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Yesterday I completed all my written exams: Physics, Physiology and First Aid, Equipment, Decompression Theory and the RDP, Dive Skills and the Environment, Supervising Activities for Certified Divers, Supervising Student Divers in Training and PADI Divemaster Conducted Programs. I passed on all of them with 80% or more. One of my answer on navigation was embarrasingly wrong, where I affirmed that three angles of 60° were all you needed to navigate in a triangle pattern… On the other hand I was also able to calculate the amount of air to put in a lift bag to get a 200Kg motor out of the sea floor, or the depth you have to dive at to breath compressed air equivalent to 100% oxygen. All useful skills that will come in handy sometimes.

I also finished the last two water exercises: timed tired diver tow and underwater equipment exchange. For this one, you and your partner go underwater, then strip out of your equipment and exchange it with each other, then put it back again. No practical application whatsoever, but it´s an interesting problem solving exercise. It´s harder than it seems.

I´ve also completed the last bit of the training, which was the drawing of a dive site map, including emergency procedures appropriate to the local site. I´ll show it to Gabriel tomorrow and we´ll see if he approves. I also still need to hear from him how I did on the rest of the practical training.

Yesterday afternoon I went to visit Chankanaab park, which means “small ocean” in yucatec maya . The name comes from a cenote (fresh water pool communicating with the ocean through underground tunnels) which is just next to the ocean. It´s a nice place to visit and take some sun in and snorkel. It also has a nice archaelogocial section describing the various pre-colombian meso-american cultures and a reconstituted typical mayan habitation. I was able to follow along with the guide´s explanation: my spanish comprehension is getting better.

Today, I spent the day diving for fun: El Paseo del Cedral, Tormentos and Paraiso Norte. The first two had some really interesting current. And by interesting I mean that it felt like you were flying at supersonic speed about the coral reef. Lots of interesting animals too: lobsters, giant crabs, angelfish, some baracudas, a nurse shark, giant groupers, a pod of four dolphins, a pipefish.

Also, a familly of four new divers who just got certified. As it turned out, the little girl ran out of air early and started panicking when she hit her reserve. I was able to put my training to good use, reassure her, reach our guide and let him know she needed to go up. Once we were back at the surface, the mother thanked me and asked me if I was a Divemaster. Well… wouldn´t you know it… I hope I made Gabriel proud…

My Divemaster training is progressing. I took some of the theory exams (physiology, conducting Divemaster programs, handling students) and I think I did OK on them. I’ll take the remaining ones tomorrow. I’m also beeing graded by Gabriel on the practical portion of the course. I don’t know the results yet, but Gabriel seems happy with me. I also took most of my watermanship exams, including the 400 yard freestyle swim (10min), the 800 yard fin/snorkel swim (14min) and the 15 minute water treading. I still have to do the tired diver tow, an underwater map of a dive site and do an underwater equipment exchange.

 

We took on a new student. She wanted to become NAUI Advanced Open Water certified (NAUI is a dive certification agency, like PADI). I again served as model for the skills she had to perform underwater, gradually improving my skills to “demonstration quality” level. The funny thing is that she doesn’t seem to be very motivated. She complains about not looking forward to doing some of the requirements, saying that she’ll do them “if she has to”. Well, nobody is forcing her. She doesn’t have to take her advanced certification. She has 40 logged dives, so she’s already a fairly experienced diver. She doesn’t seem to have major difficulty underwater, so I’m not sure what’s motivating her behavior. Her husband is not diving, so she’s probably not being pressured by him to do it. Some of the mysteries that Instructors and Divemasters have to deal with.

 

I did my first wreck dive today. For some reason, the opportunity to do one before had always escaped me. I almost dived the Rainbow Warrior in New-Zealand in 2000, but at the last minute the weather got too rough. Very good conditions today, though, and we went diving the C-53, also known as the Felipe Xicotencatl (I’m also getting better at my Mayan pronunciation). The C-53 was built in 1944 for the US Navy, then sold in 1962 to the Mexican Navy. It patrolled the area until 1999 when it was decommissioned, donated to the Cozumel underwater park and sunk in 82 feet of water off shore from Chankanaab Park. She’s kept upright by eight anchors and she’s starting to get overtaken by coral and algae. Unfortunately, a first layer of coral attached to the paint of the boat, which is now coming off. The underlying metal will be a better substrate and it should be a nice artificial reef a few years from now.

 

This dive ended up as a deco dive (that is, Gabriel and I exceeded the recommended recreational dive tables) and we had to do a decompression stop on our way back up. That happened because of our repeated diving, the residual nitrogen in our issues and the fact that our earlier dive in the morning was a deep dive at 111 feet. No more diving the rest of the day to give a chance to the accumulated nitrogen to leave our bodies.

 

Excellent dinner at La Choza, the best Mexican/Carribean restaurant on the island according to Gabriel. The guacamole and salsa de verdeo were unctuous, the sopa de pescado spicy, but just right and the filete de pescado a la Veracruz, a fish cooked with tomatoes, onions and peppers, delicious. For desert, I had an avocado pie, which was definitely an unexpected flavor for desert, but something one could get used to. Maybe mexican cuisine will grow on me after all…

 

I’m getting used to the climate. In fact, it doesn’t bother me at all anymore. I’ve decided that air conditionners are works of the Devil. In a hot weather like in Cozumel, using air conditionners is asking for a cold, with the large temperature gradient between air conditionned rooms and the outside. I’ve unplugged the one in my room, just relying on the cool breeze of the evening and I feel great.

