Taking it easy in the afternoon....

What a productive day today!! I finished assisting on the rescue course over at Ban’s. On top of that, I got to lead a fun dive for the second dive this morning and so that got signed off my list as well. And to top it off, I also got my scuba review and my rescue assessment knocked off. I am going to take my final written exam in an hour or so and then draft an Emergency Action Plan. Tomorrow I will be taking my second skill circuit in the pool. All that is left then is my 400m and 800m swim and snorkel, doing a boat and shop duty and mapping a dive site. Done. So December 15 is looking quite doable at this point. Which’ll give me enough time to do my knowledge reviews and continue to rack up my dive numbers before the IE starts in January. Huzzah.

I even managed to pull off a whole five hours of uninterrupted sleep last night…..go Chris. And have yummy left-over pizza (oh God, it was so good, who’d think to put creamy spinach and a fried egg on top of a pizza? And for it then to taste sublime…..genius)

And finally, viz was finally a little better (7-8 metres), so much so that I led a fun dive around a very rough map of White Rock (a dive site) and managed to get us back to the back of the boat on surfacing after a 3 minute safety stop. How sweet is that? Fricking sweet I tell ya!!! And it is a gorgeous sunny day, I have the afternoon to chill and I am intent on taking it easy tonight (a little beach volleyball at 5:30 and then a baked potato for dinner). A beer and bed!! Although I imagine there may be blog, part 2 today if I get all my crap done in time (it’s good to be online when the majority of your friends are also online).

Oh, and my mouthpiece is being fixed as I write. This is good, the only part that sucks is that I will have to borrow rental regs in the morning as we are diving before the shop opens……because tomorrow I am also helping with a clean-up of the bay in front of Sunshine (by Buddha Rock, if you have seen any of my photos). A clean-up of the entire bay might be a little optimistic, but we’re going to give it a bloody good go. Only DM’s and above are allowed to join in, which, while elitist, also means it’ll be a heap load of fun, as everyone is pretty skilled that has signed up. The rental regs are kinda gross though. I hate using rental regs, they always taste like shit and aren’t cleaned or maintained very well. On top of which, if someone has eaten something particularly smelly, especially garlicky, then the reg smells of that!! GROSS.

It’s funny, one of the key pieces of equipment for surviving underwater and people treat them like crap. Even the staff at the dive resorts. Although having said that, even though I take excellent care of mine, they are still getting a little bashed, mostly because instructors and students use my regs for set-up demonstrations occasionally and don’t take as much care as I would (I’m pointing my finger solely at Ban’s here, not Sunshine). It is kind of pissing me off actually. For certain sessions (i.e. pool sessions) I now take rental regs because I don’t want mine beaten up.

In celebration of the clean-up, Noé and Célia are having people around for dinner that evening. I’ll pre-eat, but the gesture is very very much appreciated. I think I will take a bottle of plonk from the wholesalers.

Did I tell you what befell Red Ted yet? Ted is funny bloke. Funny in both a ha ha and a “wow, he’s odd” way. Mostly the latter actually. Well we were playing volleyball the other night and he went to retrieve a wayward ball. He seemed to be taking an inordinate time, so I went around the bush that sits on the beach to see what he was doing. He was sitting on the ground bleeding profusely from his foot. He’d stood on what appeared to be a stick jutting out of the sand. It impaled the ball of his foot. It turned out to in fact be a metal spike. He was a bit of a girl about it, but we cleaned it out as best we could and stopped the bleeding. We poured hydrogen peroxide onto it and it seemed to do the job, but he got freaked and asked us to stop doing it. He went off to a first-aid clinic, where, they cleaned the puncture out a little more….how? Using hydrogen peroxide, that’s how.

Anyway, poor old Ted is now out of the water for the next little bit, effectively up until the time that he leaves. Sucks for him. Luckily, he only has one thing left to do for his DM, his mapping project. I plan on doing mine in the next few days, so perhaps I will team up with Aussie Andy (a friend of Ted’s) and get that out of the way too. Who knows, maybe Ted can use my map to finish things off.

And my missus comes over in a few days. I miss my pup, but at least I am getting half of the deal!! I have rewritten this sentence a couple of times. It is complimentary, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will take flak for it regardless.

Ahhh, time to finish my law school stuff and head off to exams….

I’ll be on in a little while….