So……I finished my first day of teaching an open water course….well, sort of….Rich is the lead instructor and I am assisting. But!! And this is a big But….not as in “I like big butts and I cannot lie”, but still a big but, I didn’t get to teach in the classroom, but I did get to teach in the confined portion of the pool. And it was hilarious….I had problems arise on a couple of the skills that were almost directly from the IDC course!!
Tomorrow we have our first open water dives. Surprisingly, I am not that worried, as the students are mostly confident and not too freaked out by the whole first-time scuba thing. My biggest concern is actually the DMT’s we have with us, as they seem half-arsed and not very attentive.
Other than that, not a crazy amount to blog on today. Danielle and I had brekkie at the Greasy Spoon (no, I will not go into the whole discussion of the Greasy Spoon being named the same thing that it is…). Then Danielle had a tough day at the spa that that the missus and I went to where they put the disgusting wrap on us (although she didn’t have the wrap).
Mine, as above, was spent at Ban’s teaching 11 people (two wusses dropped out) how to become open water confined divers.
Then home for a quick shower and down to Easy Bar. Danielle is now firmly ensconced at Sunshine. We’re in Café del Sol for a little internet time, then a cheap but yummy dinner at Tukta, then off to Sairee….I’m not drinking as I have to be at Ban’s for 7:30 a.m., but Australian Andy is doing his snorkel test tonight, so I have to be there to watch it. Jon has also asked us to swing by Chopper’s, but we’ll see.
On a couple of unrelated notes, I am actually really looking forward to getting home and normalcy now. I miss my home and creature comforts.
Also, I may have to up roots and run off to another part of Thailand at a moment’s notice. Turns out that something that happened a week ago, involving a friend of mine, is still causing trouble. They think I am partly liable, which I deny. I have advised them to find out how much the trouble will cost to go away. If it is minor, well then we can talk, but if the interested Thai’s get as greedy as I anticipate them being, then screw the remaining certs I need, I am bugging out…..
Anyway, I’ll fill in more as and when I can, but for now that’s all I can say.
Hasta manyana….
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
DG has landed...
Quick blog, because I am sitting here in Hippo, with the DG. She is stinky and a little tired, thus I will not be on long, to placate her growing anger.
DG thinks this is a terrible photograph. I think she is out to lunch. Heather, when you get here, please please please ask DG "what the fuck was with the photo of the day she arrived here and looked like ass".
Look at how angry the DG is:
Just kidding, she was deciding whether to order wine or her first samsong and coke bucket....
She got here around two-thirty, luckily just as I had a break between the last two of the MSDT courses. So she got a lovely trip to the Ban's bar, backpack and all to wait for me while I sat through the Digital Underwater Photography lesson (well on how to teach it anyway).
I would have been good to take her to Sunshine and get her sorted out and everything at about 5, but just as we were going into the lecture, I got asked to help out on an open water starting tomorrow....my first certs!! But it also unfortunately meant I had to attend the orientation as well tonight! So DG had to sit there for an hour longer.
And I have 13 students learning open water FROM ME?!?!?! starting tomorrow morning.
Anyway, we got DG's gear set in, she had her first poo with a plastic bag and the bucket (man, she has a stinky bum), and we got down to Sunshine to get her sorted out for tomorrow. Then a quick beer at Easy bar with Emily and Ben:
...and down to Sairee for El Gringo and apple crumble at Hippo's....mmmmm.
We're off for a couple of beers and then an early night....before I start the course in the morning, we have to make it to Greasy Spoon for brekkie and then get DG a moped.....
Until manyana, peeps....
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Bad Karma and intact eardrums
Brief morning blog (we start at 10 today, so I am having a relaxing morning).
First, I had an AWESOME night’s sleep….with the door wide-open and everything. I think it must have been the painkillers and other drug concoction that the nurse has me on. After being online last night, James came and sat down next to me in Café del Sol and told me there is a good clinic down by the Sunshine end of the island across from the 7-11. It was 9:00 p.m., but he said they’re open until ten. So I nipped down there. My biggest concern was that my eardrum may have perforated or have breached at some point.
I am now $20 lighter in the pocket, but feeling a little more reassured it hasn’t (a little, not a lot, because come on, let’s face it, it is a Thai nurse clinic on a small island in the Gulf of Thailand). But the nurse had a looksee in my ear and advised me I have a crap load of seawater stuck in my middle ear. To prevent the risk of infection, she has given me the Thai answer to life….antibiotics, as well as some Actifed (kind of like Sudafed) and some painkillers. I made her give me only two Actifed, as I can always find that stuff floating around the diveshops…..
As I am not diving today, let’s hope it all clears up by the morning…..I need to get going on my certs, especially if I want to enjoy any “fun” diving of my own before I leave!
Oh, as I was distracted yesterday, I forgot to mention. My vegetarian ways may have lapsed for a brief moment. No, don’t get excited you bunch of vampiric, vulture-like carnivores….I didn’t say I am now a meat eater. I became vegetarian because I don’t believe I need to have an animal killed to feed me. Now, please, everybody, I am not proselytizing, so do not jump up and down and go getting your knickers in a twist. No need for a debate on the whole subject. I mention my rationale simply because I purposefully killed a spider two nights ago. And by purposefully, I mean I took a big broom and smashed the living shit out of it.
I wouldn’t ordinarily kill a spider….in fact, much to the chagrin of the missus, there have been two big ‘uns living on my ceiling for the better part of two months. But these ones are small fly-catching critters with tiny bodies but long skinny skinny legs. They are good for the room. The one I killed, on the other hand, had legs thicker than a gecko’s and a body that could quite easily be one of a juvenile tarantula. This was your typical jungle ghetto spider. I swear, he was packing a piece. Anyway, he scared two tons of holy Jesus out of me and there was no way I could stay in the room knowing he might be lurking around somewhere.
So please, veggie spirits in the sky, forgive me. But it was him or me (fuck off, grammar Nazi’s, I know it should be “he or I”). I swear.
Ah well, just a brief update to let you know the eardrum is in tact and to get lots of fingers crossed so that I can dive tomorrow or the day after by the latest…..
Time to chill and enjoy my Americano, then off to school for the last day of classes…Yes!! And DG arrives at some point today…..DG sit tight at Café del Sol, I will be there as soon as I can….
First, I had an AWESOME night’s sleep….with the door wide-open and everything. I think it must have been the painkillers and other drug concoction that the nurse has me on. After being online last night, James came and sat down next to me in Café del Sol and told me there is a good clinic down by the Sunshine end of the island across from the 7-11. It was 9:00 p.m., but he said they’re open until ten. So I nipped down there. My biggest concern was that my eardrum may have perforated or have breached at some point.
I am now $20 lighter in the pocket, but feeling a little more reassured it hasn’t (a little, not a lot, because come on, let’s face it, it is a Thai nurse clinic on a small island in the Gulf of Thailand). But the nurse had a looksee in my ear and advised me I have a crap load of seawater stuck in my middle ear. To prevent the risk of infection, she has given me the Thai answer to life….antibiotics, as well as some Actifed (kind of like Sudafed) and some painkillers. I made her give me only two Actifed, as I can always find that stuff floating around the diveshops…..
As I am not diving today, let’s hope it all clears up by the morning…..I need to get going on my certs, especially if I want to enjoy any “fun” diving of my own before I leave!
Oh, as I was distracted yesterday, I forgot to mention. My vegetarian ways may have lapsed for a brief moment. No, don’t get excited you bunch of vampiric, vulture-like carnivores….I didn’t say I am now a meat eater. I became vegetarian because I don’t believe I need to have an animal killed to feed me. Now, please, everybody, I am not proselytizing, so do not jump up and down and go getting your knickers in a twist. No need for a debate on the whole subject. I mention my rationale simply because I purposefully killed a spider two nights ago. And by purposefully, I mean I took a big broom and smashed the living shit out of it.
I wouldn’t ordinarily kill a spider….in fact, much to the chagrin of the missus, there have been two big ‘uns living on my ceiling for the better part of two months. But these ones are small fly-catching critters with tiny bodies but long skinny skinny legs. They are good for the room. The one I killed, on the other hand, had legs thicker than a gecko’s and a body that could quite easily be one of a juvenile tarantula. This was your typical jungle ghetto spider. I swear, he was packing a piece. Anyway, he scared two tons of holy Jesus out of me and there was no way I could stay in the room knowing he might be lurking around somewhere.
So please, veggie spirits in the sky, forgive me. But it was him or me (fuck off, grammar Nazi’s, I know it should be “he or I”). I swear.
