Well, to start, these last couple of days have gone really well. Sunday at Church was good. I wrote this to post 2 days ago, but the internet has literally been down every time I’ve checked for two days.. I told you guys to be praying about the opportunity that I could possibly have to speak on a Sunday Morning. So I’ll tell you how my Sunday went. But first I want to tell you about the conversations I got to have with the other dive master trainees Saturday Night. We were all at this place called Carlos and Charlie’s. Belen, one of the trainees that has been in Cozumel for 6 months now, helping run the office at Al Dora, is leaving. So we were all throwing her like a going away party:
We were all sitting around the table. At this place on Saturday Nights, Divers either get ½ off whatever they are drinking, or 15% off of what they are eating. Needless to say, Belen didn’t do a whole lot of eating anything. Well, Actually, I was the only person that even ordered food. Now I know, that when they say we’re going out to a place where the food is discounted, they don’t mean that’s why they are going. Haha. So some of them were drinking heavier than others. I told them I wanted a Coke, but that I was going to the bathroom, so they could order it for me. When I came back, I had one of those party cups that are a yard tall, with the extra long straws. I looked at everybody else who got their Pina Coladas or whatever they got in their yard tall glasses. Me, I had coke in mine. No one should ever drink that much soda.. But I killed it! So I ordered the ribs, which was a bad idea because I was wearing a white t-shirt. But they did give me a bib, so not only did I look classy, but my shirt stayed white as well. There were only a few of us with the mind set of not getting wasted, So we settled down and started talking. We ended up getting onto the subject of eternity. I soon found out, that Sheree, from Australia, is an atheist who believes in Evolution. Same with Dave, from England. They both have degrees in Marine Biology, and they said that the belief in science was kind of key for them.
Everyone there already knows the direction I want to go in my life. But they know other things about me too. We’ve gotten to know each other quite well over the past couple of weeks. Be praying for them, because I’m definitely going to continue trying to share the Gospel with them, but they are in fact smarter in most aspects than me, so this could be interesting.
Now for Sunday:
I woke up, got a quick shower and ate breakfast. Church starts @9 so when I got ready to leave it was about 8:30. Yes, that is very early, but my bike was out of commission at the moment, and I’d never made the walk before so I wanted to leave some room, just in case. It was lucky I did! I got there in like 10 minutes, not a long walk at all. So I came in, sat down, and listened to them practice some songs that they were going to sing. When they were done, the lady, Alba, that runs the church came and talked to me. She asked me where I was from and I told her. I also informed her that I wanted to be a Minister some day. She got really excited and told me that this was a volunteer church. I then asked if I could speak, She said of course! (by the way, the conversation went way easier than I had expected.. I dunno if I thought that I was going to have to interview or anything, but I definitely thought she’d have to know more about me than the fact that I was from Oklahoma and that I wanted to preach some day). So after the service, we talked some more, and I’m speaking there on June 5th! Thanks for your prayers, now if you would please pray that I don’t suck it up royally, that’d be fantastic.
Later, I talked to Sherief, Dave, Corwin, and Sheree, and they all would love to come listen, so that’s definitely another avenue in which they can hear the Gospel!
Sherief knocked on my door later Sunday Night and told me to be at the dive shop at 9:30. So Monday morning I woke up at 8 and got ready. Left for my walk at 8:30, and got there about 9. Belen, who was working at the time, asked me why I missed my dive that morning.. (at this point I was wondering, did he say 7:30?! Maybe there was some miscommunication. But either way, I was pissed). She said I still had a night dive to do that night at 6:15. After I made her repeat the time to me again, I went home. I was fuming mad, I couldn’t believe how irresponsible I was being. I was thinking, there is not enough time in my trip for me to miss a dive a week and still get my Dive Master. I wasn’t in the door 10 minutes before my phone rang. It was Sherief, and I just knew he was pissed at me for never listening. I answered, and was about to start apologizing when he started explaining to me that all the trainees were meeting at the shop at 9:30 to do a training session, and no one at the office knew it. Everyone likes me up at the office, so every time they see that I’m not diving, and can squeeze me in on a boat, they do it. That’s why they thought I’d missed my dive. So Sherief told me they were on their way, in the old beater F150 that Al Dora owns by the way, to come pick me up. I was so relieved that I didn’t even care that Belen sent me home.
