Semester 9 Chapter XVI: Holidays & Baby Steps

Hello everybody, welcome to the last blog of 2020. What a fucking year, right? Before we get to it, let me send some shout outs as I always do. Shout out to my Shanghainese fam. It feels like forever since we saw each other the last time and I miss the hell out of y’all but this is just a pause. Reunion is coming one way or another and it’s gonna be fucking epic. Shout out to the girl who introduced me to diving. Wherever you at, I hope your dreams are coming true. Shout out to my beautiful family. My sis... Words can’t really do justice to how much I love, respect and admire everything you are and everything you do. All the love to your fiancée too. And my nephew. You are a bad ass. Can’t wait for us to spend some time together. Not sure if I’m gonna be around too much but I’ll do my best to be the coolest fucking uncle in the universe. Shout out to my dad. Even with covid around, we managed to meet up in different countries and do all kinds of crazy shit. Shout out to his gf as well. I really feel like our family has grown about tenfold these past couple of years. I love it. Shout out to all my day ones from the Czech Republic. One time for all the amazing people I’ve met through diving too. Shit’s beautiful. And shout out to all my students. I still love what I do. This year hasn’t been easy, it has been totally unpredictable but (all the covid shit aside) it has brought all kinds of great stuff. So again, thanks to everybody in my orbit. And shout out to all the vegans, cyclists, runners, hikers and divers. We got this! 

 

Okay, last week... I was driving every day and I was certifying people. These past couple of days, I basically carried the dive shop by myself for the most part. Been pretty busy but I feel I do a great fucking job (and the customers’ feedback kinda reflects that). Turned two kids into Open Water divers and one girl into a certified Scuba Diver. These days I work with another couple. I’m still on some unpaid internship shit here getting some experience but I feel this will change soon. Either I’ll start getting paid by this shop or I’ll just find something different somewhere else. I do love diving, sometimes I’m not super happy about communication with the shop which has led to me cancelling couple of my online classes (which actually do pay my bills) but it somewhat works for now. We’ll see what happens next.

Friday evening I got invited for a Christmas dinner by the dive shop owners. They live about 20 minutes up the hill from where I live. And man, they took the dinner seriously. All dressed up, decorations all over the apartment, Christmas tree, red napkins in wine glasses... They baked a whole turkey and all kinds of crazy shit my vegan ass didn’t touch. I was on some potatoes and veggies. The evening was okay. I got on couple of my rants, we drank a bit and then I got my ass down to my apartment.

 

Apart from Friday, I had only one day with no diving, and that was Sunday. I’m allowed to use the shop’s van for my personal purposes as long as I put some gas in it. So I picked up the girl I was teaching this past week, went to Abades, picked up our intern and then we all went to Anaga to do about a 15km hike. Fucking amazing. The woods, the air, the views. I really felt I needed a bit of that. We stopped by at La Laguna for a beer on the way back and wrapped the whole trip up at Playa De Las Vistas in Los Christianos. Took some drinks over there.

 

Next week is shaping up to be as busy as the previous one but hey... Gonna be fun. Enjoy the last days of this year and let’s all hope 2021 is gonna be a bit more optimistic than 2020. Shout out to all my readers, sending some positive vibes to all my people... We’ll see each other in no time. One!

Highlights:

• My certified divers.
• Anaga hike.
• Driving. I’m getting good at it.

Semester 9 Chapter XV: Driving Crazy

Yo, what’s gucci everybody... Greetings from sunny Tenerife, greetings from the world where shit is going absolutely nuts, where covid dictates what we can and can’t do. I wanna shout out all people who won’t get to spend the holidays with their family or their close ones because of all the restrictions. I’ve ended up being one them. Everything is going on lockdown and the flights I booked are either impossible to take due to mandatory quarantine policies or extremely difficult due to different types of tests required and rules that change literally day by day. Oh well... Every time I’m out there, under water or just walking around, I remind myself that being here is not the worst plan B. 