Ah well, just a brief update to let you know the eardrum is in tact and to get lots of fingers crossed so that I can dive tomorrow or the day after by the latest…..
Time to chill and enjoy my Americano, then off to school for the last day of classes…Yes!! And DG arrives at some point today…..DG sit tight at Café del Sol, I will be there as soon as I can….
24 Hours.....almost Bauer-style
A very mixed 24 hours.
A lot of bad, but a little bit of good. Let’s start with the good…..I am now officially teaching status. I sent an email yesterday evening to PADI Australia asking them to rush my instructor paperwork, because I am heading back on the 9th and need to get my 25 certs. A very nice lady by the name of Olivia Ingram, who helped me with my DM paperwork, emailed me today and let me know that she got it pushed through. So I am now 100% legit.
Other good news: had free food at Hippo’s last night as it was a celebration of their first year of business; I am now three quarters done on the MSDT course, barring the 25 certs on the internship; and, I am now also nitrox certified.
And now a host of bad news.
First, while enjoying the free food at Hippo, someone stole 1,500 baht from me (approximately $50-60). At least I think they stole the money. As the missus said, it might have fallen out of my pocket, but I find that strange because it hasn’t happened since I have been here. And the place was packed last night. Free food, advertised and passed on by word of mouth, on an island where almost all of the divemasters live hand-to-mouth. It was a zoo.
And as if that wasn’t enough to seriously piss me off last night, when I got home the Castle Party was in full swing. I tried watching the end of “I Am Legend” in the hopes that I would simply doze off, but nothing doing. Listened to my iPod, but kept getting woken up regardless. So I got about three hours sleep last night.
Hmmmm, what to address next? The crappy news or the potentially devastating news? Crappy, methinks. I have a suspicion that the milk I put on my muesli this morning was slightly off. I say this because by the time I got to Ban’s I had the runs. Which I didn’t have before. Two trips to the toilet at Ban’s in about 20 minutes….the only thing that stopped me from going all morning, was that I think I cleaned out the system on the two quick trips.
I still have a rumbly belly now. Not fun.
Ok, so leaving the best ‘til last, after our second dive this afternoon, I surfaced with an incredible earache. Like the water in my ear wouldn’t drain out. I tried putting warm water in my ear on the boat and I tried getting the bubble to pop using a gentle valsalva manoeuvre (where you pinch your nose and blow with your mouth closed). Nothing worked. I tried shaking my head with my right ear toward the ground (the right ear being the one with the issue). I got off the boat with the ear still being a pain in the arse. In fact, I got off the speedboat back at Ban’s with the ear still being so much of a problem that I didn’t have a good sense of balance and fell over as I jumped to the sand.
I got home, lay down (with the affected ear facing down) and fell asleep. After getting up, I felt worse than before. My ear now positively throbs, I am slightly dizzy and I am experiencing mild vertigo, loss of balance and a feeling like I am walking on a rocky boat, despite the fact I am sitting stock-still. I’ve mentioned before the sensation of feeling as though the room is moving as a result of rough seas, but the ocean was once again mirror-like today, so it isn’t that. I know that being tired from yesterday isn’t helping, but damn.
Having gone over my rescue diver skills repeatedly for the DM course and the IDC, I am quite concerned. There are a number of possibilities:
1) Worst-case scenario: I ruptured my round window (a membrane in the middle ear that leads to the inner ear). This would result in absolute disorientation, massive pain and a complete loss of balance. So I don’t think it is this.
2) I burst my eardrum. Not as bad as a round window rupture, but would still be shitty, particularly as it would likely mean that I couldn’t dive again before I leave. A ruptured eardrum fixes itself, so this is not as bad as 1), although it does make that ear more prone to future rupture.
3) I have water stuck in my ear. This is quite possible, because when I make gentle valsalva’s I can hear a sucking noise quite clearly. If I had done either 1 or 2, I think that doing a valsalva manoeuvre would likely make me pass out. If this is the problem, hopefully a day off diving will cure the issue (tomorrow we do our equipment specialty, so there is no diving). Poking around at my ear and trying gentle valsalva’s may have actually irritated the ear, causing the discomfort I am currently experiencing.
4) I have an ear infection (which would again be affected by the dicking around on the boat), but I think this is also likely not the cause, because the discomfort began immediately after the last dive.
Anyway, a crappy end to a shite 24 hour period (with the absolutely positive exception that I received my teaching status) and let’s keep our fingers crossed that my ear issue resolves itself. I will not be a happy camper if I managed to get my teaching status fast only to not be able to get the 25 required certs because now I cannot dive for the remainder of my time here. It will also suck that I will not be able to go for a dive at all with Gaudette or Heather if that is the case.
Damn. Unhappily signing off for today.
A lot of bad, but a little bit of good. Let’s start with the good…..I am now officially teaching status. I sent an email yesterday evening to PADI Australia asking them to rush my instructor paperwork, because I am heading back on the 9th and need to get my 25 certs. A very nice lady by the name of Olivia Ingram, who helped me with my DM paperwork, emailed me today and let me know that she got it pushed through. So I am now 100% legit.
Other good news: had free food at Hippo’s last night as it was a celebration of their first year of business; I am now three quarters done on the MSDT course, barring the 25 certs on the internship; and, I am now also nitrox certified.
And now a host of bad news.
First, while enjoying the free food at Hippo, someone stole 1,500 baht from me (approximately $50-60). At least I think they stole the money. As the missus said, it might have fallen out of my pocket, but I find that strange because it hasn’t happened since I have been here. And the place was packed last night. Free food, advertised and passed on by word of mouth, on an island where almost all of the divemasters live hand-to-mouth. It was a zoo.
And as if that wasn’t enough to seriously piss me off last night, when I got home the Castle Party was in full swing. I tried watching the end of “I Am Legend” in the hopes that I would simply doze off, but nothing doing. Listened to my iPod, but kept getting woken up regardless. So I got about three hours sleep last night.
Hmmmm, what to address next? The crappy news or the potentially devastating news? Crappy, methinks. I have a suspicion that the milk I put on my muesli this morning was slightly off. I say this because by the time I got to Ban’s I had the runs. Which I didn’t have before. Two trips to the toilet at Ban’s in about 20 minutes….the only thing that stopped me from going all morning, was that I think I cleaned out the system on the two quick trips.
I still have a rumbly belly now. Not fun.
Ok, so leaving the best ‘til last, after our second dive this afternoon, I surfaced with an incredible earache. Like the water in my ear wouldn’t drain out. I tried putting warm water in my ear on the boat and I tried getting the bubble to pop using a gentle valsalva manoeuvre (where you pinch your nose and blow with your mouth closed). Nothing worked. I tried shaking my head with my right ear toward the ground (the right ear being the one with the issue). I got off the boat with the ear still being a pain in the arse. In fact, I got off the speedboat back at Ban’s with the ear still being so much of a problem that I didn’t have a good sense of balance and fell over as I jumped to the sand.
I got home, lay down (with the affected ear facing down) and fell asleep. After getting up, I felt worse than before. My ear now positively throbs, I am slightly dizzy and I am experiencing mild vertigo, loss of balance and a feeling like I am walking on a rocky boat, despite the fact I am sitting stock-still. I’ve mentioned before the sensation of feeling as though the room is moving as a result of rough seas, but the ocean was once again mirror-like today, so it isn’t that. I know that being tired from yesterday isn’t helping, but damn.
Having gone over my rescue diver skills repeatedly for the DM course and the IDC, I am quite concerned. There are a number of possibilities:
1) Worst-case scenario: I ruptured my round window (a membrane in the middle ear that leads to the inner ear). This would result in absolute disorientation, massive pain and a complete loss of balance. So I don’t think it is this.
2) I burst my eardrum. Not as bad as a round window rupture, but would still be shitty, particularly as it would likely mean that I couldn’t dive again before I leave. A ruptured eardrum fixes itself, so this is not as bad as 1), although it does make that ear more prone to future rupture.
3) I have water stuck in my ear. This is quite possible, because when I make gentle valsalva’s I can hear a sucking noise quite clearly. If I had done either 1 or 2, I think that doing a valsalva manoeuvre would likely make me pass out. If this is the problem, hopefully a day off diving will cure the issue (tomorrow we do our equipment specialty, so there is no diving). Poking around at my ear and trying gentle valsalva’s may have actually irritated the ear, causing the discomfort I am currently experiencing.
4) I have an ear infection (which would again be affected by the dicking around on the boat), but I think this is also likely not the cause, because the discomfort began immediately after the last dive.
