Filling in for Hubbie

Pic Courtesy of Kat at Pixels Photography

I was originally on stand by today, and Hubbie was booked to work. However as the night progressed and he went from sniffly and snuffly, from blazing hot then back to freezing cold, I began to think that the chances of him being fit for work were fast fading into the distance.

Sure enough, by about three am, he had also realised that things were not looking good and he was going to have to call in sick.

As it happened, as I was on the list of standbys anyway, and as I had gone to collect the guests so that hubbie could stay in bed, it kind of made sense that I did the course as well.

I was to teach a Scuba Review combined with a Discover Scuba Diving course. I must admit, combining courses is not my favourite way of working things, however when there are only two people doing the courses, and some of the skills are exactly the same, it did make sense to merge the two.

So I checked in both divers... and while the Scuba Review chappie was completing his quizzes, I went over the flip chart with the Discover Scuba student. As it happens, he had already started his Open Water Course in the UK, so had already learned some of the knowledge. In fact, what I was telling him, was just refreshing his theory a little more.

I showed both students how to put their kit together, and chatted a little about how each part works, before we talked about what we were to do underwater. Now there are two ways of working this, one is to complete all the Discover Scuba skills with both students, and then have one stay with us, sitting underwater and watching, while I then continue with the rest of the skills for the Scuba Review. Then we get out, change tanks and head back in for an Open Water Dive. However I was worried that my Discover Scuba Diver would get chilly or bored, sat underwater with nothing to do for so long. So... I opted to do a complete Discover Scuba with both students, as this includes an open water dive, then change tanks and return to the shallows with the Scuba Review chap to complete the rest of the skills... and then taking him off for another swim around the reef if time allowed.

And... this worked pretty well. It was a little clumsy getting in the water and knelt down. Partly because my Discover Scuba chappie was a little thrown by the movement of being in the sea as opposed to a swimming pool. The sea never sits entirely still, so I encourage all my students to "be like a reed" and sway with the ebb and flow. To fight it, only creates stress and is a battle the diver will never win.

Once he had settled down a little, we were on the go, and I was able to continue with my skills. These didn't actually take very long at all, so we then had a little swim around the lagoon before I surfaced to talk about the dive itself.

Then, back down we went and off for the dive. My Scuba Review chap was excellent, especially considering he hadn't dived for four years, and my Discover Scuba student, whilst he needed a little work on making his fin strokes a little more efficient, was pretty cool in the water too. He really settled down somewhat, and his buoyancy was not bad at all considering he had only completed his first two confined dives.

We swam along the outside of the lagoon admiring the colourful corals here. Every time I dive here, I am once more struck by the fact that we have such lovely, healthy corals in such shallow water. We swam along the little baby reef, taking in sweet lips, parrot fish, big eye emperor fish, cleaner wrasse, all going about their daily business, oblivious to their bundle of spectators. We even found Nemo around the corner, and a lion fish chilling under an overhang.

I opted to keep things shallow and meandered around the little chunks of reef in and around our deeper confined area. That way, should either diver have a floaty moment, it would not be a big deal. We found a huge cornet fish shortly before finding a whole shoal of baby ones... these ones were so small they looked like a handful of bic biros, very cute indeed. We also saw my mate the chomped parrot fish. He is a particularly large parrot fish here, who deserves a medal, he was obviously injured or bitten in early life. He clearly survived this and now has a rather bizarrely shaped dorsal fin, so certainly stands out from the rest of the crowd.

And once more, it was soon time to head back towards our starting point, meandering back towards the entrance to the lagoon.

Once out of the water, we logged the dive, chatted about the fish we saw, and Discover Scuba Diver went back to his hotel, over the moon that he had now seen fish (as opposed to the tiles of the swimming pool), and vowing to do some experience dives whilst he is here. What a shame he had already committed to completing his Open Water Course in the UK. Not that the UK is not a good place to learn, but he could have completed his course here, done his dives in gloriously warm (by comparison) water, and got a good few dives under his belt. As it is, he is still going to get some great experience dives in, and that will be one on one with an instructor, so I guess he will gain loads of tips along the way.

And so on to the skills for our Scuba Review guy. I had already seen that he was very much in control in the water, nice and relaxed and had been a good buddy to our other chap, so was hoping to go through the skills fairly swiftly, allowing us time for a little bonus swim around the reef.

And my hopes were answered. We seemed to get through all the skills really easily, with only a couple of comments to make really. So... off we went for another little swim. And, you know, that was such a good call. Sometimes it really pays to put in that little extra. I knew we were pushed for time, and was so close to heading straight back to the dive centre after the skills, but I saw we had a spare ten minutes, into which I could squeeze a little potter around the outside of the lagoon.

Well... we were merely a minute into our swim when we saw a torpedo ray wobbling along the sand... then again we saw the huge cornet fish, sweet lips and big eye emperor fish, all gathered around a particularly pretty pinnacle, the emperor fish enjoying a thorough de-lousing from a rather large and well fed cleaner wrasse.

Just as I was about to turn in and take the short cut back into our little lagoon, a beautiful eagle ray flew past us! How fantastic! So, we hovered a while and watched it pass us by, so serene and graceful, with a couple of leisurely wafts of its wings. I guess that was our cue to end the dive and head back to the dive centre.

Not bad for a day's work.

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