I’ve had two fabulous dives with Ray Gasapin today. Ray is also an instructor at Diver Dan’s and a couple days ago, Ryan comes to see me all excited to tell me that there were three Diver Dan’s instructors on the island. He told me about Ray and then I asked him who the other two instructors were that Ray was with. Yeah, I didn’t quite get that the other two were the two of us! Ray and his wife, Jelena, are here on vacation and are absolutely delightful people.
Actually, it’s quite funny how they found us. When you get off the Pier onto the main street, the first dive shop you’ll hit is Hippo Divers – that’s the shop Ryan and I were diving with when we first arrived, and incidentally how we ended up with them was exactly because they were the first shop we hit on the strip. And Andy was nice and friendly, so we ended up diving with them. Anyway, Ray, just like us, went into Hippo and was talking to our other buddy there, Gee. Gee, of course, asked them where they were from, they said California and Gee pointed them in our direction. They came on the boat with us yesterday and today and today I was able to go diving with Ray. Jelena is currently not allowed to dive, but I’m sure she’ll make up for it in a few months. It’s been nice to have someone from home to share stories with.
Well our two weeks is up at Princess Divers and Marcus the manager has asked that one of us stay on for another two weeks. He’s given us the choice as before to either split it or have one of us stay and the other go. It’s been super busy, so there is actually the remote possibility that there might be work for both of us in the coming weeks. I do intend to start going around to some of the other shops to introduce my face again though in case other possibilities open up since the gig at Princess is still being billed as temporary.
It’s been a great experience so far. The first week was super slow – lots and lots of shop hours, surfing the net, playing backgammon and sitting on our hands. This past week was insane though – we took 10 students through open water, two students through EFR and Rescue and a speckling of fun divers and DSDs and Refreshers in the mix. I think that I’ve been on the boat six of the past seven days which I’m thrilled about.
Learning how to do Open Water the Phi Phi way led to about three sleepless nights for me, but now it’s over and I feel a lot more confident that I can do this without violating PADI standards and only mildly bending them. There are challenges though. For starters, in my opinion, we do confined water in more challenging conditions than open water. Our confined water area is in the ocean and depending on the tide it can be rather surgy and the viz is generally crap and definitely crappier than in open water. Which begs the question, how do you demonstrate CESA and no mask swim when the students can barely see two feet past their regs? I’ve demonstrated fin pivots where the students can definitely not see as far as my fins.
Phi Phi, while much more low key than the much seedier Patong where we were previously, still has a lot of bars and beach parties and a lot of very young people come here. I’d say a good chunk of our clientele is backpackers doing a “gap year” before or during “uni.” Most of our clientele is European of some flavor or Aussie and most anyone with an American accent comes from west of the Rockies. They’re young and I was feeling old yesterday, certifying all these kids who were born the year I graduated high school or later.
Things are much more laid back – people don’t necessarily show up when they’re supposed to or even on the day they’re supposed to. But that’s how it rolls. We’re both off tonight and we went to visit our buddies at Hippo after dinner. Andy was finishing up 3 advanced students – first thing he said to them, “Good job showing up today, I didn’t think you were going to when I saw you at the bar last night.” I chided him that he should put it in a more PADI appropriate way – “I really liked the way you showed up this morning. A better way to do that might be to show up less hung-over.” I’d say that it would probably sound rude, he says it with that British accent, it sounds charming.
And there’s something I have to get used to. I have absolutely no problem telling my students at home that they shouldn’t drink alcohol the night before diving, here it’s a bit different, people are on holiday and I can’t be telling them they can’t hit the buckets the night before, even though for their own good, I don’t think they should.
Which brings me to the buckets…
Twenty years ago, I might have thought this was a brilliant idea, but now, not so much. You can buy buckets here and it’s just like what it sounds. It’s a bucket, filled with bottles of the fixings of a massively large cocktail. People love ‘em coz they’re economical, because lots of places have some sort of 2 for 1 promo and I’m quite sure that just one can bring you pretty close to some degree of alcohol poisoning. Beer here sucks (i.e. all of it’s about the equivalent of Bud) and by island prices is expensive, but the buckets are comparatively quite economical. I think I’d balk at spending 50TB on a crappy beer when a meal costs me 80TB.
Working at the shop and getting a paid meal every day we’re on the boat has made my daily meal cost drop dramatically. On most days, I spend about 80TB for a curry over rice – that’s $2.50. On days that I splurge and have a Euro meal, it’s more like 110 to 140 TB. Today we got paid, so tonight we really splurged – I think the most expensive meal out we’ve had – Ryan had a burger and I had a proper salad with chicken and bacon and blue cheese. I could’ve had two curries for the price of that salad, but I do have to say that every bit was delicious - I’d been craving a proper salad with good lettuce for quite some time. They do Italian very well here – some favorites – gnocchi with four cheese sauce – it’s your caloric and dairy intake for a week, but so good; pizza – I like the margarita, Ryan likes the salami; the tuna melt from the coffee shop next to the shop – gooped up in mayo just the way I like it and with wonderful and proper English Cheddar on it and served up with bacon potato salad.
My favorite restaurant for curries – Papaya – makes the best Mussaman I’ve ever had – has kittens. The mommy cat had five little wee ones and they’re all in a cage, though mama is allowed out of her cage to go hang out in the fridge where she has a nap box (I know, Nicole is having heart palpitations as she’s reading this). I guess it cools her off and she must like it because she gets into the fridge voluntarily. The kittens barely have their eyes open and are barely able to get around on their little legs yet, but they are for sale for 5TB each. I told Ryan I want to get one and call him 5 Baht.
There’s a cat that I love who hangs out around the shop – he’s got a great little personality and I call him Junior because he looks and acts a lot like a little Kermit. I’m not sure who he belongs to, but I picked him up and was hugging him the other day and the lady from the massage parlor next door says to me, “you like him, I give him to you.” I’m not sure he was hers to give so I didn’t take him. I would, but I’m not sure about how all the territory works and since they should all be outdoor kitties, I’m not sure displacing them from their territory is such a good idea.
The cats on this island are very well cared for (though they should probably neuter them a bit more and bring in some fresh blood from the mainland every once in a while so they have something to mix with other than their brothers and sisters). On our property, there’s a cat bungalow, at least as big as our room, open air (concrete bottom walls, top walls made out of wiring), filled with cat cages and food bowls and obviously very well tended. I like that. I no longer feel bad for all the kitties. They get plenty of food and plenty of love.
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