Arnotify

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

A lot of dive theory today: physiology, physics (PV = n R T, Gay-Lussac, Boyle, Dalton, Henry), equipment.

Speaking of equipment, my brand new regulator got busted. The seat in the first stage is blown and no spare part in the dive shop. So, we had to rig together a new regulator. Good practice on equipment maintenance, though

Gabriel played the dive student today, and I gave him an underwater tour of his own backyard, starting with the predive briefing and leading and navigating underwater. Of course, he wouldn´t make things easy for me, so he had on purpose a series of non-life threatening incidents: he “forgot” to put his second stage in his mouth when doing his entry, I had to go and rescue him, using my panic diver training. Then he managed to loose his weight belt, loosen his tank, go off course, and bit his second stage. Each time, I had to keep an eye on him to catch him as soon as the problem occured, then assist him in fixing it. I only missed one of the simulated difficulties, which was his fin kicking style.

There´s quite a bit of pressure when you have to keep your eyes on a student as clumsy as Gabriel was today, but thankfully today´s was the worst it gets in a given dive, although all of these problems happen regularly in everyday dives. Yesterday, for example, a diver in another group lost their weight belt just as we were beginning the dive. Most incidents happens in the 10 minutes at the beginning of the dive, so I´ll have to keep my eyes peeled.

Got some nice churros at Plaza del Sol. California law prevents churros stand in California from making them fresh, so they´re always pre-made and stale. This one was the real thing.

Today, review of dive physiology, meteorology, oceanology and biology. A lot to cover, but Gabriel keeps it light and interesting, generously sharing his experience that goes beyond what´s covered in the manuals.

Equipment failure: my first stage delivers too much pressure to my second stage, making it leak. The technician was out today, so we switched to a spare first stage and will have to get it fixed tomorrow.

We went in the water to do some additional work on my basic skills. My hovering (stay immobile in the water without moving hands or legs) and mask clearing (full removal of mask, then putting it back on) was better this time around, but I fumbled my underwater equipment removal (removal and replacement of scuba unit). I have to be able to do all these to “demonstration quality”, that is with sufficiently exagerated and clear movements that a student watching me could learn how to do it. I still have to work on that.

Later, I accompanied Gabriel and two students on an underwater trip as divemaster in training. It was the students’ second dive. Although you could see they were excited about exploring the environment and the experience of being underwater, they were also swimming all over the place. As a divemaster who is worried about their safety, this makes your job more interesting…

As it turns out, one of them had a problem with his BC that he had filled with too much air and he started ascending out of control. I went after him, grabbed him, purged my BC and tried to empty his. With the underwater adrenaline rush, I didn´t manage to quite empty it and Gabriel had to come over to give a hand.

This real life experience helping out some students was both humbling and exciting. I’m looking forward to more.

Gabriel is the intstructor for my divemaster training course. We met today for our first session. We covered the duties of the divemaster, interaction and supervision of student divers. Gabriel has a very conversational style, covering a lot of content without any notes, just discussing one topic after another and providing tips as he goes along. For example, don´t give negative commands to divers. Don´t say “don´t go deeper than me”, because that’s the firt thing they will be tempted to do. It’s like if I tell you “don´t look behind you”. Instead, say “stay shallower than me”. Same meaning, but better results.

We also did a review underwater of the 20 basic diving skills. I´m not quite used to my new equipment yet and I’m having trouble staying vertical because of the way the weights are arranged in my BC jacket. Something to get used to.

As a bonus, we did a dive which ostensibly was to work on my breathing. After a little while underwater, I started hearing some clicks and pops that seemed unusual. Underwater, you can’t tell the direction sounds come from: our brains are used to calculating direction based on the speed of sound in the air and the small difference in timing between our two ears. Because sounds travel five times faster in the water, our brains just get confused and sounds seems to come from everywhere at the same time. So I wasn’t sure what they were, but they kept getting louder, and then suddenly I saw three dolphins playing with each other underwater. A sight to behold.