Day 177! Well today’s the day… I’ve been hearing stories about how intense the stress and rescue training is… and I’m sick. But that didn’t stop me from pushing myself a little bit and joining Kit and Nia diving today! It was an intense day one and here’s how it went.

I woke up this morning still congested and unable to equalize my ears. I wasn’t very optimistic that I’d be able to dive today, but my mentor Chris suggested that I attend class and try because if not, I could always try again later.

Also the class would be beneficial for me anyways. So at 8am I rolled out of bed, got ready, and then around 8:45am I got to the Taco Shack lobby for a muesli bowl.

While I was eating, I was joined by my friend Chelsea, who was going to be the instructor assisting us on the course. The course itself was going to be instructed by Iris, the dive manager.

I really enjoyed her navigation course, so I was looking forward to learning another set of skills from her.

9am rolled around and Kit, Nia, Lydia, Chelsea, myself, and Iris piled into the classroom to begin our day. We rolled through 2 hours of slides, materials, and exercises we’d be going over throughout the dives today.

Today was all about dealing with stressful emergencies but maintaining composure under the water.

By the end of class I still wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do the dives today. But I got my gear ready and had lunch just like I was going to have a regular diving day (when I’m not sick).

It was another packed day on the boat, so much so Kit and I didn’t even have a bag to put our equipment in! But we made do and headed to the pier.

Today included a lot of yelling and quick situations… which started immediately as we got on the boat. We had to put our equipment on quickly as our instructors were yelling at us and throwing water on us. It was intense but also a fun challenge.

The best part about this all is it’s a regular day of diving for everyone else. So all the open water and advanced divers are just laughing and confused as we’re being pushed to the limit on the boat.

We got to the first dive site and we were immediately hit with our first challenge. Till (another DMT assisting us) “fell overboard” and needed assistance. So Kit had to run downstairs, throw his mask, snorkel, and fins on, throw Till a buoy, and then swim out to assist him getting on the buoy.

Now, we have to put the buoy in between us and the distressed… and if we didn’t, they were meant to climb on us, dunk us in the water, the whole nine yards. After Kit we all went through similar situations.

My energy was there but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to equalize. Luckily we didn’t go very deep the first dive and my ears were fine. I was able to equalize a little bit but there wasn’t much discomfort for the most part! I was glad I came along.

The first dive was going through a long laundry list of emergency skills. Like air sharing, mask removal, equipment and weight belt removal, and emergency assents… all the while we were maintaining neutral buoyancy and not touching the sand or floating to the surface.

The mask removal was by far the most “intense” one for me. I still don’t like taking off my mask under water, something I need to get used to. But we had to swim for at least a minute without our mask on. I was able to stay calm and collected and when I eventually put my mask back on I let out a big sigh.

This dive was a lot of exercises but it was fun to float around the entire time with everyone.

Before we left the dive site, we had to practice saving a drowning diver. This is a diver who doesn’t realize they didn’t inflate their BC the entire way and can’t stay on the surface. So as one of our divers was splashing around, making lots of noise, yelling about wanting tacos (what we use instead of screaming for help)… we had to dive underneath them, swim around their back, wrap our legs around their tank, and inflate their BC for them… all the while they’re flailing around, kicking us, and yelling. It was a lot…

But, one dive down!

I was definitely just surviving with my sickness, but I was successful in dive number one, so of course I was going to give dive number two a go.

Again, as we got to the dive site… another emergency! We had to pull the buoy line back out and run through this skill again.

Then we geared up and got into the water for our “fun dive.”

(There’s a reason fun is in quotes)

This dive was mainly a fun dive… we ran through a couple more skills we didn’t have the time for at the first dive site. But then we started a fun dive, following Chelsea around Japanese Gardens.

Over the next 40 minutes, chaos ensued. Every few minutes some emergency came up… sometimes it was air sharing, sometimes it was cramps, buoyancy problems, masks coming off, fins coming off… you name it, it happened.

Our job was to help relieve the situation while maintaining composure, help the person in crisis, and not risking our safety at the same time.

Sometimes someone would pop out of nowhere and start yanking at our regulator and we had to help them “calm down“ and go through the air sharing protocol.

Or other times we’d look behind us and one of the assisting divers would be maskless or finless and we’d have to help them.

One time I turned around and Lydia had all her equipment off and I had to help her put it back on. It was a lot… but oddly enough, I wasn’t too stressed.

There were a few times when I’d struggle to pull out my spare regulator and my breath would be running low… but at the same time, I’ve been in an even more stressful situation, my own panic. I think that really helped me prepare for this course…

… but we’ll see about tomorrows dives since I’ve heard the intensity ramps up like crazy. Today was all about helping others, I believe tomorrow, a lot of the problems happen to us.

But before we exited the water, we had to save “drowning” divers again and this time I had to save Iris. Before I could even react she had removed my face mask and dunked me under the water. At the same time I had to replace my mask, regain composure, give myself distance from the diver, get under her and latch myself to her tank to inflate her BC.

Honestly, out of the whole day, that was the most intense moment for me… but I was successful and didn’t lose my cool!

What’s even crazier, is with today’s dives, I’ve hit over 50 dives (51 to be exact). To think basically 1 month ago I never had a dive and now I have over 50! I’ve basically dove 2 times a day for the past month… crazy!!

I was exhausted and definitely not feeling the best. So we got back to Taco and I had dinner with Lydia, Till, and Kit. We all had different quesadillas and then I promptly went to my room for bed!

I’m hoping I’ll be all good to dive again tomorrow… but after that I’m going to need a couple of recovery days for sure.

I am, however, proud of myself for being able to get through the day and complete day one even with the adversities. Adds a little more stress to the stress and rescue, but it’s time to learn!! Let’s see how tomorrow goes!

– Elie