditating on this fact. about half an hour into the trip, started seeing the faint outline of the island appearing in the distance. the island is bigger than i'd imagined and i'm excited to get the chance to explore it over the next couple months.

landing at the dock was a bit overwhelming. hordes of people were waiting to greet the boat, mostly from the multitude of dive shops. i was glad i knew where i was going and headed straight to utila dive center (UDC), where i've arranged to do my divemaster course. within 10 minutes of walking in the door, i'd been given a tour of the shop, signed up for a scuba refresher that afternoon and sent on my way to check into the mango inn, where i get 9 nights of free accommodation included with my package.

found the mango inn and met a UDC instructor along with 3 people who had been on the same ferry as me. turned out one of the three was doing the scuba refresher and then advanced open water (AOW) as well, so i already had a buddy for my first certification course! the refresher was actually really great - i originally got open water certified about 7.5 years ago in boston (chilly!). although i've been diving about 20 times since i got certified, my last dive was 1.5 years ago (in saint croix) and it was a fun dive - no review or practicing of skills. i'm also always a little nervous the first time i go underwater after not diving for a long time, so it was nice to get that initial feeling of panic out of the way right off. we reviewed how to set up and check gear, then went underwater to go through the skills (mask clearing, removal and replacement of mask, recovering a regulator, buddy breathing, emergency swimming ascent, etc.). i'll be going through all this again in much greater depth once i start the divemaster course, but it was good to have a quick cram course.

yesterday morning, we had the first 2 dives of the AOW course - a deep dive and a navigation dive. we went down to about 100 feet on the deep dive, along a wall that just kept going down and down. played with a raw egg - cracked it open and i thought it was hard-boiled at first, before realizing that the pressure was holding it together. we then proceeded to pass it around and play with it like the astronauts play with water blobs on the space station. then we did a test of alternating touching our nose and the numbers 1-20 (mixed up) on a card. when we were back on the boat, we redid the test to see if we were much faster. i felt like i was much faster above water, but turns out i was only a second or two better. unfortunately, no nitrogen narcosis. :P

the navigation dive was pretty neat as well - we got compasses and practiced doing out and back routes and then following a square path. i spent the whole time concentrating on my compass and didn't really see visually if i was going the right way, so when i finished each time and found myself back at my instructor, i was pretty happy. i was also amazed at how quickly i got back to feeling comfortable in the water. comparing myself to what i'd been like doing the scuba refresher just the day before, i could already see marked improvement. can't wait to see what i'll be like after a month of diving.

we had the afternoon off and then returned at 5.30 for a night dive. i'd done one before in thailand and didn't remember being particularly impressed. the night dive here in honduras, however, was fantastic. we descended just at sunset so that we'd still have some light at the beginning. the visibility was incredible and the colors under our torches were so much more vibrant and vivid than they are during the day. oftentimes when diving, i feel like it's sensory overload - i'm trying to think about things like my buoyancy or remembering what it is i'm supposed to be doing with my gear. then i can't decide if i want to look at the fish or the coral or the light patterns or off in the distance in case there's a turtle lurking about. the night dive makes you focus on what you can see in the beam of light from your torch and removes all other distractions. as a result, i felt like i saw more even though there was actually less to see. we saw little hermit crabs hanging out in the coral, brittle spiny starfish and two octopi (octopuses?)! at one point, we stopped, kneeled, turned off our lights and waved our arms around to see the phosphorence emanating from our fingertips. pretty amazing. upon surfacing, i floated on my back and stared up at the moon (almost full) and the stars and couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else at that moment.

if the first 48 hours of this stint here is any indication, i think it's going to be an awesome time. i'm so happy i'm getting the chance to do this. because i'm staying for so long, it puts less pressure on trying to do everything in a single dive because i know i'll have more chances on the way to divemaster and afterwards. so for now, i can concentrate on one thing during a dive and i'm sure it'll soon become natural to me and i can then focus on something else. we'll see how the progress goes!

in la ceiba

moojieturtle — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:54:00 GMT

long travel day..

the day seemed to be filled with travel in blocks of a few hours interspersed with layovers and brief bursts of travel action - let's see how it went:

SEA - dropped off by mom and dad, checked in, 1 hour
SEA->DFW - flight, 3.5 hours
DFW - layover, 2 hours (saw crazy vending machine selling ipods and garmin forerunner 205s!)
DFW->MIA - flight, 2.5 hours
MIA - layover, 2 hours
MIA->SAP - flight, 2.5 hours
SAP - money exchange, find taxi into san pedro sula bus stop (catisa y tupsa)
san pedro sula->la ceiba, catisa bus, 3.5 hours
la ceiba - find taxi into downtown, locate hotel with vacancy (hotel iberia)

now a night of good sleep, hopefully, before catching the morning ferry to utila!

on the brink of my trip

moojieturtle — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

after spending five years in a windowless office working on my PhD and daydreaming about all the things i would get to do once i finally graduated and it seeming like i would never really graduate, i did! since then, i've been busy wrapping up various things, vegging and planning this next big adventure.

the first part of this trip i'll be spending on utila in the bay islands of honduras undergoing at least six weeks of training to become a divemaster. it'll be refreshing to focus on an activity i love and that doesn't require huge amounts of mental concentration (at least compared to what doing a PhD was like). i know it'll be challenging in its own way and i'm not assuming it'll be easy, but it'll be fundamentally different than what i've been doing in grad school for so long. i'm also thrilled to not be spending another january freezing in boston and an average water temperature of 80F in honduras this time of year is most appealing. :)

admittedly, i'm a bit nervous about heading out on my own, but i'm also really excited! in any case, i guess there's nothing left but to just go and do it. planning phase is officially ending..