Training:
We went diving off of the dock of the Villa’s that Al Dora owns. All the trainees sat down while we got briefed about what all skills we were going to practice, then we hopped in. We were only in about 15 feet of water, which you’d think would make it easier. But that means we were still close to the beach, so the tide came in and out constantly and beat us to death the entire time. We had to practice all these skills like we were teaching them, because we already know how to do the skills, now we need to be able to teach them to others. We had to levitate about 3 feet from bottom and teach people how to take off their masks, put it in their hands and swim a lap around the group, while trying to see. Basically, that was simulating the fact that you aren’t dead if your mask comes off. You can still swim, and see somewhat, plus you can put it back on. Then we had to do a “panicked diver rescue” and simulate someone freaking out while under water, and you had to swing around behind them, while they were swimming towards you, and shove their regulators (thing that you breath out of) back into their mouths, purge the water out. Then you got to fix any problems that they may have caused you while panicking. Sherief pulled my regulator out and my mask off, real cool dude. Then we got to do this thing called torture chamber, where the instructor gets to do whatever the crap he wants to you, while you can’t attack him back, you just have to fix the problems he causes (Kids, don’t try this at home). He did all of the following: Pulled out my regulator, pulled off my mask, unstrapped my fins, unhooked my weights, aired up my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device, basically the thing that you can put a little bit of air into, while diving so you can keep off the bottom. And also fill all the way up at the top to stay afloat). Ya, he filled mine all the way up, twice so I would shoot to the surface.. All of this was, yes, really fun. But at the same time, When you get your oxygen pulled out of your mouth, when surrounded by water, the chances of you drowning are much greater. Trust me on this. All of us passed the test, none of us panicked. So that was good. By this time, I was worn out (most of you know, that working out, is not a huge priority of mine at this point in my life, I’m totally out of shape). Then, our psycho instructor decides to spring an exercise on us that he neglected to brief us about on the surface. So, while remaining under water, using hand signals, he informs us of a game we are going to play. It’s like musical chairs, except with our BCD’s (which also hold our oxygen tank, regulators, pretty much our entire gear package). We take them off, while still holding onto them, and still breathing from the Regs. We still have on our weight belts, masks and fins. We all separate, about 20 yards between each of us, in a circle. We look at Sherief and he counts to three and we all, spit out the regs and swim to the persons gear to our right. All the while, trying not to float to the surface, or panic and swim to the surface. 20 yards may not seem like much, but when there is a lack of oxygen involved and like I said earlier, the ocean is moving, It’s a long dang way. So we all were playing the game. Sometimes you couldn’t find the persons main hose, so you snagged the secondary. I tried to breath Dave’s oxygen with the mouth piece upside down. I was out of air by the time I got to his gear, so I had to press the purge button (which sprays the oxygen out at a high pressure) to get any air at all, so I wouldn’t die, before I realized that it was upside down. This “game” might be the worst invention of all time. I watched Sherief struggle at one point thought, which was really satisfying. He didn’t want to breath out of the secondary hose, so he took extra time looking for the Primary hose. You could tell when he ran out of air, he got in a hurry at that point. Although this was a horrible game, it was kind of satisfying, testing the skills and not getting too freaked out.
Next Training Session, I’m sure I won’t be quite as eager to jump in the water. In fact, I may be sick that day, we’ll see. I still had my night dive to do. Had to be at the pier at 6:15, so I got to eat, and get a quick nap in before more diving. I was there at 6, just in case.
I was pretty freaked out about the night dive to be honest. The reason I didn’t have a blast getting certified 5 years ago was because we did it in an Oklahoma lake and the visibility was about 6 feet. In Cozumel, diving is a blast because the visibility is like 100 feet, you can see everything from far away, you can know if something looks scary so you can stay away. But on a night dive, if you turn off your light, then all you can see is like 20 feet. Still better that 6 feet, so I could see if something was about to eat me, but I don’t know, if it was 20 feet from me, that I could stop it. You do have a light, but you can only see what the light is shining on. It didn’t help my nerves that, when we went to lunch earlier, all the guys going on the night dive were trying to scare the piss out of me. They even told me that there were reef sharks that came over from the main land at night, that were bigger and more aggressive. I only believed them for like 10 minutes.
During the briefing, before the dive, Sherief told us that he were diving in two separate groups. Sheree was guiding the group of trainees, and Sherief was guiding the other 3 customers. Sheree is a trainee, like me.. Awesome.. He wanted us to stay at least, 5 yards behind his group, and told us not to mix in. So, I guess, Sheree wanted to descend slower than them. So we waited for a couple minutes, until we saw that they were all down. Then we started descending. I had a little bit of trouble getting my ears pressurized so, I went down a little slower. So when we got down the current had already swept group 1 out of sight.. This dive was just more and more fun, every time I thought about it. The whole dive, I was thinking that when it got over with, the boat wasn’t going to be able to find our group and we were going to have to swim on the surface a half mile to shore. Luckily, I brought my compass, so I knew where shore was, because it was pretty dark. It was really eerie because of the lack of light. But they didn’t lie about one thing, all the huge crabs and lobsters and big fish that hide during the day came out. The drift was really bad, so even if you saw some cool things, your dive buddies had to be right beside you, or you weren’t going to be able to get their attn in enough time to show them anything. We ended up catching up with group 1, which I was supremely relieved. Then we got separated from them again. Their group consisted of 2 Open Water Divers, and 1 Advanced Trainee. So while we still had plenty of air, we knew they would be ascending pretty soon after we caught up w/them. When we had about 1500 psi of air left, Corwin saw their lights and pointed out that they were going up. So we knew we weren’t going to stay down much longer (I was totally fine with that). At the very end of the dive, I saw an eel, which you see quite often in day dives. But this eel was out of its hole and swimming around. Probably 2 feet long, pretty dang sweet. And I saw a 2 foot long shark cruising through the reef. When we surfaced, the boat was right there. All my worries were gone.
Over all, I think Night Dives are cool, and if you’re going to be diving for a while, then it’s a good switch up. I know I’ll at least go one more time, because I’m sure Mom, Pop, Jared and Jimmie’ll want to at least try it out. And guys, if we don’t split up into two teams, then I’ll have nothing to worry about.
Thanks for reading guys, I’m praying for all of you, and reading some cool junk. I just got done w/Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (only took me 4 days, I’ve got Way too much down time), and I started Desiring God by John Piper. Also got done w/2 Corinthians during my Bible study and am gonna start Galatians today.
Posted by justinpuckett86 
.. By the way, Puckett family, I’m using a 100 cubic feet tank (small one) and coming up w/a grand of air every time. And I’m only using 2 lbs of weight. I predict by next week, I won’t need any. That’s right, get owned. Who’s the best diver now Jimmie? Jared? What, not much to say? Hahahaha!
