The Dog's Bollocks!

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That's the slogan of Sea Dog Dive Shop, where I'm living and breathing and working. The owner of the sh0p is Barrington (Barrie) from England, and apparently "the dogs bollocks" is a British saying (for all my American kin folk) which means, loosely, the best. A sea dog is also an old sailor, so combine the two, and you get...scuba diving?! Okay.

As you know, I came out to El Nido to earn my Divemaster certificate. I have succeeded (yay!) and I'm now fully busy working and diving most days of the week. Of the last 11 days, I've been in the water the last 9. Apparently it just gets worse. Eek! It's really fun, but every 3rd day I collapse with exhaustion. Luckily I haven't worked more than 3 in a row so far, I'll leave that for the high season! I also spend the nights at Sea Dog on the computer (wifi!) and if customers come in downstairs, I go talk to them.

Here's a basic run through of what we do every day.I get to the shop around 750-800 (usually I'm running, oops) and the guests are starting to arrive. We get them outfitted with gear - wet suit, booties, fins, mask, and BCD (buoyancy control device, or jacket that holds everything together). Then we load the boat. Around 845-9 we're at the first dive site, and depending on the divers skill levels or how many workers we have, we split into groups. I generally get the newer students, which I prefer, because they're less likely to notice any mistakes I make! :-) The dive lasts an average of 45 minutes, but with students with better breath control, we can last an hour. Then we have about 40 minutes+ of surface time as we move to the new dive site and wait for our nitrogen levels to lower so its safe to dive again. Same goes for the second time, then its lunch time! I'm usually starving by then, and we go to a beach to relax for an hour and a half. Last, we do the third dive and return to the shop around 3 or 330, if we're lucky. With big groups (10 divers) we hope to come back by 430 or 5! If we have less than 6 divers, we take a smaller speedboat but if we have more, we rent a big bangka, the Filipino style boat. While I love the speedboats, er speed...I do love the big bangka, which you can walk around on, lay out in the sun, or play on the wings like its a jungle gym. Makes kids of us all!

I'm also qualified to do Discover Scuba Diver training, which is when people just want to try diving for 2 dives, and it doesn't qualify them to dive on their own. Some days its fine, but it can be a real nightmare! Unfortunately, a lot of the people who are "trying" diving are really just being pressured by their travel buddies or significant other. I've especially noticed this case with young Filipina women who are with foreign boyfriends. They clearly hate it but are pretending ohterwise! I had an American girl tell me the other day she was only doing it because her husband was making her! And she did horribly...like a stone! I had to drag her through the whole dive, a big work out for me! I also had this really cute Filipina who held my hand throughout the whole dive...ha, whatever makes you comfortable!

I work with Barrie (owner and instructor), Jay (Dutch divemaster living in El Nido for 7 years) and Doy (Filipino Divemaster and Barrie's brother-in-law). As such, I'm often treated as the younger sister or daughter, which I'm fine with most of the time! We are a great team and work together really well. Not everyone goes out every day, obviously, but we mix well. Here's Jay and I underwater.

I'm getting better and better, more confident that I can find the boat when we come back (important right?!). My first day of guiding, however I thought I'd lost someone! I was just about to panic, since her friend's waving at me while we're beneath the boat doing our safety stop of 3 minutes, like "where is she?" and I'm like NOOOOO I've killed someone!! Turns out she just decided to go up ahead of us. I mean jeez, give me a heart attack!

Well that's the general run down, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate! I just may be able t to answer it, with any luck!

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