Anyway, a crappy end to a shite 24 hour period (with the absolutely positive exception that I received my teaching status) and let’s keep our fingers crossed that my ear issue resolves itself. I will not be a happy camper if I managed to get my teaching status fast only to not be able to get the 25 required certs because now I cannot dive for the remainder of my time here. It will also suck that I will not be able to go for a dive at all with Gaudette or Heather if that is the case.
Damn. Unhappily signing off for today.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Deepest Dive to date....
We finally got to see the video from the IDC yesterday….quite amusing. Some of you, but only a very select few, may even get a chance to glimpse the video when I get back…..they threw in the video for free as part of the price of the IDC….”free” being contextual, methinks.
But it was a good chance for the IDC group to band together again for a beer and a laugh. It has only been a few days since we finished, but it’s odd….more than a few of us feel nostalgic already, as though it has been an age. We even have a facebook group and for god’s sake, more than half of us are doing the MSDT together, but still, there was almost a sense of melancholy yesterday evening.
Followed by a bitterly early start to the day again. We had to be at the Trident boat for 7:30 a.m., which isn’t really that bad because whenever I was doing anything at Sunshine in the morning, it was a 6:45 or 7:00 a.m. start. But I couldn’t get to sleep last night and then I was woken again early this morning by some non-descript noise that sufficed to rouse me from my short-lived slumber.
Oh. I watched two-thirds of “I Am Legend” last night. We have already been warned about the movie and the particularly devastating scene involving Will Smith and his doggie. Well, a word of repeated warning to the missus….don’t watch the movie!!! I almost stopped watching last night at that scene. Sure, call me a pussy if you want, but I became a veggie for a reason and seeing that scene broke my heart. And left me with a horrible longing for my puppy.
I mean, sure, I have Red and Spot here (and a gross happening this afternoon…..lying on my hammock and spot comes over….I tickle the top of her head like I ordinarily do and she damn well spews on my arm! Not puke, but a long stream of disgusting spit and bits…nasty!!), but its not the same as my girl. Damn sentimental fool that is Chris.
Anyway, enough moping. Off to the Trident this morning at 7:30 a.m. for a repeat visit to the Unicorn. This time with my fellow MSDT’s, as seen here in the photo that was taken yesterday:
But it was a good chance for the IDC group to band together again for a beer and a laugh. It has only been a few days since we finished, but it’s odd….more than a few of us feel nostalgic already, as though it has been an age. We even have a facebook group and for god’s sake, more than half of us are doing the MSDT together, but still, there was almost a sense of melancholy yesterday evening.
Followed by a bitterly early start to the day again. We had to be at the Trident boat for 7:30 a.m., which isn’t really that bad because whenever I was doing anything at Sunshine in the morning, it was a 6:45 or 7:00 a.m. start. But I couldn’t get to sleep last night and then I was woken again early this morning by some non-descript noise that sufficed to rouse me from my short-lived slumber.
Oh. I watched two-thirds of “I Am Legend” last night. We have already been warned about the movie and the particularly devastating scene involving Will Smith and his doggie. Well, a word of repeated warning to the missus….don’t watch the movie!!! I almost stopped watching last night at that scene. Sure, call me a pussy if you want, but I became a veggie for a reason and seeing that scene broke my heart. And left me with a horrible longing for my puppy.
I mean, sure, I have Red and Spot here (and a gross happening this afternoon…..lying on my hammock and spot comes over….I tickle the top of her head like I ordinarily do and she damn well spews on my arm! Not puke, but a long stream of disgusting spit and bits…nasty!!), but its not the same as my girl. Damn sentimental fool that is Chris.
Anyway, enough moping. Off to the Trident this morning at 7:30 a.m. for a repeat visit to the Unicorn. This time with my fellow MSDT’s, as seen here in the photo that was taken yesterday:
This trip wasn’t simply to have a fun deep dive, but was instead in furtherance of our learning all about the joys of wreck diving. Of course, we couldn’t see shit, but now we know how to teach young’ uns about diving to wrecks safely. Actually, I am being a bit harsh, the viz was a lot better today than it was last time….at the actual wreck itself the viz was about 5m or so. Which may not sound like much, but given what it was like last time, this was miles and miles of vision.The group was split into five groups who all went down with different leaders (from the Trident crew and then Jonas and another Ban’s guy called Rich). James and I went down with Jonas. You have to laugh…..Rich was talking to Stu, one of the Trident guys, in between the two dives about protocols and dive profiles for the second dive. He asked first about the depth. Stu tells him that we’ll be following the same dive profile, but not be going below 42m this time, like we should have been doing on the first time. James and I, following our intrepid dive guru, actually hit 48.7m on the first dive. Admittedly we were slipping and sliding around in pure goop to do so, but still….ooops. Then Stu says … “and keep an eye on the wreck…”. Ok, so Jonas may or may not have lost the wreck momentarily on the first dive, while we were digging in at 48.7m. It was a little hilarious to spot him looking around and not being able to find a bloody big wreck in the gloaming….especially because I could see it’s huge bulk sitting shadowy directly behind him. Still, he found it again, so no harm, no foul right? Then Stu answers a question posed to him by Rich … “no, you shouldn’t use the oxygen bar unless your guys are really out of air…they’re not trained for it see….” ….and there was Jonas egging James and me on to give the pure O2 a blast on the first dive for shits and giggles….
Second dive went even further. We hit 49.8m (163 feet). And then Jonas couldn’t find the anchor line tied to the top of the mast…..we were at the rear mast….I had a good laugh underwater and we surfaced safely (how could we not with a 20 minute deco stop at 5 metres). Having said that, of all of the people I know who I have dived with now, there are only three people I would trust 100% implicitly because of their outstanding dive skills: my business partner, Peter, Tim and Jonas. Jon and Noé come close, but I don’t know what they would be like under more strenuous circumstances.
All in all, a relaxing day out on the Trident boat. We got back pretty early too…by three….enough time for me to clean my porch, hang my hammock back up (I had it cleaned a couple of days ago), wash my gear and leave it to dry on my porch while I had a snooze. It’s only now just turned five and I have been idling away here at Café del Sol for at least forty minutes.
Here’s the boys out on the Trident:
And a couple of gratuitous shots that Pierre insisted I take yesterday of him diving off the Ban’s boat.
Anyway, got to email PADI to hassle them in to getting my teaching status here fast and then I’ve a few errands to run before it is free food night at Hippo’s!! (their anniversary or something)…..tomorrow….photography and nitrox……later, skaters…. Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Aussie Day and Deep Diving Terrors...
First off, let me apologize for the fact that today’s story will not include the photographs I took purposefully to post today, as I am a complete idiot (yeah, yeah, you already knew), so you will have to wait until tomorrow to get the pictures meant to have been posted today.
Oh and thanks one and all for the warm and fuzzies you sent to me regarding my having successfully sat the IE’s.
This morning was probably the roughest I have had since being here. Bloody awful. We started the MSDT course (Master Scuba Diver Trainer ….meaning once I have completed this, I will be able to teach a number of specialty courses to divers) at 9:00 a.m. I barely made it there and couldn’t lift my head from the desk for the first hour or so. Despite three coffees and buckets of water.
Why?
Because yesterday was Australia Day, that’s why. There are quite a few Aussies here. And quite a few more people who are willing to celebrate Australia Day with them, despite not really giving a flying hoot about Australia.
I had no intention of being one of them, having been on two fun dives in the afternoon with Noé and Célia, then joining Jon as he led some advanced students on a night dive and especially because I was going to be starting the MSDT course today. But, I decided to pop down to Chopper’s (it being an Aussie bar and all), because the pre-Chopper’s party had taken place at Ban’s bar, Fishbowl and a number of people had asked me to pop down for at least a drink. So, I get there and Ben, a DM at Sunshine (and Emily’s beau and a really nice guy from Oz, no less) spies me and yells me over to where he, Emily and Marc (a Dutch DM from Sunshine) are standing. I get over there and am swamped by Andy (a boatmaster from Bans), May (another DM from Sunshine) and Pierre (previously mentioned from the IDC). Because Pierre, who is shirtless and already extremely sweaty (the temperature in the bar was sweltering with so many people packed in it), hugs me, suddenly all of the other Scando’s (Scandinavians) all come up and are also patting me on the shoulder and being most welcoming.