 

We also still get to dive over here. At one point last week, it looked like that shit is over. The problem is, all the rules are often extremely vague. Currently, it seems diving is still okay as long as you don’t drive customers to the site and you maintain groups of four people tops. But you can interpret whatever the restrictions are in like 36 different ways so who the fuck knows. We still dive tho. Last week, we did Abades, Tabaiba and Las Eras. I led couple of dives and I definitely enjoyed being back in Tabaiba. I think this was my first time over there as an instructor. Felt good. Oh, and my instructor partner left for holidays the second he found out about the government tightening up. Don’t blame the guy at all, it’s just now (apart from the dive shop owners) it’s really only me. Which comes with all kinds of fun stuff.

 

So look, Friday evening the boss texted me if I’m okay with driving one of the shop’s vans to Abades with a customer. And also, if I’m okay with teaching the customer myself. Let me give you a bit of a background here. The last time I drove was sometime in the summer. And it definitely wasn’t a van. To be precise, I had never driven a van before. So that was that. As for the teaching part, I was supposed to get our intern as an assistant which sounded quite reasonable. The van part was making me a bit nervous. So the next morning we got the shop, got the kits ready and all of the sudden I was sitting in a van with the keys in my hand getting that shit started. It went surprisingly okay. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I nailed it but it went good enough for me to feel comfortable. So yeah, I ended up driving that customer to Abades. The intern didn’t show up so it was just me. And it went! Vibe was great, the girl enjoyed it, I safely drove her back home and got that vehicle back to the shop. I did feel good. Talk about being thrown into cold water. I gotta say tho, the feeling of introducing someone to diving is surreal. I’m fresh to this but I can’t really see this getting old... 

 

What else... Friday I met up with the intern and one of the girls I did my IE with for a quick beer as the girl was leaving the next day. Saturday evening, I went to get a haircut to my host’s connect. It was cool. The guy played me some of his music, I played him some of mine... Cool hangout. In the evening, I just got faded. Saturday was a fucking long day.

 

And that's it. So this Christmas is gonna take place in Tenerife. Once this holiday bullshit is over, I’m buying tickets back home once more. I honestly feel sorry about not seeing the fam the next week. Specifically the nephew. Today’s world is insane. It is what it is tho. Shout out to all the good people out there, shout to everyone working on themselves, shout out to everyone cultivating their surroundings, shout out to all the good role models, shout out to all the people fighting their battles. I see y’all. One!

Highlights:

• Driving over here. God damn.
• Undone. Awesome TV show.
• My barber. That guy is great.

Semester 9 Chapter XIV: Highs & Lows

What’s good everybody. It’s Sunday evening, sunset is spilling orange color all over the sea outside my window and Kid Cudi provides soundtrack to all of that. If this shit ain’t the definition of chilling, I don’t know what is. So here we go, another update from your boy straight outta Tenerife. Let’s do this! 

 

Last week, we were switching dive sites which is always good. Besides the regular Abades, we went to Las Eras once and on Saturday, we took it to the site named Yellow Mountain couple of kilometers north from Los Christianos. The dives went great. I assisted with fun divers for the most part enjoying the shit out of it. The vibe is fucking beautiful. Both with people I go dive with and with customers. That Yellow Mountain spot was pretty cool too. The only thing that steered me off a bit was the fact the dives were pushed a little too far. We got people getting super low on air and on the second dive, a fun diver had to use my alternate air source cause he literally ran out of air. Nothing happened, we laughed it off and all but if these were my dives, I would handle it differently. But then again, whatever I go through these days I consider learning lessons. As you go, you’re figuring out your flow, polishing details, realizing what can (and eventually totally will) go wrong... Which makes you a bit more confident dive by dive. Just as it should.

 

I was also working quite a lot. Got some new students including this kid I used to teach back in Shanghai. His dad contacted me and asked for some conversational lessons to get him ready for an English competition in his school. It was cool seeing them both again and it brought back some memories. I mean, a year ago I was still living in my Shanghainese apartment getting myself ready for my Indonesian vacay. 2020 has been a motherfucker.

