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“Does this island go all the way to the bottom?”

What the hell did she just ask me? Did I hear this horrible cruise ship passenger right? You’ve got to be kidding me. I looked at the five other students in my beginners scuba class. It didn’t seem as though they thought the question was as completely ridiculous as I thought it was. In fact, they were eagerly awaiting my answer.

“What?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Does this island go all the way to the bottom?” she asked me again with a funny look on her hillbilly sunburnt face.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I finally asked. “That doesn’t even make sense.” A few of my other students let out a low chuckle.

“Sure it does,” she said. “Let’s say I can hold my breath for as long as I wanted,” she paused and looked at me very sincerely. “How far down underwater would I have to go before I could swim underneath the island?”

No flipping way. What the hell planet was this lady from?

I thought for a brief moment and finally said, “Oh, I see what you’re saying. Well, I’m not sure how far you’d have to swim down to reach the bottom of the island. But what I do know, is that this island is drifting right now and in about six hours or so St. Thomas is going to crash right into Puerto Rico.”

My voice became very serious as I confirmed the obvious. “So if I were you, I’d make sure to head right back to your cruise ship after your dive this afternoon.”

Her hillbilly eyes got wide with fright. Confusion blanketed the rest of her tomato-red face. After a moment of silence I started to laugh. “Come on, what do you think we are on? An iceberg?” I said. Then everyone in the group started laughing, including the nut job who asked the silly question.

The rest of the beginners scuba class went smoothly. All the students did fine in the pool session. My instructor instincts told me that my group would be fine during the open water dive. And I was right. They all did a good job even though they looked like the Key Stone Cops underwater; like a big moving ball of fins and hands flailing and moving in aimless fashion while a cloud of fine ocean sand trailed behind them. The students didn’t panic or get injured on me and that is a good thing.

The group was so amazed and in awe of what lay beneath the waves; a magical and fascinating world of thrilling beauty. They all just kept up with how awesome of an experience the dive was; of how the thrill of just being able to breathe underwater alone was worth the money. They ranted and raved while I helped them out of their dive gear about how the sargeant majors and the parrot fish swarmed around them, the vibrant colors of the coral and the warmth of the Caribbean sea. They thanked me and praised me for what a great instructor I was.

As my last resort course of the day waved goodbye and piled into the safari bus to take them back to their cruise ship, I thought to myself, “Those filthy bastards didn’t even give me a tip!” But still, I was living the dream as an American scuba instructor in the Caribbean.

A scuba instructor is kind of like a musician or a ski instructor. Your students look up to you, put you on a pedestal and view you almost like a higher being. It’s an image of freedom, thrills, risk taking, authority and knowledge rolled into one. This image comes in extremely handy when you have a scuba class full of hot chicks in skimpy bikinis who are ready to do what they came to do on vacation; party, get their groove on and find an island boy to shack up with, no strings attached. However, there are a few instructors and divemasters out there that think their shit don’t stink, a type of God complex. If you ever find yourself in the midst of one of these cocky bastards, find another dive boat or another instructor to teach you.

Teaching diving in the tropics is a surreal life that you see in the movies. It’s a party every night, a lifestyle of booze, girls and perpetual sunshine. Your office is the ocean. The warm trade winds are the breath of God breathing life into your soul.

But now let me flash back to a terrible place. A vile and twisted world that harbors countless evils. A place where status is everything and cliques are hostile tribes bent on character assassination and dirty gossip. This place is known as The Office.