One Week Later…

I am starting to fall in to the rhythm of life here. Between knowing which grocery store has the cheapest apples to which side restaurant has the best smoothies to now knowing to watch out for all the animals in my yard (I was attacked by a chicken, tripped over a turtle, and almost stepped on a land crab all while I was walking from my steps to the gate looking up at the parrot). I start “work” at seven and we usually do two or three dives in the morning, then a quick lunch in between gear changes, then a dive or two in the afternoon. I’m done somewhere around four so they make for long days but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am now familiar with the routine of how we dive and am starting to recognize dive sites; so much so that I know the best place to find the cleaner shrimp, moray eels, spiny head blenny’s, and Christmas tree worms. The customers have all been great so far which has made things a lot easier on me.

Our shop is located on the beach but it is about 80m to the edge of the ocean so we have a makeshift cart (which is falling apart) that we use to bring the tanks across the beach. But we have to get the tanks from there on to the boat which would be fine if it was just the tanks and just for us but we take the customers gear (everything but weights, mask and fins) to and from the boat as well. My body is slowly adjusting to hauling roughly 30 tanks on and off the boat, plus all the gear and boat stuff, each day.