 

On Saturday, I managed to get my ass out of my solitude and actually went out socializing. I met up with this diver girl whom I meet at the sites here and there and we went to Puerto Colon. It’s a bay area right by a port about 20 minutes’ walk from where I stay and it was beautiful. The area, the sunset... Later on, people from the dive shop joined and we ended up drinking till 11pm – the curfew time. Then we hopped into a cab and went to my fellow instructor’s spot (also really close to me; just up the hill) with some bottles of gin to keep shit going. It was a great fucking night. I woke up on a couch in a living room and after everybody got their shit together, we walked down to this Hemingway Café for some breakfast. The lovely people over there made me vegan toasts with avocado and some mushrooms. We flushed it with three beers. Keeping the levels up. I made it home around 1pm, did a class with the Chinese kid (I was totally in my zone for that one) and then crashed into the bed. Woke up after 5, edited some photos from the past week and sat down to compose this piece of art. You’re fucking welcome.

 

I’m getting a bit nervous about this covid situation. I plan to go home for Christmas, already got the tickets but it seems shit is going way down south again. I hope it won’t get much worse the next week. I totally wanna spend Christmas home but I also wanna be somewhat sure I’ll be able to get back here. What a time to be alive, right? I hope everyone’s doing good no matter where you at. Shout out to everybody reading this, I appreciate y’all. One!

 

Highlights:

• Yellow mountain.
• The night out. By the end of it, I was basically levitating.
• Got back to the pool for some swimming. Water is colder these days but it’s doable. And totally not bad for the middle of December.

Semester 9 Chapter XIII: Comedowns

Okay, so last week felt like life again. For the time being, I plan to keep sticking around my dive center just to keep myself in the water and hopefully eventually land a job one way or another. I managed to dive every single day last week so it’s looking good. It’s yet another Sunday morning, the sea out my window looks as blue as ever, new French Montana in my headphones, and here we go with another blog. Back on my bullshit y’all. 

 

Monday, a friend of mine who passed the previous IE, suggested me and one of my fellow fresh instructors join him for a boat dive with some French guys he’s affiliated with. It was close to Los Christianos and the dive was beautiful. What a way to celebrate passing the exams! We got to about 35 meters, I took advantage of my Go Pro and did bunch of pics... I still remember couple month ago in Indonesia, doing pictures under water felt different. I was all over the place having hard time to keep still... Now it’s a different game. Plus my air consumption is getting like crazy good.

 

The rest of the week, I was joining my dive shop for the dives. I led couple of dives in Abades with customers, which went well. The only fuck up I did was when I decided to explore a route I wasn’t familiar with thinking “What the fuck could go wrong?”, eventually ascending on a completely different place than initially intended. Lesson learned tho. Everything else was going beautiful. I’m honestly just grateful for the chance of getting more experience. And once all my instructor papers get processed in PADI, I’m gonna hop on DSDs and Open Waters too. Can’t wait for that.

 

Friday was a bit crazy. The day was absolutely gorgeous. I haven’t seen Abades like that before. No wind at all, sun was shining, no waves, shit looked like a fairytale. Little did we know what awaits us under the surface. Visibility like 2 meters. Me, another instructor and a new intern who just got here did like 20-minute dive which felt more like some sort of hazy dreamy hallucination. Honestly, you couldn’t see shit. In the evening, I met up with some of my friends and we went to Abades again to do couple of last drinks with the two French interns that just completed their divemaster and left back home the day after. Time flies over here.

Saturday, we took it to Las Eras for a fun dive again. Visibility was still kinda trash but way better than the day before. Oh, and there was a pretty strong current too to spice it all up. Got some pretty cool pics tho. Last week, we saw quite a lot of cool stuff. Cuttlefish, rays, turtles, angle sharks... In terms of aquatic life, not a bad week at all.

 

I’ve been also working quite a lot. Due to the fact, I cancelled some of my classes last week, I was kinda catching up with everything. And yet again, I received some thank you notes and e-mails from my students. When people tell you that in the middle of this covid thing they were looking forward for our classes not only cause they were actually learning something but also cause it was a bright spot of their days... It just melts your heart a little bit. I do enjoy what I do. For real for real. Oh, and me and the other instructor in the shop got some positive feedback from customers too. Again, shit like that never gets old. Makes me feel that I do exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

 

Didn’t really have much time outside of all that. Checked some music, talked to some of my loved ones, watched this Undoing series... Pretty dope... And that’s that. I have a full free day ahead of me, just finished my workout, the vibe is good over here. I hope all of you are doing great too. Keep it up, keep shit positive and do not entertain bullshit. One!

 

Highlights:

• Diving. Still.
• My students.
• This Undoing series. Go check it out.