Everybody is already very merry (understandable, I guess, because they had been drinking all day and it was 9:15 p.m. by the time I got there…having gotten back from the night dive just after 8:00, washing my gear and showering and then heading down). Ben thrusts two beers into my hands and then Marc does the same about five minutes later. I buy a round to show my appreciation for their generosity and then Andy comes over with a beer for me as well. I’ve been there twenty-five minutes and finished off six beers.
There’s the usual two guys there doing a show (singing) and the whole bar is singing along. When suddenly they announce that for the next two hours it is two-for-one bundy’s and coke at the bar. This means shit all to me, but I am guessing it is some kind of alcohol. Ben gets super-excited. He rushes over to the already-teeming bar and then waves me over. He has bought eight of these drinks. Turns out that “Bundy” is Bundeberg rum. He foists two on me and then gets me to carry another couple over to Marc. Then Marc buys a round of ten. So, I buy a round of ten (well, five, but you know what I mean, 2-for-1 etc.). There are three of us drinking these things. We’re getting shit-faced. The party moves up to the second floor, which is where they usually play movies. It is like a night club for Australia Day. The Scando’s have taken over one area of the entire floor, May is now go-go-dancing over on a beam, Andy is with an extremely drunk bunch of Ban’s DM’s who are falling over and getting filthy and Ben walks back over with yet another shit load of drinks. I started losing count around this point. All I can say is that I drank in excess of 12 of these drinks, plus the beers that started it all off.
Oh, shit. No, it’s coming back to me. It was certainly in excess of 12, because at some point I was drinking gin and minaows and then somehow it switched to gin and tonics. Crap….and there were at least one or two vodka redbulls (the crazy fucked up Thai version of redbull, also known internationally as paint thinner), because Ben had switched to these at some point and then wanted me to have some.
God…..my memory is returning as I write this and I am already feeling drunk again just at the memories….I also did three or so shots of something disgusting and had to down, well, if you can call it “downing” when you suck and entire drink up through a straw, a couple of drinks, because this bartender insisted on me doing a shot to match her and then the drinks each time I went to the bar.
Anyway, I was slaughtered by the time I left and got home. In fact, so much so that I woke up this morning with a head like a piñata that has been completely brutalized by a Kray Twin for shits and giggles and called the missus. I told her that I had finally gotten as drunk as I had expected to at the IE party and that I may have spent a wee bit of cash. Lee then told me that she knew, because I had called her when I got home from Chopper’s. This was the second call.
Yep. That drunk. Heather…..Chris was tanked.
A bloody good time, but possibly not the best option when the first day of the MSDT turned out to be all about deep diving. 40 metres of deep diving (130 feet). The morning was spent watching yet another awful PADI video and filling in paperwork and then getting some advice on how to best organize a deep diving specialty course. Throughout the entire time my head was pounding.
And I already knew we were going to Chumphon for the deep dive. I actually like diving Chumphon (its where I get to see the sharks), but it is also the one dive site in particular that has the choppiest sea-sickness-inducing journey to reach it. Luckily today the ocean was a flat as a pancake. And, finally by 1:30 p.m. I was feeling more human.
The deep dive was actually quite freaky, because a massive thermocline has been sitting over Chumphon for a couple of days (as I discovered yesterday on the fun dive with Noé and Célia…..it wasn’t a problem yesterday, because it actually made for an awesome visual with remarkably clear (if cold) water above 18 metres and thousands of fish basking in the sun with a blanket of silt below ….. it was like the fish were floating above the clouds….seriously cool image). But we had to go down to about 40 metres for the dive. So we descended into the murk. In all of the crappy viz I have experienced here, this was beyond anything else. I couldn’t see my own hands unless I held them in front of my face. That’s how limited the viz was and at depth too. We virtually had to have our regs touching the fins of the diver in front to keep in contact.
And a couple of the guys got pretty narced, which made it quite funny to see people freak out. Well, not see them until after we got clear of the silt cloud, but you could tell they had been weirded out of their heads by the wide eyes.
Tomorrow I go out on the Trident again with the MSDT group (there are seven of us, which you’ll see if I remember to bring the camera tomorrow). A whole day on the boat. It’s an even deeper dive then the one we did today, but we’re not doing it as a deep dive, but as a wreck dive so that I can start teaching wreck diving. Two more days after for the MSDT course (where I will be doing nitrox, underwater digital photography and equipment). Then I have to try and get my teaching status affirmed uber-fast so that I can get my 25 certifications before I bugger off.
Anyway, off to Ban’s right now to watch the video from our IDC….should be fun….until tomorrow night kiddies…..
Oh and thanks one and all for the warm and fuzzies you sent to me regarding my having successfully sat the IE’s.
This morning was probably the roughest I have had since being here. Bloody awful. We started the MSDT course (Master Scuba Diver Trainer ….meaning once I have completed this, I will be able to teach a number of specialty courses to divers) at 9:00 a.m. I barely made it there and couldn’t lift my head from the desk for the first hour or so. Despite three coffees and buckets of water.
Why?
Because yesterday was Australia Day, that’s why. There are quite a few Aussies here. And quite a few more people who are willing to celebrate Australia Day with them, despite not really giving a flying hoot about Australia.
I had no intention of being one of them, having been on two fun dives in the afternoon with Noé and Célia, then joining Jon as he led some advanced students on a night dive and especially because I was going to be starting the MSDT course today. But, I decided to pop down to Chopper’s (it being an Aussie bar and all), because the pre-Chopper’s party had taken place at Ban’s bar, Fishbowl and a number of people had asked me to pop down for at least a drink. So, I get there and Ben, a DM at Sunshine (and Emily’s beau and a really nice guy from Oz, no less) spies me and yells me over to where he, Emily and Marc (a Dutch DM from Sunshine) are standing. I get over there and am swamped by Andy (a boatmaster from Bans), May (another DM from Sunshine) and Pierre (previously mentioned from the IDC). Because Pierre, who is shirtless and already extremely sweaty (the temperature in the bar was sweltering with so many people packed in it), hugs me, suddenly all of the other Scando’s (Scandinavians) all come up and are also patting me on the shoulder and being most welcoming.
Everybody is already very merry (understandable, I guess, because they had been drinking all day and it was 9:15 p.m. by the time I got there…having gotten back from the night dive just after 8:00, washing my gear and showering and then heading down). Ben thrusts two beers into my hands and then Marc does the same about five minutes later. I buy a round to show my appreciation for their generosity and then Andy comes over with a beer for me as well. I’ve been there twenty-five minutes and finished off six beers.
There’s the usual two guys there doing a show (singing) and the whole bar is singing along. When suddenly they announce that for the next two hours it is two-for-one bundy’s and coke at the bar. This means shit all to me, but I am guessing it is some kind of alcohol. Ben gets super-excited. He rushes over to the already-teeming bar and then waves me over. He has bought eight of these drinks. Turns out that “Bundy” is Bundeberg rum. He foists two on me and then gets me to carry another couple over to Marc. Then Marc buys a round of ten. So, I buy a round of ten (well, five, but you know what I mean, 2-for-1 etc.). There are three of us drinking these things. We’re getting shit-faced. The party moves up to the second floor, which is where they usually play movies. It is like a night club for Australia Day. The Scando’s have taken over one area of the entire floor, May is now go-go-dancing over on a beam, Andy is with an extremely drunk bunch of Ban’s DM’s who are falling over and getting filthy and Ben walks back over with yet another shit load of drinks. I started losing count around this point. All I can say is that I drank in excess of 12 of these drinks, plus the beers that started it all off.
Oh, shit. No, it’s coming back to me. It was certainly in excess of 12, because at some point I was drinking gin and minaows and then somehow it switched to gin and tonics. Crap….and there were at least one or two vodka redbulls (the crazy fucked up Thai version of redbull, also known internationally as paint thinner), because Ben had switched to these at some point and then wanted me to have some.
God…..my memory is returning as I write this and I am already feeling drunk again just at the memories….I also did three or so shots of something disgusting and had to down, well, if you can call it “downing” when you suck and entire drink up through a straw, a couple of drinks, because this bartender insisted on me doing a shot to match her and then the drinks each time I went to the bar.
Anyway, I was slaughtered by the time I left and got home. In fact, so much so that I woke up this morning with a head like a piñata that has been completely brutalized by a Kray Twin for shits and giggles and called the missus. I told her that I had finally gotten as drunk as I had expected to at the IE party and that I may have spent a wee bit of cash. Lee then told me that she knew, because I had called her when I got home from Chopper’s. This was the second call.
Yep. That drunk. Heather…..Chris was tanked.
