LEADING DIVERS: Last night the un-fun-jam was a bust. We were suppose have a BBQ but the planners didn't get any propane in advance and they couldn't find any. A bunch of the new DM trainees got together and had one drink and then we headed out looking for something to eat. Our first choice was closed so we turned around and headed for pizza. When we passed the Italian place everyone decided to eat there instead. I almost always have a glass or two of wine in the evenings back in South Carolina so I decided to split a bottle with another trainee. I had lasagna and it was not great but pretty good for this place.

I decided to volunteer to lead some fun divers (as opposed to students). We had one little old lady (Helga) from Germany that barely speaks English. I gave the boat briefing as well as the dive briefing and then jumped into the water for my first divemaster attempt. I had never dived the site so I was pretty nervous. I have a little booklet however that shows simulated pictures of the sites so I used it to get an idea and I was able to ask the evaluator about the area. He was very helpful and made suggestions about he direction of travel.

The dive was terrific. There were lots of fish and I was able to find a green moray eel to point out to the guest. The structure of the coral was really interesting also with some places where it just appeared to hang by threads above you. The customer was very pleased. Getting onto the boat was a bitch. There were tremendous waves. The lady tried to but her knees on the boat ladder instead of her feet and was really getting bashed around. Both the DM and myself tried to help her into the boat. She got a few bruises on the way up however.

On the second dive, I found a turtle that we watched for a long time and the DM found a scorpion fish.

We saw several Queen Angels, French Angels, Trumpet Fish, File Fish and Trunk Fish, Puffer and more. Again the customer was very pleased. The waves were large again and Helga had even more problems getting onto the boat but she made it.

I scored a 4.4 out of 5 on the evaluation with at least one weak point for not providing enough help to the lady as soon as she was having problems. I also forget the boat role call twice and that wasn't good but there were only 8 divers and I accounted for all of them in my head.