SCUBA Certified!!!

Its Sheridan here,

This week was brilliant; Phil, Oscar, and I got certified to dive. We had 2 cave dives and one night dive. Diving at night was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had; the feeling of being alone in the pitch dark with no sound around you and 15 meters below the surface is indescribable unless you have done it. Our instructor, Alex, was great although the DVDs we were forced to watch were less then exciting. I quickly fell back into the rhythm of my younger days sitting in high school, meaning I slept, stared at my watch and drew on my arms. Things I learned from the DVD are as follows, water is not man’s natural environment, without oxygen a human cannot breath, and one should only do things to and with one’s buddy he is comfortable with. We got certified at Ko Phi Phi which, on the whole is quite an amazing place to get your first dives in. The sea turtles, Octopi, lion fish and sharks were all amazing however I was occasionally distracted by the growing game of “make your diving buddy look bad in front of the instructor” between Oscar and I. I would grab his BCD and inflate it so he would rise to the surface, and he would grab my secondary air source and waste my oxygen so I would have less bar when we got to the surface. The way this game was progressing it looked the winner would have to shut the others air supply off; alas we figured the instructor, police and the other playing participant may frown upon such a clear and decisive victory. We are all looking forward to adding this new skill to use in the research of the Islands we will visit.

My French, Portuguese, piano and sailing lessons are all coming along, though some faster then others. Currently my French is about as good as Oscar’s mustache, which is to say it has years of work ahead of it just to become recognizable. (Side note, we are all growing mustaches as a tribute to sailors of past. It has nothing to do with the fact that mustaches are awesome and we all look superb with them.)

As far as work goes, after 4 days off to get certified we were thrown back into the daily grind. Winches are being finished and the drilling of 112 holes for the chain plates were also finally completed. (I would almost rather work in an office again then ever have to drill through rebar again. Ok maybe not, but believe me it was about as much fun as a wet blanket). Somehow through all the work, running around and tasks that need to be completed by what seems like yesterday, Clemans has completely kept his cool and kept us all busy. Keeping our fingers crossed we may be out of here in a weeks time.