A bloody good time, but possibly not the best option when the first day of the MSDT turned out to be all about deep diving. 40 metres of deep diving (130 feet). The morning was spent watching yet another awful PADI video and filling in paperwork and then getting some advice on how to best organize a deep diving specialty course. Throughout the entire time my head was pounding.
And I already knew we were going to Chumphon for the deep dive. I actually like diving Chumphon (its where I get to see the sharks), but it is also the one dive site in particular that has the choppiest sea-sickness-inducing journey to reach it. Luckily today the ocean was a flat as a pancake. And, finally by 1:30 p.m. I was feeling more human.
The deep dive was actually quite freaky, because a massive thermocline has been sitting over Chumphon for a couple of days (as I discovered yesterday on the fun dive with Noé and Célia…..it wasn’t a problem yesterday, because it actually made for an awesome visual with remarkably clear (if cold) water above 18 metres and thousands of fish basking in the sun with a blanket of silt below ….. it was like the fish were floating above the clouds….seriously cool image). But we had to go down to about 40 metres for the dive. So we descended into the murk. In all of the crappy viz I have experienced here, this was beyond anything else. I couldn’t see my own hands unless I held them in front of my face. That’s how limited the viz was and at depth too. We virtually had to have our regs touching the fins of the diver in front to keep in contact.
And a couple of the guys got pretty narced, which made it quite funny to see people freak out. Well, not see them until after we got clear of the silt cloud, but you could tell they had been weirded out of their heads by the wide eyes.
Tomorrow I go out on the Trident again with the MSDT group (there are seven of us, which you’ll see if I remember to bring the camera tomorrow). A whole day on the boat. It’s an even deeper dive then the one we did today, but we’re not doing it as a deep dive, but as a wreck dive so that I can start teaching wreck diving. Two more days after for the MSDT course (where I will be doing nitrox, underwater digital photography and equipment). Then I have to try and get my teaching status affirmed uber-fast so that I can get my 25 certifications before I bugger off.
Anyway, off to Ban’s right now to watch the video from our IDC….should be fun….until tomorrow night kiddies…..
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The resurrection!
Ok, it’s only 9:00 a.m. and I am sitting at Greasy Spoon (no, it is actually called “Greasy Spoon”, I mean it is a greasy spoon, but it is also called that….very greasy, yum) waiting for a nice full spread English breakfast – veggie style. I know, I know, you are wondering why I am up so early….and you’re thinking, “ah, he’s having a bog greasy breakfast to get over the incurable hangover he is presently suffering from”. Well, no, actually, I am at the Greasy Spoon because I just went for a run and I feel like splurging a little. “A run?!?!?…what the hell kind of a party could it have been for the man to be up in the morning and running???”, I hear you mutter (under your breath, no doubt, because you don’t want to sound too harsh and judgmental).
As it turns out, the party was fine, but part way through I had one of those awful drinking moments….the kind, in fact, that makes Heather wake up sheathed in a sheen of cold fear and sweat….I sobered up in the midst of drinking. I was drinking like a champ, but suddenly….no effect!!
In fact, Noé and Célia did their level-best to make sure as I was going to be as tanked as Heather usually is on a Tuesday evening….Pierre made the massive mistake of announcing that he had never actually done his ….ooooooh, wait a sec…back in a mo, just going to demolish these oh-so-inviting hash browns….ha…and wait…it never fails to make me smile when I see three Thai guys trundle past on a clapped-out moped, with the two passengers firmly clamping chickens under each arm….anyway, where was I, now that I have finished my scrumptious repast…..oh, yes, so yesterday Pierre foolishly tells everyone that he dodged his snorkel test when he became a DM. And then Laura chimes in that she never even heard of a snorkel test!! Well, the scene was set, the players primed, it had to happen!!
I went down to Sunshine after my slightly-tipsy internet session yesterday and rummaged around trying to find the snorkel sets for the snorkel test (they’re normally old and slightly broken masks, with a non-purge-valve old snorkel attached and then a bottle is taped to the top of the snorkel with it’s bottom cut off). Turns out that Joe threw them out just the day before. So, Joe rummages in the garbage and pulls out the two snorkel test snorkels…..they’re disgusting….I mean, really disgusting….covered in slime and gross shit and a bunch of ash and sand. We do our best to clean them, but there is crap in every place that is almost impossible to simply rinse off. So I take them home, disassemble them and clean each and every component. How nice am I in the pursuit of getting others hammered??? I know, St. Christobel of the Blessed Tankedness!!
I re-tape the snorkels and they’re all set. Head down to Nelly’s after a wee snooze. Noé and Célia are there and we enjoy a couple of hop-flavoured bevies while we wait for the rest of the crowd to turn up. Noé has a wicked glint in his eye….kind of like that man in the shadows with a gun in his eye and the blade shining oh so bright (Booyaa, try and spot that oblique reference you sons of a gun)…….and then he says seven words that sends a wave of pure terror down my spine to erupt in a million goose-bumps all along my arms….”we have a surprise for you later”. I start panicking. Anything offered by Noé is usually akin to the Chinese finger-trap.
As it turns out, the party was fine, but part way through I had one of those awful drinking moments….the kind, in fact, that makes Heather wake up sheathed in a sheen of cold fear and sweat….I sobered up in the midst of drinking. I was drinking like a champ, but suddenly….no effect!!
In fact, Noé and Célia did their level-best to make sure as I was going to be as tanked as Heather usually is on a Tuesday evening….Pierre made the massive mistake of announcing that he had never actually done his ….ooooooh, wait a sec…back in a mo, just going to demolish these oh-so-inviting hash browns….ha…and wait…it never fails to make me smile when I see three Thai guys trundle past on a clapped-out moped, with the two passengers firmly clamping chickens under each arm….anyway, where was I, now that I have finished my scrumptious repast…..oh, yes, so yesterday Pierre foolishly tells everyone that he dodged his snorkel test when he became a DM. And then Laura chimes in that she never even heard of a snorkel test!! Well, the scene was set, the players primed, it had to happen!!
I went down to Sunshine after my slightly-tipsy internet session yesterday and rummaged around trying to find the snorkel sets for the snorkel test (they’re normally old and slightly broken masks, with a non-purge-valve old snorkel attached and then a bottle is taped to the top of the snorkel with it’s bottom cut off). Turns out that Joe threw them out just the day before. So, Joe rummages in the garbage and pulls out the two snorkel test snorkels…..they’re disgusting….I mean, really disgusting….covered in slime and gross shit and a bunch of ash and sand. We do our best to clean them, but there is crap in every place that is almost impossible to simply rinse off. So I take them home, disassemble them and clean each and every component. How nice am I in the pursuit of getting others hammered??? I know, St. Christobel of the Blessed Tankedness!!
I re-tape the snorkels and they’re all set. Head down to Nelly’s after a wee snooze. Noé and Célia are there and we enjoy a couple of hop-flavoured bevies while we wait for the rest of the crowd to turn up. Noé has a wicked glint in his eye….kind of like that man in the shadows with a gun in his eye and the blade shining oh so bright (Booyaa, try and spot that oblique reference you sons of a gun)…….and then he says seven words that sends a wave of pure terror down my spine to erupt in a million goose-bumps all along my arms….”we have a surprise for you later”. I start panicking. Anything offered by Noé is usually akin to the Chinese finger-trap.
But I put it aside with a nervous chuckle and we get back to drinking. Jon turns up and the mood is once more jovial: 
Pierre, James and Laura turn up. Jonas turns up. The stage is ready. Jonas starts getting the bar guys to mix up the buckets for Laura and Pierre. “Ha ha ha”, I giggle out loud, “Pierre, eat hearty, my Lebanese-French-sounding-Swedish meatball, for the pain shall be immense and a wee soul like you shall need a base from which to puke”. Pierre turns green and wets himself. Muwhahahaha, I evilly laugh…..and turn around…..wait….what’s this? There are three buckets!! But only two people are doing the buckets!!“Mais, non!”, says my French-speaking Swiss kompis, Noé, “wee hav discofurred that yew hav not done zee snorkel test, Christoph!!”. “It’s a lie”, I lie, “I did mine with Natalie and Tim when those Canadian guys were here and we played beer pong!”
“Le bullsheet”, says Noé, “the Natalie wood hav said sumtheeng”. Before I can protest further, Noé calls Tim (awfully bloody rude…the fellow is on holiday for Lord’s sake in Cambodia with his daddy!!). Tim, the traitorous, treacherous arsehole that he is, completely denies that I did a snorkel-test that night of the beer pong. Ok, it’s true, I didn’t, but man, us Canadians should have each other’s backs!! Particularly when he is almost like family!!
