logistical nightmare

Every morning I am still stunned by how strong the sun rays are when I open my bedroom door and make my way to the common bathroom. Today I was extra surpised to see a brown rooster scurry past me on my way to the CR (term for bathroom- comfort room or as the England interns like to say, the Lou). I was not aware we had a chicken in our gated in area. I understand cats sneaking between the gate but a rooster that size that waddles with no grace at all, curious? After watching the chicken for a bit, it was time to get to the dive shop in a hurry to prepare the equipment for the confined water skill set with the children. Mack told me he would check in with me at 8:20 to see my progress with collecting the gear and extra set up necessary to complete the skills for today. I was also told to let him know which skills I felt most comfortable with. Since I had only completed one skill circuit session, it was difficult to state any of the skills were demonstration quality for squirly children. Mack also was expecting me to set up the tools I had gathered, inflate a surface marker bouy (SMB which interestingly is the same acronym as the local beer- San Miguel Beer), station along with a weight belt, mark a 9 meter length with a tape measure, and secure this with a weight as well. Being a little scatter brained, it is helpful for me to usually write details down and cross off the tasks completed, I am a much more visual person. This is not how this is run. Throughout my briefing yesterday evening, all these items of retrieval and set up were thrown at me randomly. I even had to make him repeat several times what time I was to start getting ready, 20 past 8 is just confusing. All the accents do not help either. Strategically I have already tried to make as many friends as possible with the staff members such as the equipment guy, boat boys, etc. Yet these friendships are not much of an aid when the shop is busy and these friends are off tending to other tasks. This left me to play a little game of find it around the shop for my target items which was not a speedy gathering process. Everytime Mack checked on me I stated I was on top of all the tasks and tried not to express my overwhelming despiration for a little help to quickly familiarize myself with where everything is kept at the shop. His response to me stating I was doing ok was not at all the proud response that I had hoped for but instead lead to "great then we can leave early!" No, I wanted to say, yet "yep pretty much everything is done, so leaving early would be great", some how came out!? On the last dive we left on a big boat which meant we could gear up on the boat, this time we were taking a small boat which meant we had to get our "kit" (tank/regulator/BCD set up) ready at the shop and then I would carry all the set up kits to the boat. I had to stop what I was doing to help with this set up, along with getting them focused to get their wet suits on. Soon we were off to confined water for skill review and completion of confined water dives 2-5. Just as the boat boy pulled up the anchor, I had the dreadful realization that my fins and mask were not on the boat, meaning I did not grab them (can not really blame anyone else as the set up was a one woman show). I had purposely placed these by the SMB (Surface marker bouy, not the beer), reel, and measuring device yet I still forgot them. I told Mack and he stated "well we need to get going, if you packed the spare kit you should be fine". Thankfully I did pack the spare kit. I traveled to the back of the little boat to grab these while Mack got the children in their gear in the middle of the boat which created my next obstacle. I was unsure how to get to my kit in the front of the boat without being a disturbance. Then Mack states " you need to figure this out and get in your gear because I am not waiting for you". Since I was supposed to conduct the gear buddy check, entry into the water technique and set up our underwater training sight, this was not at all a good start. Afraid to ask for help to get into my gear in this constrained area, I fumbled through and got it on. Yes, I thought until I realized I had not turned on my air, try again. Then Mack pointed out I had not pulled up my wet suit or fastened my weight belt (I usually do not wear a weight belt but in this case I was to demonstrate equipment removal underwater and I would have needed it). Pretty much felt like a failure but hopped into the water to start the training dive set up. At this rate sight set up was sure to follow suit as I had never used an SMB before. Jeff had not either and had the reel fastened with a rubber band which lead to a birdsnest tangled up disaster under water. I knew the only way to quickly obtain a useable line was to break the rubber band which was not at all easy. During this chaotic set up, I also managed to stir up some sand which would not help with visability. I was almost completed with my rookie set up and noticed the group was already down (I did nail my two half hitches knot). I was completing my tasks so that I could move on to help stabilize the children during the skills. Taking care of the children was far easier than playing equipment gather and set up girl. They did the skills well and after 2 hours it was time to head back. I did demonstrate some skills that went well. Yet based on the disasterous start, I can only imagine how the debriefing will go with Mack. Importantly, the children were not at all affected by my logistical catastrophes. The children were happy and they enjoyed me being there to make them feel safe and comfortable under the water by aiding in any issues they had. Jeff's morning was to consist of assisting on a discover scuba diving course (DSD). There were 3 students and this would be their first time breathing underwater. Like my class, Jeff had to first get a good look at the students to size them up for a BCD, wet suit, booties and