Staff Diving, Fighting, Yeah!

With the IDC (Instructor Course) guys finished and a whole new bunch of Divemasters certified we decided the time was right to get a staff boat together. This is, as you would imagine, a boat full of just staff members. We decided to get Dan to come along with his video camera so the day could be captured forever…

Being a special occasion I decided it would be appropriate to wear my Speedos, to which I added some socks down the front (not that this was necessary you understand). This met with a mixed reception as I delivered the boat briefing (again no pun intended but I am good at finding them aren’t I?) in my little Speedos. As we approached the dive site Bruce and I decide we would jump over board and pretend to drown, again this met with a mixed reception and we were forced to recall our PADI self-rescue techniques from chapter 4…

After a messy, uncoordinated decent we gathered at about 30 meters to open a beer… this took some time, and as Bruce tried to open the bottle all of the divers gathered in a line behind him, all latching onto the tank of the person in front of them. I decided I did not want to wait in this queue so I floated next to Bruce and took the beer second, when it still tasted as the Hondurans had intended. The 15th person in the queue must have wondered what the bottle contained after everyone had taken a sip yet the bottle was still full, this wonderment was clarified after a sip was taken.

I then remembered I had taken a banana down with me and promptly shared this around, yummy. All the excitement had taken it’s toll however, and I soon ran out of air and had to surface… In between dives we cruised around and searched for Whale Sharks, this proved unsuccessful but later clever video editing would make this appear otherwise.

In fiery mood it was decided that the next dive would be to a sandy ledge about 20 meters below the surface. Here we would have a race as a warm-up to a boys vs girls fight. We descended in the style of a highly-trained parachute troop and lined up ready to race. A false start did not affect my focus and I pulled clear to an early lead, I became confident of the victory and reached to my pocket and pulled out my baby-bottle containing my apple juice and had a celebratory drink as I approached the line. To my dismay I began to slow and it became apparent that some parasite had clambered onto my back (this later turned out to be a combination of people led by Cat).

Freshly smarting from the race I was more than ready for the fight… Federico and Jodie squared up in the middle as a poignant precursor to the brawl, the signal was given and I headed towards the ‘honorary girl’ Bruce in full fighting mode, snorkel in hand ready to deliver a severe beating… However, the girls had somehow planned there line of attack and had freed-up four weight belts which were quickly tied around my ankles, legs and arms! The boys had failed to protect me, and as I hobbled off caterpillar style, I battled to free myself and seek revenge. This was duly metered out once freed, and I took out the baby’s bottle and fired its toxic contents into Bruce’s face… all was going well until I had to befriend a girl due to having no air left. I selected Jodie, as she was nearest at hand, but she soon passed me on to a willing donor whose air also then ran out…

We all made it back on board and several arguments ensued, with the silly girls feeling they had won, pointing to the fact that most of the boys had run out of air, and several had lost fins and other items of kit.

I have the DVD containing clear evidence that we won, stupid girls!