“I gotta go to the loo”, I lie….and run like buggery. It avails me not, for the Alpen-munching toblerone-loving motherfucker follows me into the can. I take a longggggggg laborious fake-pee. Noé is momentarily distracted, so I see my chance and make a break for it.
I make it to the pier.
I hide and after a moment, non-chalantly stroll back towards the bar to snatch my moped and get out of Dodge. I call the missus to tell her of my close call when….SMACK!! I walk around the corner to find Jon waiting for me full of glee that he has found the AWOL member of Team Get-Shitfaced. “Come on, son”, he says in an almost fatherly way (despite being almost ten years younger than me, he always has this very comforting parental-aura to him, on any other occasion I would have smiled and thought about how odd that actually is, but this time I simply whimper), “you have to face the music”. He takes my arm and steers me back to the scene of infamy, Oh-Deathly-Nelly’s.
“But, but, but….I am on the phone to my missus…it’s long-distance….it’s to Canada!!”, I plea and beg. “Hello Lee”, captain Jon says close to the mouthpiece, “Chris has to go. We’re about to fuck him up”.
“Go ahead”, says the missus, “give him hell”.
“But Honey”, I beseech her, “please, make them stop”. The line goes dead.
I am on my own.
The condemned is led to the gallows…being the outside bar at Nelly’s. “May God have mercy on his soul”, I hear some meek onlooker murmur as I pass them by. A tear descends my cheek.
“Dead man walking”, chant a couple of ghouls here for the macabre show.
I am made to sit on the gallows/bar with my fellow condemned, Barabbas and that other thief no one names.... (ok, Pierre and Laura).
I suddenly am seized by a new panic…..yes, I may have cleaned the snorkels, but man, seriously, the shit they were in was really really gross….I’m gonna catch something if I drink out of one of those……and then my hangman/executioner/Father Death/Noé shows one last touch of sympathy and mercy…..and produces a third snorkel test set made from his and Célia’s own scuba gear. But, they have put the snorkel on the wrong side!! And so in a sick show of ghastly proportions, I am made to fix my own instrument of execution!!
My head is cranked back and the juices begin to flow down the tube and into my body….
Now knowing what it is to be state-sponsored euthanized(big shout out to the Texas kin on that note!!)/drowned, I make one last goodbye to my missus, my puppy and my mum….but wait!! What is this?? I breathe still!! Yes, I survived!! You know what they say when someone is hanged and the noose breaks…they’re free!!And so I find a reprieve….sure, I feel sick as a dog for a few minutes after downing a litre and a bit of whisky and diet coke and sputum and pubes and whatever else was in that semi-organic and wholly disgusting concoction, but I am alive!!
Pierre concurs......
Which is why it is completely perplexing why after that and the multiple beers and gin and lemony-stuff (minau or something like that) drinks I consumed post-failed execution I suddenly sober up sometime around midnight. I tried, people, I tried….but my alcoholic ways have made me inured to long slow drinking sessions!!The end is nigh, my children, the end is nigh. Pray to your gods….all three hundred thousand of them and make amends for your wicked ways. Now is the end of days….Chris can’t get drunk!! Heather….you know your mission when you get here. Oh, our-Tankéd friend, only you can save the world as we now know it!!
That's Mr. Instructor, Sir!!
Fuck it!! I am a goddamn diving instructor!! No, scratch that. Peter and I are now the best goddamn fucking diving instructors in Canada!!! Yes, I do indeed rock.
Today was the confined portion and the Sunshine/Bans crew simply waltzed through that charade of skill. We taught the damn examiners a thing or two, we were so bloody good. Oh yeah, look out world, we’re on the warpath.
And slightly tipsy already. We had to wait an age for the group ahead of us comprised of a bunch of dumbfucks, so even though we were scheduled to start at 9, we didn’t get in the water until about 10:30. It pissed it down most of the time we huddled under cover. Well, except for the few minutes immediately after we got there, when a few people were a little stressed:
Oh and James, Captain Doorknob for today, forgot to bring a weight belt: 
Moshe was very serious before the confined session: 
Until we told him a hot Israeli girl was coming to the IE party and would only sleep with him if he passed: 
Here’s the Sunshine/Bans guys having completed the IE and received our certificates….with the PADI examiners, George and Thomas: 
And celebrating briefly afterwards with Jonas and Texas Mike (a foretaste of what is to come in a few hours): 
Noé needed it bad: 
Célia after one beer: 
Me after five:
Our Course Director and Course Director-to-be glad to have got our motley crew through:
Ok, so now I have been in Café Del Sol for a few hours catching up on shit. I have sobered up a little. But I am quite concerned about tonight….I already had a few and I think tonight I am going to be fucked up. I will have to try and remember, in my drunken state not to grab hold of any snakes on the way to Chez Chris.
I will definitely try and take some photos tonight, but I am worried about having a camera in such an inebriated state! Especially as both Pierre and Laura admitted to never having done a snorkel test before! I am off to Sunshine momentarily to pick up the snorkel. It will get messy. Best just let it lie low that I also haven’t done it…..what they don’t know won’t hurt.
Anyway, short blog, because I have to piss off if I want to get a couple of things done and have a wee snooze.
Later, my peeps……signed, Instructor Chris…..
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Snakes, IE's and a Premiere for Chrisinkohtao!!!
Big news today, I almost bitch-slapped a snake. Seriously. And it scared the living shit out of me (sorry, Stone, but it did). I came down the back stairs below the “student housing” (the strip of rooms where the poorer Sunshiners live … ohhhhh, ain’t I just snobby) and there was a big dead palm frond hanging down from a palm tree and blocking the path. So, naturally, I reach up with a hand to push the palm frond out of the way, when just as I am about to swat it, I notice a bright green strip across the top of it where I am set to smack it. It’s a friggin’ three foot bright green bloody snake. I literally jumped four feet backwards. And squealed like a little girl.
You don’t understand, I have walked down these steps a hundred times. I heard that my former house occupant, Regina, wouldn’t use these stairs because she saw a snake. I always thought she was a wuss because I hadn’t seen one….now, I admit it, I am a big girl’s blouse….I’ve taken to coming up and down the main steps even though it is an extra 30 seconds of my precious time. I should have taken a picture of the thing so you could all pack a load too, but I was rushing to make the open water portion of the IE’s when I came down the steps! So you’ll just have to trust me, it was scary.
Bloody snake…..visions of the missus in Mexico a few years ago springing to mind….
So, second big news today…..I aced the academic presentation, as did my fellow Ban’s IDC’ers. We also all waltzed through the open water demonstrations and watching of the “students” demonstrate the skill. We rocked. And we all smoked the rescue assessment. Seriously, you can now trust me with your kids…..ok, maybe not, but you can trust me with your girlfriends/wives…..ok maybe not (kidding honey, kidding)…..but you …nah, I’ll probably drown you, but hey, according to PADI, I rock.
The only crappy aspect of the day was that it started raining when we had finished but were heading back to Mae Haad and it has consistently rained for the remainder of the day. What the f**k. Goddamn weather. It is supposed to be sunny and warm. But I got drenched instead. The worst part was that we did our briefings first and were thus first in the water. We also did our rescue presentations first and set-up the dive site for everybody else. Which meant we had to sit there in the water and wait for the examiner for about 30 minutes. And, accordingly, we were the first out of the water and got to sit in the rain the longest as the debriefs of all the other groups followed ours (and from listening in, there were a lot of dickheads in the water…no wonder they took so bloody long…one girl couldn’t even do a fin pivot!!! How the hell she got to this stage, God only knows).
And now, we’re all through day two of the IE. Just the confined session in the morning at 9:00 a.m. Fingers crossed, but so far, we have been smashing this thing. As you can see from the pictures of us about to take the exams yesterday….
….look……ready for the exams:
You don’t understand, I have walked down these steps a hundred times. I heard that my former house occupant, Regina, wouldn’t use these stairs because she saw a snake. I always thought she was a wuss because I hadn’t seen one….now, I admit it, I am a big girl’s blouse….I’ve taken to coming up and down the main steps even though it is an extra 30 seconds of my precious time. I should have taken a picture of the thing so you could all pack a load too, but I was rushing to make the open water portion of the IE’s when I came down the steps! So you’ll just have to trust me, it was scary.
Bloody snake…..visions of the missus in Mexico a few years ago springing to mind….
