Surprisingly it turned out to be positive for me. We didn’t have many passengers, and the shop didn’t need me to work on the daytrip boat. However, we had an Aussie girl and a Canadian girl going to the island shop for a diving course. So, I was re-assigned to the island shop today. I didn’t need to travel to outer reef under severe weather. Simply teaching the course and having two dives on the island could finish my day.
I had taught the diving course, but only in a one-on-one class. This was the first time I had to teach two students at once. Later when I got to the island shop, I was informed there was a Hong Kong girl from the island resort attending the course. I ended up with 3 students in the class, but I was confident to do the job because I was familiar with the dive sites near the island.
Due to the rain and wind, the visibility was merely better than soy milk. I had to be so close as within 1 meter to see a student in the eyes. Right after we descended, the Aussie girl got her mask flooded. I pointed my palm to the other students and signed them to stay put. When I finally got the mask adjusted, the other students just vanished. I skipped a beat, grabbed the Aussie’s hand, and looked for the other students in the water for a minute. Still no visual of them, so I started ascending and hopped to find their bubbles from surface. Luckily they did what I had told them before the dive. Looking for each other up to 1 minute and getting back to surface. So, they found my dive flag on surface and swam toward me.
Then, I didn’t dare to let any one out of my sight. I even asked them to swim hand in hand. No body got lost, but the course progressed slowly. Unlike the one-on-one class, the students didn’t have time for exploring the reef for fun. Because of the lesson learned from the first dive, I kept everybody so close that I could instantly reach them for the second dive. Also, I swam backward and kept everyone in sight while having them swimming. They didn’t need to swim hand in hand and were getting better as if they had been certified divers. To be a certified diver, they still needed two more dives. Hopefully, I could be assigned to be their instructor to complete the remaining training tomorrow.
The photo is the recent forecast in Cairns.
