Day 08

I started my divemaster internship on Tuesday, and boy have I been busy!  Let me show you where I work.

The dive shop I'm doing my DM internship with is called Dive Friends Bonaire.  The business has five locations on Bonaire, the busiest and most popular location being Yellow Submarine.  Back a few years ago, when I did the CIEE study abroad program here, Yellow Sub was our next-door neighbor.

A photo of how Yellow Sub used to look, before the patio was installed.  I found this on the internet, as I apparently didn't take any photos a few years ago!

These days, Yellow Sub is looking a bit different.  The scrubby bits on the side of the shop have been replaced with a patio, the entire place has been repainted, and the inside of the shop renovated.  All in all, it's looking pretty good!  (The only downside is that it's less colorful.  Booo.)

Now you can see the fancy new covered patio.  I liked it better with all the pretty colors though.  :(

But I'm not working at Yellow Sub.  Most days I'm working at the Dive Inn shop, which is about a kilometer south of the main shop.

I have recently acquired a cheap bicycle with the help of my lovely housemate, but it's a Dutch men's bike.  It's gigantic.  The seat is above my belly button, and my feet are a solid foot off the ground when I'm on the bike.  Whenever a cruise ship is in port, they close the nice sidewalk to bicycles and I have to go on the street with all the cars.

Unfortunately, Dive Inn is past the cruise ship docks, and we have cruise ships in about three days a week.  I am not a good biker, and it's very difficult for me to stop the bike, so it's a bit scary for me to be on the road with the cars.  Also, the Dutch have a bunch of crazy rules for bicycles that I don't know about, which explains--too late--why people sometimes stare angrily at me on my bicycle.  (At first I thought it was just because I looked stupid, a tiny girl on an enormous men's bike.  It's probably also that.)

This is the dock right in front of Dive Inn.  Pretty nice, yeah?

The view from the dock.  The roped-in area is the confined shallow water area for Open Water Diver classes.

Anyway, back to work.  My duties as a divemaster intern are basically the following:
- fill tanks with air
- move tanks
- get gear for customers
- supervise snorklers on all cruise ship days
- work cash registers and sell things
- assist with classes

Filling and moving tanks sucks, but it needs to be done.  Same with getting gear for customers, except that the darn gear racks are so high at Dive Inn that I can't reach half the equipment, and the super-tall menfolk have to get it down.  Supervising snorklers is actually a pretty nice job; mostly I carry small things and watch the men carry heavy things, help build a large tent, make sure cruise ship's snorklers don't drown themselves, and then pack things up.  Cruise ship days are easy days.

Assisting with classes is the fun bit, and the part that's actually relevant to my (potential) future diving career.  So far I've helped with a Discover Scuba Diving class (a 3-hour-ish course that involves learning a few skills then going on a very basic, shallow guided tour) and an Open Water Diver certification course (the very first level of independent diving).  Divemasters (and interns) are helpful for these courses because new divers are usually pretty awful at diving--which is expected and normal--and need lots of looking after.  The instructor needs to watch everyone constantly if he's alone, but with a divemaster (or intern) he can focus on one student while the DM watches the others.

Basically, a DM intern is an unpaid babysitter for instructors.  Having a DM around makes their job a lot easier.  For the Open Water class, I help demonstrate skills too.  In the Discover Scuba class, I mostly follow them around yanking them up or down, depending on which wrong direction they're floating in.  It's work, but it's not bad work.  It's also nice to see how happy people are when they master a difficult skill or see a cool animal.

The dock of Yellow Submarine, where we practice rescue skills and teach classes.

It's not all work, though!  We actually have to learn some things and competently demonstrate some skills.  Yesterday I did a deep dive at Yellow Sub in the morning.  We went straight down to 130 feet, then did a few simple tests to see if we were "narc'ed," which means 'mentally or physically influenced by the increased nitrogen partial pressure.'  (This is fancy-speak for basically breathing laughing gas, the same stuff you get at the dentist.  It's usually quite pleasant!)  The tests included doing simple math problems, coordination exercises, and an extra-hard counting-coordination combination exercise.  (Try saying that five times fast.)

