Okay, let me paint the picture for you. It’s not even 6AM, I’m listening to new Wayne, it’s still dark out but I see colors again... I skipped a week with my blog cause the shit I was going through was just too intense. Anyways, yesterday I successfully completed my PADI instructor examination which basically means I got my life back. I’m not Yellow 3 anymore, I’m me again. I got time to talk to people again, I got time to listen to music again, I got time to do shit again. It has been a ride and there’s so much more to come...
Let’s take couple of steps back first. Two weeks ago, me and three of my friends from the dive school went to Anaga once again. It was a great fucking trip. I believe the place was called The Forest of Enigmas, we took a hike over there, got ourselves some beers and watched a sunset. The views were incredible. The volcanos, the woods, the hills, the villages, the sea, clouds hovering through all of that... Tenerife can be magical. We wrapped the whole trip up in La Laguna. Just walking around the center. Laguna has a real city vibe to it. All those narrow streets, the squares, bars, shops. Completely different from where I stay.
The day after, my German friend who did the Divemaster with me got back to the island to join for this Instructor thing too. I talked to my host and helped him get a room in the same compound I stay at so we basically went through it together. That was cool. Having somebody dealing with the same shit, same assignments, same pressure, and someone to get a beer with by the end of the day. For the first half of the week, I was working as much as I could and also studying all the materials for the exam.
The Instructor Development Course started Thursday afternoon and at that point we pretty much gave up on our lives for 9 days. First couple of days we were dealing with classroom presentations, making sure we can deliver those in accordance with the standards. It went throughout whole weekend and we didn’t see water until Monday morning. Then it was confined and open water skills, demonstrations (we did both IDC and the examinations at Playa Las Vistas in Los Christianos as pools are closed due to covid and Vistas is probably the closest thing you can get), briefings and debriefings... And two more days of that. Thursday, we went through theory again and in the evening, we got to a hotel about 15 minutes north from my spot where these two PADI lads, a German and a Brit, kicked off Instructor Exams.
Friday morning, we did theory and I passed 4 out of 5 sections. Which meant I fucked up. The good thing is, if you fuck up only 1 section, you get to do a make-up the next day. What really sucked was the reason of me fucking up. I passed everything I was scared of – Physics, Physiology, Equipment, and Skills; I failed at Recreation Dive Planner which is something I’ve never had a problem with. When I was double checking my answers, I noticed a mistake and then my dumb ass just went ahead and corrected it in a wrong row on the answer sheet, leaving the wrong answer there and fucking up one of my good ones. I didn’t pass the shit by 1 point, you do the math. So yeah, not the best start but thank god, I messed only one of them. Two would basically mean bye bye, another 400 EUR and a complete do-over in couple of weeks.
Open water skills went well apart from the start. During the IDC, they specifically told us not to give examiners reasons to get grumpy. Well, we didn’t give the guy one reason, we gave him like 15 at once. I was asked to get a buoy with a reference line to the water and that shit was a cluster fuck. We don’t really use reference lines in our dives so I’m not entirely familiar with them and when it was time to drop it down, that shit was so tangled, it was ridiculous. Then the buoy actually got loose and started making its way to the shore. Plus it was waves all over, visibility was trash, and I really felt like the guy was about to kill us. Under water it went way better. Those were open water skills and for them there are no make ups allowed neither. I got neutral buoyancy with LPI inflation and compass navigation. Smooth. We did rescue scenario 7 that afternoon as well. After all of that, we headed back to the hotel to deliver our classroom presentation. Those went awesome – we were really well prepared by our ICD course director. The guy is like a dinosaur in diving, he’s been doing this since the stone age, he has a psychology background and actually helped develop some of the PADI materials. Cynical as hell but funny, able to read the room and most importantly efficient. Whatever he was doing with us worked. So yeah, that went well too.
Saturday, I was barely walking straight. Only one morning to complete that thing but still quite a lot on my plate. I did my theory make up at the parking lot with my German buddy who blew the same fucking section as me and fortunately, this time it went. For both of us. Then it was skill circuit under water: mask removal and recovery, reg recovery, neutral buoyancy, kit removal and recovery and CESA. Was a bit nervous about that kit removal part but I murdered it. After that, shit felt like a victory lap. My final skill to teach was to clear a fully flooded mask which is something I can do in my sleep. Plus there was a make-up possible for that. No stress at all. Everything went great and by the end of each skill, we were getting good news. Everybody out of our group passed.
Now, let me tell you how this works. So we were down in groups of four people. One being evaluated (the instructor), one acting as their assistant and two acting as students. Students got some problems assigned and instructor’s role is to identify them, fix them and make sure the skill is performed according to its requirement. At this point, we can ususally spot problems easily as there are only so many things you can fuck up but man... So the last guy got to teach a 10 meter swim above the sea floor. Easy. My German buddy was his divemaster so they went down and me and my Spanish fellow candidate got asked to fuck up colossally. Instead of swimming above the floor, he was literally climbing the floor in a Spiderman fashion and I was basically rolling over his back, messing with his tank and acting out. It was amazing. I was laughing through my regulator, it was a fucking shitshow and we got props from the evaluator. He said that he has assigned this before but we were on some Oscar shit with our performance. Point being, we left the water laughing. Nice ending to all of that.
We got our certificates at the parking lot, did bunch of pictures, washed our shit in the shop and then went on drinking. And I really went all in with that. Some people left earlier but I basically stayed with different groups till... I don’t really know. I don’t fucking remember getting home. I woke up in my bed tho so yay! The older I get, the less I enjoy being fucked up by alcohol. It’s the most boring drug in the universe. Sure, a drink or two... Okay. But the actual feeling of being properly fucked up sucks balls. It’s not that fun, the high is actually pretty low and you’re just getting numb. Or stupid. Or both. Anyway, I guess that was the celebration.
So today I woke up with the weight of the world off my shoulders. It’s a big step and a year ago, I wouldn’t believe I would be doing anything like that. I feel I’m good at it, I feel the potential is there. I hope that at some point I’ll secure a job in the industry and keep on doing this. For the time being, I’ll just stick around my dive school to get more experience. The ones reading this blog somewhat regularly know that I don’t name people ever so let me do an anonymous shout-out. Shout out my Indian host. The fact he was cooking for me the whole time, preparing lunch boxes, specifically asking me not to worry about shopping and to focus on what I had to do meant a lot to me. Shout out my fam and friends and all their support. Shout out to the universe for steering me into diving. Took a while but we got there. Shout out to my dive school and the course director. It all can get rough around the edges sometimes but it works. And of course, shout out to my whole class. All of us gonna be beautiful instructors. I have zero doubts about that. This shit was one of the most challenging (and expensive) things I’ve ever gone through and I just appreciate all the love sent my way throughout the whole process. One!
Highlights:
- New Wayne. That guy dropping on my IE is crazy.
- PADI OWSI!
- Tenerife weather. At this point I tend to take it for granted so here and there it’s good to remind myself how awesome it is.
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