Open Water Headaches

Hung over to nine levels of hell. And the “privilege” only cost me 120baht ($5). After I finished the open water course yesterday, I ran around finishing off paperwork and then shot home fast for a shower. As soon as I got back, a Dutch couple from the course bought me a beer. So I clinked bottles and drank away. To be nice, I reciprocated the gesture. Because, however, I am now an “instructor”, a load of little doors have opened up at the Ban’s bar that never existed before. Usually three beers should cost me the price of three beers. But as I was buying beer for students, suddenly I was only paying partial price for one. Ok, two in.

Three or four beers later, after they have been bought for me by the two German guys, the English guy and the guy from Saskatchewan, we sit down for a bite to eat. Which is where I discover the next secret……as an open water instructor, eating with his students, I also get my food for free. The new rules simply changed everything. Before you know it, I have bought a couple of beers for the Germans and the Saskatchewan kid and then I’m getting beers given to me from all quarters. I had no intention of getting drunk, really, because I am doing open water dives 3 & 4 again this afternoon with another group.

As it is, I end up having drunk far more than I wanted to and now I am a little in rough shape. I still have three hours though, so I am relatively confident I can shake it by then. I also never ended up saying “Hi” to Danielle yesterday (except across a dive site with a wave of my hand), but when it reached 1:30 a.m. it became a bit of a non-factor. The worst part was that every time I made a move to leave, the buggers had orchestrated that a new beer arrived in my hand. It was principally motivated by the Germans and the Dutch, but it reached a point where they thrust a Jaeger bomb in my direction. You’ll be amazed to hear that I managed to decline that one….what is it with people loving that shit? It’s about as guaranteed to fuck me up as tequila shots. Oh and the Canadian girls from Toronto (half price with the certified student stamp), so Rich (the Ban’s instructor I taught with) and I also were asked to participate in drinking some of those (not in the same way as Jaeger, but these buckets are kind of a gross concept too). I think you have the picture….too much booze.

The good news is that 10 out of 11 of my open water students are also going to do their advanced starting tomorrow. The other one is coming out on the boat because he wants to do it, but says he is broke. I have a feeling that he’ll join in anyway. So with the 6 certs I will get today and then the 10 advanced’s I’ll get in two days from now, I’ll have my 25 certs all done.

The open water dives 3 & 4 from yesterday actually went very well, with only one exception, when one of the students in my group (not Rich’s) had major issues equalizing. I sent the DM up to bring her down really slowly (like I had shown him on the previous dive and then explained on the surface), but they drifted away from the line and floated up. They were about five feet from the bow of the boat when I yanked them back to the line. Other than that, 3 & 4 went down fine…..even the CESA, which is probably one of the harder open water skills owing to current.

So, on to today…..but even if there are celebrations with this group after their certification, I’m sad to say I’ll not be a big part of it…..