updates!
6-12-08
Today was the first full day of being in Tortola. The flight from Miami to San Juan was delayed for a good while, so by the time I flew in yesterday it was late and we didn’t have a chance to see the island or look around much. Did meet Blaire (another Virginian, there are 3 other girls here who have been in VA at some point for school or whatnot) on the last flight and some folks from a similar program that is also running here. Got to the docks around midnight and one of the fellows who was awake found me a bunk on a nice yacht with AC, met a few of my temporary bunk mates ( 2 Chris’s from England, which was sorta trippy since I didn’t realize there were multiple people there in the dark) and got to see how the rest of my summer would look. The bunk was surprisingly comfy/cozy and I conked out pretty good, although the AC got a lil chilly and I think someone was booted from the bunk on my account... so I may have to watch my back for a day or two. =)
The next morning I found out that breakfast was at 7:15 and met a few more people over that meal. Also discovered that I was going to be living aboard Banana, a smaller yacht with a lack of air conditioning. Most of the other people working here appear to be mid-twenties at the oldest, and there is an 18 year old guy here who’s also a scuba instructor, so I’m not the youngest. Got to ride to the emmigration office in a large open air bus, so that was a fun trip since I got to see some of the island and enjoy the breeze. The island is pretty gorgeous, lots of green and the water just looks beautiful... pretty exciting. Also caught on to most of the people’s names at the emigration office, since we waited in a corridor for our paperwork to get through for about 4 hours, and a fellow I met quizzed me on people’s names, proper and nick-names. May have a new nickname... Fibby, derived from a guy who thought it was interesting that I want to go into the FBI. -shrugs- Mighe be best, as there is a Melissa and Alicia also working with me... Got a cool lilttle emmigration card, but it was snatched up with our passports and is somewhere in paperwork limbo now. On the plus side our leaders are dealing with all this for us. Discovered another fellow with the last name of Feyr, from Canada, who denies relations to any Eric… thought it was a funky coincidence though.
Got to go to some of the initial training for the program, we spent group time in Pussner’s (a local restaurant… not the name I would choose for a place to eat, but ok) where we covered some of the details on the program and general expectations. Also went out on some of the yachts to give the captains and skippers some practice. I was on one of the catamarans and figured out some of the basics for helping dock the boat and for keeping out of the way when I’m not being helpful. Discovered I wasn’t the only person having difficulty with some of the knots and knowing what to do… not sure when we get to cover some of the dive programs and sites, but I may be doing some advanced and specialty courses since I’m able to…. Not sure yet, but we’ll see. Also saw a pretty cool rainbow while we were out, so I'll have to start carrying my camera around when I don't think it'll get in the way.
Students arrive on the 17th…. I’m currently getting some pretty bad WiFi from Pussner’s, and I won’t be able to get that once the students arrive. The trips are 3 weeks long so I won’t be updating over that time period… I'll try and keep up with a word document, so it might be large updates when I do get to them. Figuring out how some of the stuff works here though, so it should be fun, plus all of the folks seem pretty nice and most of them are odd enough to make my friends list.
I hope all of you are doing well... and if you want to contact me you can either comment here or email me at ame577@longwood.edu since there won't be any snail mail to and from Tortola. Take care everyone, and thanks to those who left facebook messages for my birthday!
6-13-08
Friday the 13th today, lucky for me 13 is my lucky number… plus word on the dock is that it’s always Aloha Friday, so yay? Morning out on the dock is just gorgeous, I was too lazy to wake up for sunrise, but I got to see early morning with the sun above some of the island’s ridges and all of the boats pulled in at dock. Very cool, and it’s just quiet and peaceful in the morning except for a number of clamorous roosters that live somewhere nearby, but they’re far enough out that you have to be awake to really notice that they’re there.
Spent today doing staff training in the upstairs of Pusser’s. There was a bit of a scramble for trying to stay out of the sun, but also stay in seats where you might catch a breeze. Just listening to folks speak almost had me asleep after lunch, but some of the discussions were really good. We all read out some quotes on leadership that were pretty good, and had a nice long chat about MRSA… with photos in our manual! Not color, but it still didn’t look pleasant. Also had some talks about first aid and the guidelines for dealing with alcohol and the like while on our trips, plus inappropriate relationships and whatnot. Very scandalous. Did some hands on first aid practice after lunch, so we put together the oxygen tanks and masks, practiced putting folks on the backboard (not as fun for the guy on the board, who got turned upside down…hehe). One of the honchos also asked what specialties I had, so I might be doing the more advanced training, which would be pretty darn cool… not sure yet but we’ll find out.
Hoping to try out some wakeboarding soon, people keep talking about it though I don’t know exactly what it is. Also jumped off the dock today, which was nice and relaxing, didn’t have the prerequisite beer like the others, but that’s ok… I got away with it.
Also noticing a trend of tattoos for a lot of the folks working here… Sorta interesting.
6-16-08
Tomorrow is our arrival day for the shipmates, and the last day of packing everything onto the boats and getting ready to set sail. It’s been fun since we have started on the manual labor and aren’t spending as much time in the classroom, although it feels like we need a whole lot more time for planning and such. The training has covered all the good things, such as first aid, walkie talkies, staff/student relationships, etc etc.
Found out what I’m teaching though, so that’s exciting. I’m aboard Couteau, which is French though I don’t know what it means if anything. I will be running the Barracuda program and will have shipmates doing advanced open water and 3 specialties, as well as having 4 doing open water under a different program. There’s a pretty good system in place so that no one has too many students, and everyone is having a role in teaching the shipmates aboard their boat. Of course this system is also totally insane when you’re trying to hash it out the day before and also figure out just how many students there will be, and how many are yours and where to send them and who you gain… agh! Think I have it now, but we’ll see. I will do all of the book work and training dives for the advanced and specialties, and I’ll do the water training for open water and send them off to do class work on another boat.
I’m happy that I’m on the sailside of the program, not just diveside. That way the students are learning how to sail a ship and do other water sports and aren’t diving the entire time. It’s sorta crazy to think that we’re leaving so soon with about 12 new people in a small lil ship for the next 21 days. Packing the boats was sorta fun though. I was on Team Food so we would wheel huge carts of food down the dock, then set up human chains to get all of it into the cabin. This meant that a lot of foods were thrown, including huge cans of corn, boxes of bisquick, huge boxes of goldfish, Pringles containers, and other various packaged goods. Naturally the game of trying to wing food onto a boat and catch them has the slight disadvantage of being over the water if something is dropped. I ended up fishing some packets of pasta out of the water (yay, they float), but one of the Chris’ made a gallant rescue by diving into the water after a can of baked beans… Phil later had a snorkel search and rescue for a can of coconut milk… it was fun, and we got to be pretty good at it.
Also amusing was my learning to steer a dingy today, since I sorta went in circles and will have to get the grasp of it quick before I’m expected to take students on dives in one of them… It will be fun enough fitting scuba equipment on our boat, which seems full as is, without the benefit of 12 new people to sleep on it. I will share a bunk with Cocoa (Julia, our captain) and the Chad (yes, with “the” as part of his name). Should be a good bonding experience… or we’ll know for sure not to work together again. = P
Should be exciting… and while I won’t have internet till the trip is over, on the Action Quest web site the students logs will be put up on blogs, so you should be able to read up on their activities under the Barracuda section. I’ll have to check later if any snarky comments were made about me.
Not sure where to find a post office around here either, so post cards may be sent later once I’ve had free time to snoop around on a day off.
Hope everyone’s doing well and staying out of trouble, and good luck to all those at Longwood who are studying hard. That and Happy Birthday mom!