I’ve started writing this entry a few times now and I just can’t seem to get it quite right to publish it. So I’ll give it one more try and see how it comes out this time. Thus far 2010 has turned Phi Phi from small paradise to brick-wall-hitting-you-in-the-face-crap!
A few nights ago Ryan and I got caught in a heavy downpour as we were going home from dinner. We dashed into one of the local guesthouse’s reception area and waited out the storm. Mon, the manager of the house, bent our ear for about an hour as the rain streamed down in heavy sheets, reminding us that, high season or not, we are indeed in the tropics. Mon showed us a picture of Phi Phi 20 years ago and said to us, “People come here, they say it’s paradise. This isn’t paradise, this is hell.”
New Year’s Eve, we had dinner at 9:00 at La Mamita with Ryan’s work crew. Ryan was tired and somewhat grumpy so he ate and went home. I stayed out for a long while longer, bouncing from Ryan’s work crew to my work crew and at midnight we said our “happy new years” from under the fireworks over Tonsai Bay. It was a stunning display. The party continued after that at the Rolling Stoned Bar where the live cover band entertained and made us dance. No, the name is not a misprint on my part. What I don’t know and can’t seem to get an answer to is whether they were being witty when they named it (as in haha, they were always stoned, let’s call it Rolling Stoned) or whether it’s a simple Thai misprint, which would oh so typical. The evening ended much too late with flying fists between DMs who ordinarily love each other all because of a drama queen divemaster trainee. Shortly after I went home, shaking my head.
January 1st, 2010, Barakuda was closed for the majority of the day – we had no dive boats going out. Ryan and I were scheduled to fun dive together with Adventure Club. We were supposed to do that Christmas Day, but everything had gotten messed up. We had one super nice dive and one mediocre dive, but nonetheless we were both super happy to enjoy some quality underwater time together. It’s been almost 6 months since we’ve been diving – that’s a crazy long time! And, as it turned out, our first dive together, our stunning dive on Bida Nok Deep, my favorite site, just happened to be my 600th dive (fact which I found out 10 days later when I finally got around to downloading my computer).
January 2nd, 2010, all hell breaks loose and this little paradise turns craptacular!
And thus the story begins…
On new year’s day, Dom, one of the DMs at Adventure Club picked up his pay and then quit. He packed his gear and went to leave the shop. Andrew, the owner of Adventure Club, followed him down the street, grabbed his gear bag and turned it inside out in the middle of the street “to make sure Dom wasn’t stealing anything.” Later we come to find it was really a last ditch effort to humiliate him.
Dom and Andrew had their differences, but honestly, Andrew butts heads with anybody who’s got half a brain and doesn’t automatically agree with him.
Apparently Adventure Club has an unwritten (and unspoken) rule that if you quit without giving notice, you forego your last two weeks of pay. I’m still unclear in what world you can work and not get paid, just another reminder that we’re not in Kansas anymore. Andrew believes therefore that Dom stole from him. So, later that night, he puts together a posse and goes hunting for Dom.
Well, later that night, Dom and the rest of the Adventure gang (sans Ryan, of course) are found having drinks at Rolling Stoned. Andrew walks in and grabs Dom and tells him that they need to settle “this” outside. Dom declines so Andrew tries to get the bar to stop serving them drinks, which the bar refuses to do since the gang was causing no trouble. Andrew’s posse looms in the doorways of the bar while Andrew stays in the shadows outside. When the gang left after the bar closed, Andrew and his friends jumped Dom and beat him to a pulp.
The consequences: Adventure Club has exactly one instructor and no divemasters left. Amanda quit the following morning and left the island with Robyn (new divemaster) and Dom. Ryan quit/was fired the following night. Michael quit the evening after that and Tobias gave 10 days notice because he can’t afford to forego any pay. And Jemma, the manager, has given her notice – she’ll be leaving at the end of the month.
Ryan walked into all this shit at 7:00 a.m. the following morning expecting it to be business as usual and be going out for a good day’s diving with his pals. Instead he was treated to Amanda in tears, who then told him what had happened.
Ryan was willing to give Andrew the benefit of the doubt or was even willing to forgive Andrew if he mustered up an “I really fucked up, things got out of hand and I’m very sorry for all of it.” But instead Andrew called together a staff meeting and justified why he was right in what he did. Then he put Ryan on the spot to make a decision right there, and while I think Ryan had already made his decision, that pretty much cinched the deal.
Andrew then left the island the next day and that was a huge relief. I was worried that if he felt that Ryan had antagonized him in any way or determined that if Ryan didn’t give back the last pay he’d received, then he’d stolen money, he might come after Ryan in the same way he went after Dom.
A day later Andrew came back and as far as I can tell has really made no trouble since, except to pretty much make work hell for Jemma who is counting the days over there.
Ryan’s totally bumming . Despite Andrew being a complete psychopath, he had a nice time working at Adventure. He enjoyed his team and had fun with them. And Andrew wasn’t on the island all that much anyways. When the whole “you can’t go on your visa run when you need to go or you’ll be fired” fiasco happened, Ryan fought for that job.
My girlfriends, Amanda and Robyn left the island after coming back for two nights and I was so sad when they left.
As you can imagine, we are absolutely floored by all of this. It’s been a really sad and frustrating start to the new year.
In the meantime, it’s back to longtail diving for Ryan as he’s found a home at Blue View Divers with Cian and Lisa. He’d already scoped out a job there when Andrew had said Ryan was fired if he went on his visa run at the intended time, so 10 days later it wasn’t too difficult to just walk into that job. Cian and Lisa are real nice people and I think that Cian’s wanted Ryan to work there for a while now so it should be a good fit. He’ll probably find that his hours are a bit shorter as Blue View isn’t open until 10:00 every night and they start diving later.
I’m a little frustrated with certain things at Barakuda. While it continues to be a source of good work, some of the idiosyncracies there are incredibly frustrating. When Jemma changes shops, there is a chance that I will leave. Mostly, I’m looking forward to moving on at the end of high season to see what other paradise the seven seas have to offer.
Happy New Year people! My only resolve is to stop using potato chips as a meal.
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