fins. Since the DSD is not a certification course, the students are only given a short flip chart briefing before they head to the water. This briefing covers a few basic scuba principals and a little bit about how scuba affects your body. It also covers the equipment that will be used and some basic hand signals we use underwater. When this was all done, Jeff had them try on their gear and showed them how to properly assemble the scuba kit. They loaded everything into a small boat and off to lighthouse dive site they went. Once at the beach this course starts by getting the people used to breathing from the regulator. This is conservatively attempted by simply standing in chest deep water and have them put their faces into the water while breathing through the regulator. This part went well, so they moved on to having the students kneel on the sand bottom completely below the water surface yet at a depth in which the students could stand. Here they would have to remove the regulator and put it back in their mouth. This is where it went all wrong for one of the students. Rosie panicked and headed to the surface (this is the reason we do this in only 4 feet of water). Jeff went to the surface with Rosie to calm her down while the instructor stayed and worked with the other 2 students. After a little bit of reassuring Rosie, she was ready to try again so back under the water they went. This time Rosie got water in her mask and bolted for the surface. After the second incident Jeff was not able to convince her to go back under the water. The instuctor finished up with the other 2 other students and took them on a 20 minute dive while Jeff took Rosie back to the boat to get her gear off and put away. This was definitely a learning experience about seeing how people react the first time underwater, unfortunately it didn't count for any credit towards Jeff's DSD class assist since it got cut short. My debriefing with Mack started with him asking how I thought it went. I rattled off all the logistical issues and obstacles I encountered and how to better prevent these issues in the future. I did have to hold back the tears as I recalled the the spiraling cluster of events that seemed to send me down a black hole without a dive buddy to bale me out. I did state that the main objective was to complete the skills with the children and be there to reassure them underwater and this did go well. Mack stated I learned a lot through all these mishaps and agreed it was better to have me there to get through the skills with the children. He showed me a better technique for using my SMB and told me it was not necessary to get all boy scout on it. Mack informed me he would keep me on for the remainder of the course and I was to get set up for the next dive in a couple hours. At lunch, I told the dad and children that I was going to assist for the rest of the course. The children cheered with big smiles and dad seemed happy as well. This would be the children's 2nd open water dive in which they would repeat some of the morning skills from confined water and then go on a fun dive around. This dive did not require much logistical set up except the students equipment. I was to once again stabilize the children as they kneeled on the sandy bottom to complete their skills and reassure them if issues arose. I was also to complete the out of air skills with one of the children while Max worked with the other. This meant the child would signal out of air, remove their regulator and then switch to my back up regulator after I first demonstrated the skill to them. After skills were completed, Mack would lead the first part of the dive and I would complete the dive by navigating back to the boat. The childrens' dad also dove with us and video taped the skills section while the children were facing the opposite direction. This dive went much smoothier and I was even able to point out a big puffer fish to the group. Mack also showed them many neat fish. Most importantly, I also found our way back to the boat. By this time I am exhausted and not as enthused as the rest of the DMTs that we were going on a night, fun dive together. I admit to go on a dive that I am only responsible for myself with a group of DMTs would be refreshing but going to bed early would have been even more appealing. The dive had been scheduled and this was the first fun dive opportunity we had so we took it. It was rather nice to be in a group that was only DMT's on a dive, we didn't have to worry about watching other divers or worry about being watched by an instructor. Basically we got to do what ever we wanted and all of us had dove this site before so we broke off into 2 groups of 4 and headed off to where we thought would be best. The beauty of a night dive is you see different things, partially because different creatures come out at night and partially because you have only a small area that your torch illuminates to look at. When there is only a small area to look in, one tends to notice the smaller things that are in it. We saw some cool crabs including one giant crab, serpent stars, several stone fish and a bobtail squid. Some of the other DMT's were lucky enough to find a blue ring octopus which is one of the top 5 most poisonous creatures on earth, but is only about the size of a bottle cap. Even though we didn't see the octopus it was still a great dive. When it was over, it was definitely time to clean up and get some food.  After the dive I was starving, everyone was going to get burgers which sounded like a great idea. By the time we got washed up and got to the hamburger bar, the other 5 interns had already ordered the last 5 burgers and fries. We chatted with the group a little and then headed out to purple snapper, which come to find out they stop serving food after 9. Next stop malditos which by this time I was too hungry to decide on an entre. I shared an appetizer and chicken cordon bleu with Jeff. Then it was off to bed.