 

Today we did a two-tank boat dive with Greg, Brett and Bryan. The first one was a deep dive, at Palancar Gardens, the second one was a drift dive at Las Palmas. On the second dive, I gave the dive briefing. I had anxiously prepared my notes on a slate and I tried to remember everything I had to say while using the communication techniques Gabriel had taught me: look each diver in the eyes, don’t give interdictions, repeat every important information at least twice.

 

Later on, we did the Navigation specialty course from shore: using a compass underwater, natural and landmark navigation, tracing a square using only a compass. As I was helping one of the students by measuring the distances on the sea floor, I put my fingers straigth on top of a well camouflaged ray. Thankfully, it did not sting me, but just scurried away. Another close encounter…

 

Greg, Brett and Bryan are equipped with all the latest scuba diving gadgets. They have dive computers with a wireless connection to their air tank to measure the amount of air remaining. They have integrated inflators/alternate air supply. They have foldable snorkels. They have nice log books, tons of dry bags and wet bags, and mask defogger (most divers just spit in their mask to prevent fog from forming underwater, you can tell the real gadget freak by the fact that he uses instead mask defogger, aka spit-in-a-bottle). On the other hand, their fins and masks don’t quite fit, they always have some problems getting their wireless connections to work, and it takes them longer than average to unpack, prepare and put their gears away. I think it’s mostly Greg who wants “the best” as he puts it (he keeps asking us for “the best” dive site, “the best” restaurant, etc…). It’s just that he confuses “the best” with “the most expensive” or “the most exotic”. On the other hand, Brian, one of his sons, mumbles about wanting “the less gear possible”. There is yet hope for future generations…

Today, I assisted on the Open Water dives 3 and 4 for Larry and Brian. While supervising them on the ocean’s bottom I must have kneeled on a hydroid. At first, I though I had cut my knee on a sharp piece of dead coral and I even let out a cry under water. When I came out of the waterI could see there was no cut, but the very painful sensation continued. I put some Calamine lotion on, but it didn’t make a difference. I continued to suffer for the rest of the day.

 

After this unfortunate encounter, Gabriel showed me how to use The Wheel ™, this weird contraption from PADI that allows you to calculate your safe bottom times. Everybody uses tables or computers, but knowing how to use The Wheel ™ is a requirement for the Divemaster certification. Go figure.

 

We then waited for the arrival of a very enthusiastic trio of divers. Greg and his two sons, Brian and Brent, just flew in from New Mexico, where, as Greg points out, they don’t have much water. They’re just here for four days and determined to do the most of their time here. They’ve signed up for the Advanced Open Water training. We took them on a first dive to check their diving abilities and work on their buyoancy control.

 

While I was watching them get setup and then underwater, it reminded me of an observation I made before: Divemasters are living embodiments of calmness.

A Divemaster never rushes. A Divemaster does things slowly and methodically. A Divemaster doesn’t do brusque movements. A Divemaster’s life is outwardly unharried. Underwater, a Divemaster is graceful and fluid. A Divemaster doesn’t flinch when a fireworks explodes under his feet. OK, maybe not the last one. But in general, it’s true that every Divemaster I’ve known have shared this characteristic. 

On the other hand, new divers are often seen running, rushing to put their equipment on, then putting it off because they forgot something, then putting it back on. Underwater, they have jerky movements, turn their heads left and right quickly, flail their arms around, point at thing excitedly. Basically, they behave as if they were on land.

Water is much denser than air, and therefore our movements and our demeanor need to adapt to the aquatic world. Conversely, Divemaster seems to have on land the same cool demeanor they have underwater. I wonder if my own demeanor is going to start changing, even when I get stung by a hydroid

Today´s Bastille Day, the French national holiday. Well, let me tell you: it´s not really big in Mexico. Might have something to do with the fact that Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican national holiday celebrating the victory of Mexico over the French

Anyway, to celebrate I went to the closest thing I could find to a French restaurant, an Italian one, Ambar. It turned out to be fantastic. I got a table in the back garden, lighted with kerozene lamps and candles, with soft Italian electronica playing in the background. The lobster lasagna and the tiramisu were both great. I´m glad I´ve discovered this restaurant, because I can´t say I´m developing a fondness for Mexican cuisine.

I got the first stage of my regulator fixed. Thankfully, dive repair shops are not what´s missing on the island. I went back in the water today as an assistant in training with two students doing their final dives for certifications. It´s a father and son team, Larry and Brian, from the Bay Area. A small world. I was able to get them some help and did some nice, demonstration quality, skills: mask clearing and second stage retrieval, serving as the example to emulate. We´ll dive again tomorrow to complete their training.

I got a sense of the Divemaster Mystique today. There´s this aura of omniscience that surrounds the Divemaster, conferred solely by the title. Divers instinctively rever “their” Divemaster (even when he´s in training). The training material explains that this will happen and suggegsts this is an opportunity for the Divemaster to be an intermediary with the instructor, who supposedly can be felt as more distant by the students. There could be some of that, but I think there´s more going on: when given the opportunity to ask advice to the instructor or the Divemaster, the students turned to the Divemaster. As Gabriel told me jokingly later, we should introduce ourselves as the Instructor and the Assistant, to avoid confusion That makes it even more important for the Divemaster to be a good role model, since divers will instinctively copy the good or bad habits of “their” Divemaster. The pressure is on