So, second big news today…..I aced the academic presentation, as did my fellow Ban’s IDC’ers. We also all waltzed through the open water demonstrations and watching of the “students” demonstrate the skill. We rocked. And we all smoked the rescue assessment. Seriously, you can now trust me with your kids…..ok, maybe not, but you can trust me with your girlfriends/wives…..ok maybe not (kidding honey, kidding)…..but you …nah, I’ll probably drown you, but hey, according to PADI, I rock.
The only crappy aspect of the day was that it started raining when we had finished but were heading back to Mae Haad and it has consistently rained for the remainder of the day. What the f**k. Goddamn weather. It is supposed to be sunny and warm. But I got drenched instead. The worst part was that we did our briefings first and were thus first in the water. We also did our rescue presentations first and set-up the dive site for everybody else. Which meant we had to sit there in the water and wait for the examiner for about 30 minutes. And, accordingly, we were the first out of the water and got to sit in the rain the longest as the debriefs of all the other groups followed ours (and from listening in, there were a lot of dickheads in the water…no wonder they took so bloody long…one girl couldn’t even do a fin pivot!!! How the hell she got to this stage, God only knows).
And now, we’re all through day two of the IE. Just the confined session in the morning at 9:00 a.m. Fingers crossed, but so far, we have been smashing this thing. As you can see from the pictures of us about to take the exams yesterday….
….look……ready for the exams:
…..after the exams:
...inside the IE exam room:
Oh, some more pics. Two nights ago we met up before the IE started at Farango’s for a last minute relaxation session (after an enjoyable round of beach cricket…oh and dinner was followed by a relaxing Thai massage at Royal Massage…something I think I am going to partake in before the IE party tomorrow night):
Noé showing some love:
Jon, looking too smooth for words: 
Yes, the usual…..
And then there are a couple of pictures from the academic presentation this morning (at 8’o’bloody’clock)…..Célia using my regs for a non-PADI teaching aide…..
And Noé showing absolute respect and professionalism in front of the PADI instructor examiner, seated next to Pierre:
Lunch before setting off for the boat for the open water exam:
And finally, getting ready on the boat itself (we used the Ban’s boat):
HEY!!! And a Chrisinkohtao premiere.........accidental footage of us on the Bans boat because the helpful camera assistant didn't know how to use the camera!!
Third big news, by the way, my friend, business partner, diving inspiration and brother-in-arms became a Canadian citizen a few days ago…..everybody please congratulate Peter or welcome him as a fully-fledged member of my adopted homeland. Well done, mate, now please don’t rape our country like you might have mentioned to a certain friend in common that we both now have…… Oh, and Peter, stop promising to meet up with the missus and Heather and then bailing the night of….I know it is almost anticipated, but come on, sunshine, bad form, bad form….and because of snow and boxing?? You live in CANADA and you are now a CANADIAN….snow is a fact of life my man (i.e. grow a pair). And tape the damn boxing.
But I will not be too harsh, I know things are stressful for you right now….a lot to do before you pop off….and what do you wear with a bride in white on a beach in the Caymans????…..my metro-side says you absolutely can’t wear white, the two shades may clash….I’d recommend something dark to offset, although that’s going to be a sweaty affair methinks.
Ok, well, Kids, off to have a beer at Chez Chris and read over my confined slate one more time…..and then kip kip kip……a demain, mon amies, provided I have time between the end of
the IE and the IE party!!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Day one of the IE done.....
So, the first day of the IE is done! An early start too. I woke at 5 a.m. as some jungle bunny was scrapping it out with some other jungle bunny in what sounded like extremely close proximity to Chez Chris. Ok, I don’t know if they were bunnies, but they were from the jungle, I just know it. And they weren’t happy campers. They weren’t dogs or cats, that’s all I have….
Anyway, an early awakening and you know how it’s like, once you wake up once that close to your anticipated surfacing time, you’re screwed. Sure, you may fall asleep again, but you know they buggered you up royally. You crawl out of bed an hour or so later feeling like a bag of doodie. Well, at least I did. I probably should have gone for a run, but I was pooped and besides, no running for me for the three days of the IE. In any event, I feel like I have bruised my heel somehow, so not running until then is probably a good thing.
What to do, what to do? I hung out on my balcony for forty-five minutes, munching on barely moist granola (stupid numbnuts here forgot to buy milk yesterday). The dogs were happy I was home for more than five minutes. I also got to achieve my masterful knot tying capabilities, as I swung back and forth on my re-tied hammock, now highly secured using two sets of breathtakingly perfect two half-hitches. Then I trundled down to Bans (no, I wasn’t stinky, I also showered), to sit by myself in the IDC classroom. So, bored, I re-sat the DM exams I had already done previously. Did very well too.
Then the kids turned up. We finished our paperwork, agreed to pay PADI some more money (why not, they never pretended to be anything other than a bottomless pit of money-grabbing craziness) and went for lunch. Shock, horror….the first day in weeks where Bans hasn’t provided lunch for us. It was, quite truthfully, a sad moment. But we survived and popped down to Coffee Boat for a wee bite to eat. The camaraderie level was quite high. The six intrepid remaining Bans candidates are now quite tightly knit.
And then the moment of truth, it was time to pop over to Buddha View to commence the IE. A little daunting, in fact. There were a bunch of other candidates from other schools, so we all crowded into one small lecture room. You could actually feel the various school’s candidates weighing each other group up. Hysterical. I have to say that our group looked the most relaxed and professional. Even in our civvies. A couple of the other schools all had t-shirts with their schools on and IDC printed across the back, but as I pointed out to our group, we’re all representatives of Sunshine and Bans, but we’re still individuals who can bring a touch of personality to bear in our dealings with others. Those others? Sheep. Sod ‘em.
After a brief intro…it was into the exams. I got a total of four questions wrong. Two on the DM exams (one in physiology and one in equipment…although I don’t know which ones as they didn’t tell us) and two on my standards exam. Which meant that I got 100% on three of the DM exams and 92% on the two mentioned above (12 questions, thus 92%) and 96% on the standards exam. All of the Sunshine/Bans group passed both the DM and standards exams, with one exception. Pierre, our Swedish/Lebanese member, forgot to answer one of the questions on the standards exam entirely. He had a few other questions wrong too and unfortunately when he missed answering that one question, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed him over the fail line. He passed his DM exams, but unfortunately there is no make-up exam allowed for the standards exam. So he can continue on the other elements of the IE, but he will have to re-sit that exam on a future IE (minimum wait of five days…but the IE’s are all over the place…i.e. Phuket, Australia, etc., so it is going to be a major pain in the arse for him).
Which, obviously, sucks for him.
Célia was a nervous mess in the exams, but came out flying. Moshe also sat on the seat of his pants on a couple of the DM exams, but squeezed through. James had some issues on one or two of the DM exams, but similarly was cool….he was ecstatic to pass. Noé actually beat me by one on the DM exams by only getting one question wrong, but dropped a few on the standards exams….not enough to stress about though.
I have a couple of photos of the Sunshine/Bans group before and after the IE exams, but not thinking straight, I left the cable to transfer the pictures from the camera to the laptop….I’ll try and remember for my next online session.
After everyone was out, we all gathered and then made our way back to Bans. Where we spent a couple of hours prepping for our academic presentations in the morning. 8:00 bloody a.m. in the morning. Shudder.
Talking of which, I still have to polish mine up, so I am signing off for tonight to go finish.
I hope to get on tomorrow night, but it will depend on how frazzled I am. Tomorrow, as I said, is the academic presentation, but also the open water portion of the IE in the afternoon.
Later, skaters…
Anyway, an early awakening and you know how it’s like, once you wake up once that close to your anticipated surfacing time, you’re screwed. Sure, you may fall asleep again, but you know they buggered you up royally. You crawl out of bed an hour or so later feeling like a bag of doodie. Well, at least I did. I probably should have gone for a run, but I was pooped and besides, no running for me for the three days of the IE. In any event, I feel like I have bruised my heel somehow, so not running until then is probably a good thing.
What to do, what to do? I hung out on my balcony for forty-five minutes, munching on barely moist granola (stupid numbnuts here forgot to buy milk yesterday). The dogs were happy I was home for more than five minutes. I also got to achieve my masterful knot tying capabilities, as I swung back and forth on my re-tied hammock, now highly secured using two sets of breathtakingly perfect two half-hitches. Then I trundled down to Bans (no, I wasn’t stinky, I also showered), to sit by myself in the IDC classroom. So, bored, I re-sat the DM exams I had already done previously. Did very well too.