After the tests, we also did a color test (since colors look different at depth due to different wavelengths of light and so on) and cracked an egg, which is fun because the pressure keeps the whole egg together.  We saw lots of nice things on the way up, including a lettuce slug (woohoo, a nudibranch!) and some arrow crabs.  After the dive we practiced rescue skills, and I got a charley horse, but I'm trying not to let that ruin an otherwise lovely morning.

Today, however, was a special event: the quarterly clean-up dive!  Four times a year, Dive Friends offers free air tanks to anyone who wants to help clean up an area of reef.  Afterwards, there's a free barbecue for the volunteers.  This quarterly clean-up dive was around Karel's, the lovely bar/cafe on a dock.

You've seen Karel's before.  I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "Carl's" but you can never tell with Dutch names.

Instead of going to Dive Inn like I normally do, today I came straight to Yellow Sub and started preparing for the clean-up dive.  Over 100 volunteer divers showed up!

Asko gives a dive briefing (a dive plan) to the attentive crowd of volunteers.
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

A group photo of some of today's volunteers.  Many people leave early to get a good parking space at the site, so they aren't in the photo.
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

We give the divers mesh bags to collect the trash in.  They are only supposed to collect new trash.  After a few years, garbage can become part of the environment; coral may grow on it, or animals might make a home inside it.  Sometimes people get excited and want to bring up tires or cans that have been down there for years, and don't realize that they're destroying an animal's home.  Fortunately I didn't see any of that this year!

Look at all those divers!
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

This isn't a great photo of me, and the water looks nasty.  Who put this on facebook?!
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

The dive shop workers stand in the water to take the trash from the divers.  The trash is surprisingly heavy!  Mostly they're grabbing beer bottles full of water and sand, which is why the bags are so heavy.  Good thing there's lots of strapping young men to do the heavy lifting!

Strapping young men.

Some people chose not to dive, and stayed on the beach collecting glass shards.

The trash was collected, trucked back to the dive shop, and meticulously counted by volunteers with stronger stomachs than me.

A small pile of mesh garbage bags.
(Photo from Dive Friends Bonaire Facebook page.)

Brave volunteers with thick gloves, sorting and counting trash.

You can see lots of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, fishing line, and beer bottles.

Ewwww.

All told, nearly 3000 pieces of trash were collected.  There were over 500 beer bottles and 800 cans!  Other things found included a $20 bill, two pairs of pants, shoes, a screwdriver, a large vase, and two Christmas ornaments.

This is the dumpster full of trash.

Humans are icky.  :(

After the clean-up dive, it was time to set up for the barbecue!  A few years ago I did a clean-up dive and the barbecue was at Yellow Sub's tiny parking lot, but apparently they've been holding it at the new Hamlet Oasis location, which is north of Yellow Sub.

Hamlet is really nice and peaceful, and has two cute kitties!

Not a bad view of Klein Bonaire!  All the plates are for the barbecue.

A cute, cozy little shop!  They've also got two cute resident cats.

This cat has a heart on it!!!

This cat has the biggest eyes I have ever seen.

We spent a few hours preparing for the barbecue, and I'm happy to say that (despite my involvement) it went off without a hitch.  There was plenty of great food and cheap alcohol, and everybody had a good time.  I especially enjoyed the clean-up part, mostly because the bulk of the clean-up will be done tomorrow, which is my day off.  Mostly I got beers for everyone washing dishes, which I considered a pretty important job.

The next two days, Sunday and Monday, are my days off, and I'm going to try to get in some recreational diving.  Because I'm working for the shop, I get to go on the dives for free on my off days.  (Woohoo!)  The problem is that my gear is at Dive Inn, and the boat leaves from Yellow Sub.  I can't walk 50 pounds of dive gear for a kilometer, so I will need to work out a plan to move my dive gear accordingly in the future.

Hopefully I'll have some diving photos to share soon!  Wish me luck!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton