Читать книгу Does This Island Go To The Bottom? - Eric H. Pasley - Страница 13

I was on the pick up crew one morning. There were about four or five cruise ships that sneaked into port in the early morning Caribbean darkness. We had to pick up tourists from three of them. It was about 6:30 AM and I felt like a zombie; too much of the good life. I jumped into the cab of a safari bus who’s driver went by the name of Hook. He was an old West Indian dude with yellow eyes and a nasty temper. Hook took pride in his bus. With a fresh coat of paint and new seats it was the cleanest bus on the island and he made sure it stayed that way.

We drove a short distance to the Havensight dock where three of the towering monsters were tied off. I was picking up passengers from from one of the Carnival ships called The Festival, and let me tell you, this was the filthiest goddamn cruise ship to sail the seven seas. It was old and ratty. Beverly and I walked up the gang plank, showed our ID’s to the cruise stewards, then went to the grungy on board movie theater. This was the pick up point for the resort course and the snorkelers. We had all the people fill out the necessary paper work, health questionnaire and waiver.

This one lady with curly, greasy black hair was not happy with the legal content of the paper work. “Excuse me,” She said. “This waiver is not very specific. It’s too generic.”

“Well, that’s our company waiver that we have everyone sign explaining the risks of diving.” I told her. She gave me bad vibes. She liked confrontation and I could tell she was going to be trouble. Then what she said next explained everything.

“I’m a lawyer and I can tell you that this waiver is garbage. I’ll just scribble out this part here and add what should be pertinent here, before I sign it,” she said, while showing me the form and pointing at it with a pen.

I looked at her for a moment, then smiled. “I’m the scuba instructor, and I can tell you that if you alter the form in any way or refuse to sign it you don’t go diving.” The dude sitting next to her, no doubt her loving husband gave her a disappointing look. She signed it as is.

We loaded everyone on the buses and then headed to Coki beach on the other side of the island. A big, muscular guy in a white tank top that said “NYFD” was on my bus and I heard him spouting off about how he was a firefighter from New York and that this scuba would be a piece of cake, even though he had never tried it.

“I climb ladders with sixty pounds of gear on, into burning building wearing a Scott Air Pack. How hard can it be?” I heard him say more than once. It’s always the macho idiots you have to watch out for; The know-it-alls, the braggers.

On the way to the beach is when we’d give the lecture on beginning diving with the aid of a large, bulky flip chart. This was a pain in the ass. We instructors had to complete the lecture before reaching the beach. I never had a problem getting it done but it still sucked because you had to yell the whole time over the engine and other traffic. The attention of the passengers faded in and out. In some respects I couldn’t blame them for getting distracted. There was a lot of cool sights to see on the way to Coki Beach. But at the same time, these door knobs signed up for scuba diving not a damn island tour!

For the most part they did pay attention to the lecture; However, there were always a few ugly tourists that blatantly could have cared less about what I was yelling about. These individuals may have taken the course on their last cruise and felt they knew it all. Then there were the macho shit heads whos arrogance and pride said that they were better than you, like my good friend the firefighter from New York City.

It was beautiful morning in the USVI. The warm wind was blowing, white cotton candy clouds moved through the blue sky and the smell of thick greenery steamed off the trees and plants from a brief sun shower. Over-sized iguanas resting on top of large rocks and tree trunks were effortlessly eating bright red hibiscus flowers. The picturesque heaping piles of trash scattered along the roadside from the locals that had gotten rid of their garbage, all made it another gorgeous day in “The American Paradise.”

I was feeling a little blue that morning. Veronica H. had left a week earlier to work on the Regal Princess. She didn’t want to go after all. She wanted to stay with me on St. Thomas because by then we were pretty much inseparable. She talked to this long, lanky British dude, Limy Dave, about staying and working on the island instead of the cruise ship. Limy Dave was one of the managers at VIDSS. He was in charge of the instructors for the floating cattle ships. Dave was a good guy, real fun to party with but he stunk something horrible. Pit stench and alcohol seeping out of the pores of your skin only get worse when you neglect taking a shower. Dave told Veronica that he’d see what he could do, but she would still have to do three weeks to a month before he could find another instructor to fill her slot.

