When it was expected of me the most to be relaxed and on top of my head as a divemaster, I was the one and only one who panicked in the situation.
Ruvi was putting a light underneath the rock. Since the reef has tight ways of rocks and corals, we only let divers peek at the shark one by one. Once they are happy to see the sharks, they move away from the rock and another one would come.
After the shark sighting, I tap my pointing and middle finger lightly on my palm and show it to the husband, asking him how much air he has. When he shows his fist followed by raising his pointing finger, like when you show someone the hand sign of number “1”, I froze. I look at my dive computer and see that we’re at 24.6 meters & at 15 minutes of our dive.
I feel for my dive bell & rang it frantically, as if the more I shake, the better the situation would be, to get Ruvi’s attention. Ruvi was looking around to see where that sound was coming from until our eyes meet. I then give him the signal I get from the husband – 60 bars – and then point at the husband. He then repeated my hand signal to make sure he saw the right signal I give.
Before it all started, we are expecting 6 students for their open water course, then followed by advanced open water that week. The course will take 5 days.
This will be the first time I get to experience helping to handle & manage 6 new aspiring scuba divers.
First day was to meet and know them, and they got to meet us as well. One just got her college degree, the other is about to enter military service. The other two, both young women, recently finished their service to the military, I guess. The last pair was the husband and wife, just got married and were in the middle of their honeymoon. All of them are from Israel and the language of instruction is Hebrew, leaving me once again as the foreigner. After knowing each and everyone, we do the confined water training. One got panicked. And one doesn’t know what to do and how to do his duty- which was me.
On the second day, we see how students perform in the open water. We check to see their buoyancy and how they swim. We divide the students into three. Ruvi, Divemaster Tiolan & I will take two students each. During the course of the dive, I & my divers got lost from the group – one of the many rookie mistakes that I’ve done during my training. The second dive of that day took only 20 minutes. Philippine Immigration called Ruvi to come over for some official (or unofficial) reason- probably visa reasons. You have to remember that we’re on an island at the northernmost tip of Cebu. Calling a foreigner to come over just to show up before immigration closes at 5PM is both infuriating and frustrating. Ruvi, an innocent man and making honest wages was to do a 30-minute boat ride to cross to mainland, scour for a private taxi to dash through a 4-hour drive to the city and make it on time for his supposedly appearance at the Philippine Immigration.
I was left to run the shop. Ruvi left before everybody else does, and so I tend to the students, do some housekeeping of the gears, and told them to wait for further updates. The students left the shop and I make sure that everything is in order for tomorrow’s business- buy bread for tomorrow snack’s for surface interval, towels are dry and folded, spare box that contains extra dive gears are ready, first aid box and oxygen tank all okay. I then welcome one dive who will do a fun dive tomorrow.
Morning came, and the students arrived. For today’s order of business: last 2 dives for their open water course and then followed by a night dive, a transition towards their advanced open water course. First two dives went alright. In terms of okay, I didn’t lose my divers from the group anymore. They had fun, especially watching the mandarin fish mate.
The shop was on the north side of the island. It’s facing the beach where the reef is called the “Lighthouse Reef”. It’s called that way because you can see the tall and white lighthouse up on a hill facing the reef. At night, the lighthouse light glows on and off constantly and in these modern times and navigational technology of ships are getting sophisticated, there’s still a use of lighthouse in this world. And on this small and simple island where the only lights you can see are the evening lights from the homes of the islanders, the lighthouse shines the brightest.
The next day marks the first day of their Advanced Open Water course. This time, we head to Gato Island. Gato, in which we always tell on our dive briefing, is the Spanish word for “cat “. When the Spaniards found this rocky island, they seem to look at it like a sleeping, curling cat. It takes around 45 minutes to travel from Malapascua to Gato Island.
What I thought to be a simple & easy dive will be another great lesson that I will always remember.
On the dive, I’m taking the husband and wife, as I did for their last three dives. And this is where it all happened – Ruvi signaled to inflate my SMB and I did as instructed. I give the wife to Ruvi to buddy up and I’m to bring the husband to the surface. I remember the reel slipped from my hand and in a split second; I thought I’m having a second trouble coming up. But I was quick to catch it & saw the line went diagonally towards the current, which was going away from the island, as we were as well. But my eyes never saw that. What my eyes only see is that there’s a diver with only 50 bars at 24.6 meters that I need to bring to surface, breathing and in one piece.
As I’m about to bring him to 5 meters for our safety stop, Ruvi emerges from the depths, bringing along her three divers, including the wife. He shared his octopus with my diver and do our safety stop altogether. Ruvi gazed at me, our eyes met and he nod lightly as if telling me “It’s all okay”, in which it was.
Five of us made it to the surface all good, except for me. When we were on the boat, I can’t help but wonder if the husband knew what was going on. He seems relaxed and untroubled by what has happened. In fact, no one on the boat is. I even asked Ruvi later that day; in which he reply “when you’re in the military, nothing troubles you“, or something like that. I discovered I was the only one who’s not okay and troubled. Everyone on the boat had fun and talked about the things they saw on the island of Gato.
One thing that I had learned about this dive was to relax. When it was expected of me the most as a divemaster, I was the one and only one who panicked in the situation.