Then the kids turned up. We finished our paperwork, agreed to pay PADI some more money (why not, they never pretended to be anything other than a bottomless pit of money-grabbing craziness) and went for lunch. Shock, horror….the first day in weeks where Bans hasn’t provided lunch for us. It was, quite truthfully, a sad moment. But we survived and popped down to Coffee Boat for a wee bite to eat. The camaraderie level was quite high. The six intrepid remaining Bans candidates are now quite tightly knit.
And then the moment of truth, it was time to pop over to Buddha View to commence the IE. A little daunting, in fact. There were a bunch of other candidates from other schools, so we all crowded into one small lecture room. You could actually feel the various school’s candidates weighing each other group up. Hysterical. I have to say that our group looked the most relaxed and professional. Even in our civvies. A couple of the other schools all had t-shirts with their schools on and IDC printed across the back, but as I pointed out to our group, we’re all representatives of Sunshine and Bans, but we’re still individuals who can bring a touch of personality to bear in our dealings with others. Those others? Sheep. Sod ‘em.
After a brief intro…it was into the exams. I got a total of four questions wrong. Two on the DM exams (one in physiology and one in equipment…although I don’t know which ones as they didn’t tell us) and two on my standards exam. Which meant that I got 100% on three of the DM exams and 92% on the two mentioned above (12 questions, thus 92%) and 96% on the standards exam. All of the Sunshine/Bans group passed both the DM and standards exams, with one exception. Pierre, our Swedish/Lebanese member, forgot to answer one of the questions on the standards exam entirely. He had a few other questions wrong too and unfortunately when he missed answering that one question, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed him over the fail line. He passed his DM exams, but unfortunately there is no make-up exam allowed for the standards exam. So he can continue on the other elements of the IE, but he will have to re-sit that exam on a future IE (minimum wait of five days…but the IE’s are all over the place…i.e. Phuket, Australia, etc., so it is going to be a major pain in the arse for him).
Which, obviously, sucks for him.
Célia was a nervous mess in the exams, but came out flying. Moshe also sat on the seat of his pants on a couple of the DM exams, but squeezed through. James had some issues on one or two of the DM exams, but similarly was cool….he was ecstatic to pass. Noé actually beat me by one on the DM exams by only getting one question wrong, but dropped a few on the standards exams….not enough to stress about though.
I have a couple of photos of the Sunshine/Bans group before and after the IE exams, but not thinking straight, I left the cable to transfer the pictures from the camera to the laptop….I’ll try and remember for my next online session.
After everyone was out, we all gathered and then made our way back to Bans. Where we spent a couple of hours prepping for our academic presentations in the morning. 8:00 bloody a.m. in the morning. Shudder.
Talking of which, I still have to polish mine up, so I am signing off for tonight to go finish.
I hope to get on tomorrow night, but it will depend on how frazzled I am. Tomorrow, as I said, is the academic presentation, but also the open water portion of the IE in the afternoon.
Later, skaters…
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A lot to report on from last night and today, but mostly through the medium of photography. First of all I learnt that at the height of his acting career, Tim used to be a professional mime…..how many people can say they actually know someone who used to be a mime?!?!? He was also a big Trekkie when he was a little kid. In fact he even got to play Chekov at Universal Studios and get all dressed up and report “Captain, we have picked up a Klingon Wessel!!” Apparently it is all on video….damn, Peter, that’s a video we need to get our hands on.
The mock IE finished today. Alex dropped out and will be sitting the IE at the next sitting at the end of February. The rest of us passed with flying colours and will start the IE tomorrow morning (wish me luck!). I guess I should be freaking, but I am so tired, I am just chill right now. I will probably run over some DM exams again tonight, but I have done so many, I don’t know how many more I could face!
Oh and James and Laura are getting a place together!!!! They have been “dating” about a week. It’s just freaky.
Spot’s foot seems to have healed too, so that’s one less worry for the next little bit. Although I now have some ultra-disturbing news from the home front. It seems that my little girl has now taken to eating poopsicles in the backyard….even going so far as to dig up some nice old crusty ones that have been frozen at the bottom of the snowfield in the back for a couple of months. Nice. That’s something we’re going to have to break!!
And I am off to play cricket at about 4:30 today, followed by Farango (sort of like a last supper, maybe?), then a massage to finish off the day. Possibly a few DM exams, as I said, if I am not too pooped. Tomorrow we only have the orientation for the IE, then the standards and DM exams. The following day is the open water assessment and the academic presentation, finishing off with the confined assessment the day after that.
So, last night most of us from the IDC went out for a drink and a bite to eat at Hippo to celebrate getting through the IDC (and not tonight in case anyone is freaking out). We were joined by a bunch of Sunshiners, so it was a pleasant evening. Alice is back too and now living at Greg’s. S’funny to see someone so adamant about getting out of here being drawn back in. Personally, although I have had a good time here and even though I now have friends here, I can’t wait to see my hood, my friends and my routine back in the big T.O., snow and all!! I don’t really get “homesick” per se (with the obvious exception of missing the missus and the pup), but I’ve done this gig now and can certainly use the change back to home and normalcy….sure, I’ll want to go for a jaunt again at some point (everyone needs a change of scene now and again), but hopefully that’s where the business will come in. That and regular holidays.
Anyway, here are some pics from last night……..
First off, here’s the ridiculous mask line tan that was so graciously inflicted on me by the ever-giving Tim-Tim-cheroo:
The mock IE finished today. Alex dropped out and will be sitting the IE at the next sitting at the end of February. The rest of us passed with flying colours and will start the IE tomorrow morning (wish me luck!). I guess I should be freaking, but I am so tired, I am just chill right now. I will probably run over some DM exams again tonight, but I have done so many, I don’t know how many more I could face!
Oh and James and Laura are getting a place together!!!! They have been “dating” about a week. It’s just freaky.
Spot’s foot seems to have healed too, so that’s one less worry for the next little bit. Although I now have some ultra-disturbing news from the home front. It seems that my little girl has now taken to eating poopsicles in the backyard….even going so far as to dig up some nice old crusty ones that have been frozen at the bottom of the snowfield in the back for a couple of months. Nice. That’s something we’re going to have to break!!
And I am off to play cricket at about 4:30 today, followed by Farango (sort of like a last supper, maybe?), then a massage to finish off the day. Possibly a few DM exams, as I said, if I am not too pooped. Tomorrow we only have the orientation for the IE, then the standards and DM exams. The following day is the open water assessment and the academic presentation, finishing off with the confined assessment the day after that.
So, last night most of us from the IDC went out for a drink and a bite to eat at Hippo to celebrate getting through the IDC (and not tonight in case anyone is freaking out). We were joined by a bunch of Sunshiners, so it was a pleasant evening. Alice is back too and now living at Greg’s. S’funny to see someone so adamant about getting out of here being drawn back in. Personally, although I have had a good time here and even though I now have friends here, I can’t wait to see my hood, my friends and my routine back in the big T.O., snow and all!! I don’t really get “homesick” per se (with the obvious exception of missing the missus and the pup), but I’ve done this gig now and can certainly use the change back to home and normalcy….sure, I’ll want to go for a jaunt again at some point (everyone needs a change of scene now and again), but hopefully that’s where the business will come in. That and regular holidays.
Anyway, here are some pics from last night……..
First off, here’s the ridiculous mask line tan that was so graciously inflicted on me by the ever-giving Tim-Tim-cheroo:
Scott not wanting to be on film (yeah, like that'd stop me!!), with the lovebirds (still freaky man, still freaky) behind:
The odd couple:
Tim…..being Tim:
Natalie on crack:
Yet more crack:
Scott still not impressed with the camera:
The happy couple: 
The new happy couple: 
Sort of the typical response I get around here (I don’t understand why!!)…. 
God, I do have a big nose! 
Even when he is trying to look serious, he can’t keep a straight face: 
Célia in her everyday look: 
Noé, not being impressed: 
Célia responding: 
Truce: 
And on to today!! The open water portion of the mock IE test!!!!Tim and Jonas working hard:
The Sunshine IE candidates with their Sunshine course directors: 
Noé and Célia didn’t get the idea of looking away for a fancy artsy pose: 
The Bans guys wanted in on the action….we thought they just looked gay: 
Look at how impossible it was to get all of us to look at the camera at the same time…..and I have no idea what Noé is looking…could’s be he’s in love with me…..Heather and Danielle….be afraid…this kookaburra is likely to be leading the pair of you on fun dives!! 
And voila, today’s blog in pictures!! Au revoir…..I hope to be on tomorrow and over the next three days, but no promises…..
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