My spirits were soon lifted once I hit the water. That’s the way diving is for me. Back in California, if I had a shitty day at work or was pissed off about something I would call one of my bro’s Pete or Big Paul and say, “Let’s hit the beach, I need to go diving.” That would always do the trick. It was like medicine.

My first resort course of the morning fixed me. It brought me out of my semi-solemn mood. I was fresh again. Feeling good. My ego was also fed. Three smoking hot college girls who were in my course invited me back to their cruise ship for drinks when I was done for the day. They gave me their cabin number and told me where to meet them if they weren’t in there when I showed up. I told them that I’d be there as soon as the last tank was filled for the day. What I didn’t bother telling them was that their ship usually pulls out of port before I’d be done with work. Yes, the day was starting off right. Until I saw my next class.

My second resort class stood before me down by the water. My stomach started to turn. I somehow got lucky enough to get both the lawyer and the firefighter in the same group. The two spouses of the lawyer and firefighter and two knock out sisters, who were twins, made up the rest of the divers.

“Do you want us to put our fins on now?” The nappy head lawyer said.

“No.” I said, spitting into my mask.

“Ew, gross.” Said one of the sisters.

“First, I want everyone to spit in their mask. This will keep it from fogging up.” I said smiling at the sisters.

“Do we leave it in there?” The lawyers husband said. “The spit I mean.”

“For now. We’ll rinse it out after we put our fins on out in the water.” I said.

The firefighter was busy looking at two golden brown bodies in bikinis wading into the water next to us. I decided that I was not going to waste my breath trying to tell him to pay attention. There was no need to, after all he didn’t need my instruction anyway. It was going to be a piece of cake for him.

I had everyone wade out to chest deep water and put their fins on. Even when I use to teach in California, I always had my students put their fins on in the water. Trying to get through the surf zone backwards with your fins on was just asking for trouble. Just a small wave would send a diver rolling in the white water. You had more control getting out to chest deep water, putting one fin on, turn on your back and kick like hell just as the waves were about to crest. Once past the surf zone, put the other fin on and kick out to the dive site.

My group was now underwater kneeling on the sand. I dropped under and gave them each the OK sign. They all gave me the sign back except for the fireman. He just looked at me with oblivious eyes. Suddenly, he stood up quickly. Fine Caribbean sand clouded the water like smoke from a rocket ship during take off. I gave the rest of the group the sign to wait right where they were then stood up. “You OK?” I asked like I was genuinely concerned.

The firefighter was too busy coughing and choking on sea water to answer me. Finally he said, “I got water in my mouth.”

“You’re in the ocean, you’re going to get water in your mouth,” I said. “The trick is to do what I just went over if that happens again.”

“What’s that?”

“Just spit the water right back through the regulator like spitting water out of a straw.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes. I already explained it to the group twice. You can puke through the regulator if you wanted to,” I said. “Now put your mask back on and your reg in your mouth and drop back down.”

“OK,” he said. Snot was hanging out of his nose.

I went back underwater and started going over some skills that the students needed to do before I could take them out to deeper water on the dive. Fireman dropped back down. He was under water for less than thirty seconds, then he shot back up. I finished doing the skills with the rest of the group then I popped back up.

“I … I don’t know what’s wrong,” The firefighter said shaking his head in disappointment. “I use Scott Air Packs all the time.”

“This is scuba. You have to get use to breathing through your mouth. You’re going to have to forget your nose is even there until you have to use it to clear your mask of water.” I was starting to lose my patience with this dude. I have a lot of patience when it comes to teaching diving. You have to have patience if you want to be an instructor. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t teach. This is true for anybody that teaches anything. This fireman without a mustache should have been a little more humble and a lot less cocky. “Look, all the girls are doing it just fine. I heard you saying this would be a snap, a piece of cake.”

