AlexBlog

Divemaster

Category : Thailand

Well I am back. I have done 3 weeks in Koa toa (still can't spell it) [ed:koh tao]. I will have to some up the key events here.

I had my own bungalo on the beach. Basic double bed right on the water front. A hamock and mosquito net, and could watch the sunsets every night. The downside was that the electricity went off at 6am and back on at 6pm so you couldn't stay inside. The hamock as well didn't have the ideal positioning but my new mate Alex helped sort that out. Yep I can't even put a hamock up by myself. The other draw back that when there were heavy storms I got rained out on the balcony...and there were some heavy storms.

My landlord, Papa Chi was unique. Thai man who was drunk by 10am shouting southadi (thai for hello) at everyone and artguing to himself. He apparently nocked a westerner off their bike because he was drunk and by the time the police came the locals had re-arranged the scene. The worst bit was walking back from big blue (the dive school) along the beach to my hut and seeing him naked after getting out the shower. Ouch!

The course was too rushed. I was diving ast least 2 times a day on one day 4 to get my 60 dives. While we are training we are called DMT's (divemaster trainees) which basically means although we pay a lot of money for the course we work on the boat and are treated like scum. A couple of the instructors think its great because they can patronise you and boss you around. They think they are seargents in the army. Plus you have to do all the shit tasks... good experience I suppose.

I had a belgium mentor (instructor) called K. Don't know his actual name. He was the most arrogant ***xXX@! going. He said belgium is about to declare war on the USA because they invented the french fries not the americans or the french. As Alex said he was sure that pieces of potato had been fried in some oil a long time before they were declared french fries.

Anyhow he was patronising, belittaling arogant and just loved himself. He has been an instructor for 15 years and knows everything. Just ask him what you need to do that day... he will say "don't interfere", and then when you don't he will bollock you for not interfering. Yep one of those.

There was also a lot of infighting because the instructors basically had big groups that got them commission, and of course the bigger the course the more DMT's you have to have to assist. They argued about that and who was going on holiday, and to be frank not our problem!

Ok so for my cock ups. Failed decompression and had to re-take. Inflated a safety sausage at 8m when it had a 5m string attatched to it and nearly shot to the surface. No a safety sausage is not a rude thing or a sexual manouver. It's a marker to signal to boats divers are underneath. Myself and Jessy (another DMT) only two people on a boat of japanese that missed a whale shark on a dive. The list is endless actually.

Also I confess there was a lot of cheating between us on the exams. Well discussing the answers to see if we agreed... answers by commity... we still got some wrong.

Jude another instructor was great. Thai guy who realyl helped me out although others didn't feel the same about him, those that had him as a mentor.

Well I got used to my life on the island. My own hut, corner shop (7 - 11), just like college days when you had the munchies after a night out with the gang and used to go round and annoy the guy at the 24 hr, while he got you loads of chocolate. Get up go to work walking along the beach and meet friends for dinner or drinks at the local.

Great bunch of DMT's. Here's a brief intro...sorry if any of you are reading this.

Jessey - my dutch partner in crime. We buddied up to do our mapping projects and emergancy plans and dives. Very nice lady and great to dive with who is going to work/dive/live in southg africa afterwards.

Alex (male) - A very interesting and clever guy with nipple rings and the rest who won't practice doing the fire twirling after being burnt. Well he practices without flamage! A great guy to smoke with on the beach and has some cool philosophies... and great to talk star wars theories to. Is now proberly K's teachers pet because all the cock ups I did I told him about so he won't do them. Except for get tangled in safety sausages.... sorry Alex.

Ryan - just starting his DMT when I left. Well actually his rescue course. He's american from new york and great to go skinny dipping with except you are not suppossed to duck people on a rescue course ryan... you are suppossed to save them. By the way that was me, jessy and ryan on a very innocent midnight swim on my last night. Ynzo and alex were chicken... actually they were back at their bunks and didn't think we would do it, but i think dissapointed they missed out. Still they are probably back there skinny dipping every night now.

Ynzo or as I spell it Enzo cos its a sessamy street characters name. He can't help being named after a muppet! He does great porcupine puffa fish impressions under water. When signalling that he's just seen a puffa fish he flaps his arms about like a chicken. Alex and I wondered what a chicken fish was on the dive that he lead us on. Yes that dive that sent us nearly all they way up the coast line and we had a long way to swim back to the boat. He was also a superstar at helping me pass my exams! A very funny guy especially when he's wearing his glasses and lifeguard shorts strutting his stuff and photographing women with his digital camera, and then zooming in close to see if they are topless. Worse than alex's theory that you should swim behind a women who is doing the frog kick... need I say more about my new friends... if they still are after I wrote this.

Sorry guys its all meant with affection and a little bit of artistic liscence to make my stories a bit funnier.

In thailand they have these fish called trigger fish which look plastic and quite big. I saw a diver with a bit in his head from one of them. They attack people near their nesting grounds and you have to swim down and away. I went on a dive with jess and felt something nipping my fin. It was a trigger fish...it kept swimming at me so I did the correct thing fins facing it blocking it and try and swim away backwards but this bloody thing kept comming. I tried to tell jess but she was off ahead and couldn't see. Eventually after what seemed like ages it went away and i told jess, not sure she believed me.

Jess and I had to do a stress test. jess had already seen jason and flo (previous dmt's now qualified) do theirs. Basically you are under water form over half an hour and the instructor mucks around with you. The stories we heard were they take off your mask, throw sand in your face. Undo the mask strap and the tank strap while you can't see. All the time you do this you must be buddy breathing. The padi version is you have to just swap all your equipment. But the big blue version is you do this while they mess with you.

We were a bit worried about this so on a couple of things we parcticed before hand. We were also told they can't turn off your air no matter what! There is an octopuss their incase you need it and you are allowed two breaths each. If you bolt to the surface you fail so jess and i agreed what ever even if out of air their is no bolting.

So K briefed us in the first thing, he said their is no spare octopuss, and he will turn our air tanks off but alternatily, and we wont know when and where.... shit we didn't parctise that one.

Well we did it we passed. He threw sand in our faces... turned off my air... undid jessy's tank strap. thank god I practiced that one earlier. We swapped everything...we were a bit messy on some but we did it. Also there were points where we were gasping for air but just tapped on the others shoulder and we swapped... neither one of us thought about bolting at all.

Oh apparently when I swim under water with no mask on i pull a really bad face. I had trouble doing that at first for some reason I couldn't breath. Jude gave me some tips and I got that one sorted... still pull a really awful face though!

Posted by alexd at May 21, 2004 10:57 AM