“Damn it,” He said slapping the water. He was now clearly pissed at himself. “My wife is going to think I’m a wuss.”

“No, I doubt it.” I couldn’t help but smile at the macho firefighter. “Give it another shot. Just relax. All you have to do is breathe.” I dropped back down and waited. Everyone was doing fine, even the nappy head lawyer. I was ready to get this group going. I still had one more resort course to take out before heading back to the dock and picking up the afternoon lunatics. The fireman knelt on his knees once more, his head was only inches from the surface. I watched him for a few seconds. His eyes grew wider.

And Wider.

And Wider.

He spit his regulator out of his mouth and stood up again. I didn’t waste my time talking with him. I blew my whistle that I kept attached to my BCDs’ power inflator hose. Randy, who was beachmaster at the time, came down to the waters edge. “No, wait I can still do this. Let me try it one more time.” Said Fire Marshal Bill.

“Your holding everyone up. You better stick with burning buildings and Scott Air Packs.” I said before going back down. Randy led the macho firefighter back to the staging area and stripped him of his scuba gear like an Army Sargeant being stripped of his stripes.

Finally. I started taking my group out to deeper water. This was what was nice about doing a resort course from the beach as opposed to a boat. You didn’t have to screw with taking the students down to about twenty plus feet one at a time using a descent line. This was a rope tied to a float with a weight at the end that hovered above the ocean floor. The float was secured to a drift line that was attached to the stern of the boat.

We were going out to the fish feeding station where the fish had been getting fed for like twenty years. I was, and still am against the feeding of marine animals because we don’t need to screw up the eco system down there any more than we already have with oil spills and shit like that. Plus, the marine animals have been doing just fine without our help since before we ever magically appeared here on Earth. But I still fed them anyways. This was the attraction for snorkelers and divers at Coki Beach just like the stingrays on Grand Cayman Island; However, the stingrays are much cooler than a bunch of parrot fish. And I wasn’t going to throw a shit fit over it, it wouldn’t do any good anyway. When in Rome, right? The lawyer was having trouble with her buoyancy. She kept messing with the inflator hose that adds air into the BCD and lets it out.

Buoyancy is the one skill that a diver works on well after getting certified. Buoyancy is key to good air consumption, it conserves energy and makes it an enjoyable dive. I never expected my resort course divers to be proficient with their buoyancy and stay nice and neutral in the water column. I was always adjusting those bastards buoyancy for them. At VIDSS anyway. But that wretched lawyer was exceptionally bad with her buoyancy. I would motion to her to dump a little air out of the BC and she’d dump it all out to where she would be back on the bottom kicking up sand and busting coral. Then she would add too much air in and be back up at the surface again. This was getting old quick. She just couldn’t get it.

I got tired of this so I just let her hang out at the surface for a bit while she tried to fight her way back down. I started feeding the fish dog food; those little shits loved the stuff. After feeding the fish, I took the group over to a huge cluster of fire coral. Nasty stuff. You touch it and it lives up to its name. I gestured to my students not to touch that’s when I notice the lawyer more frantically trying to get back down. She forgot that her body needed to be vertical, legs pointing down, to let the air out.

I swam up to her, positioned her scrawny torso so that it was vertical, grabbed her power inflator and pressed the deflate button, dumping all the air out of her BC. She started sinking like a rock. She was too busy trying to equalize her ears to notice that her legs were drifting up, jack knifing her body into a “V”; Butt first and still sinking.

Holy crap, she is going to land on that fire coral! And she did, ass first. There was no way I could have gotten to her in time. I watched as her body sprang back up like she’d just sat on a porcupine. Oh man, that hurt.

When we got back to the beach the lawyer was actually in good spirits. She thanked me and even gave me a tip. I said good bye as I watched her and the rest of the group walk back to the gear area. Her ass was hellish, it looked like it had been flogged repeatedly. She had vicious red welts from one ass cheek to the other. She would definitely not be sitting down the rest of the day. Oh well, she signed the waiver.