Everything is all set for my life’s next heading.
I believe we all have to agree that the tropical island excites everybody. The cool blue waters, the white-sand beach, the sunset like some famous artist, who went up to heaven, painted the sky orange, and some night party perhaps.
That’s just the surface. We still didn’t mention those magnificent but shy creatures of the sea.
And when I embark on my journey to one of the best diving destinations in the world, Malapascua, the fantasy that runs on my head about the island life was no exception.
The idea that I would do my divemaster training here vigors me. This particular move made a major reinvention of my life. A one-way ticket. A never going back destination to paradise.
Every day, after my training, I could go on and watch the sunset, have a nice cold beer in the evenings and maybe run for some cardio. As I’ve heard, it improves you in diving. When no scheduled trainings, I could go catch up with my blog or I could go to the beach and read a book while sipping cold juice. A life straight out from the movies, a dream, an alternative life.
Suddenly, a director behind the scene, will shout “CUT!“, a word that will put an end to this fantastic scene. Because all of what I have ever imagined was so damn wrong.
I forgot that a dive shop is a business.
I settled in and as soon as the next day, at 7 AM, I get to have my first dive of my training. From there, one dive leads to another, and another, like a small tip of the snow that leads to an avalanche.
As a routine, I wake up at 4 AM to prepare for the day’s dives. Then, after the dives, I then greeted customers and answer queries. Next, was gear check and fitting their wet suits and make sure everybody is fine with their gear. That’s for tomorrow’s dive.
I got overwhelmed with the things that I need to do and lessons that I need to learn. Just as a sponge absorbs water it soon touches. While I was in the confines of the dive shop, every wipe of a lesson is a learning.
Every hour this shop runs, is every hour I need to train and learn. At the dive, underwater, I guide divers around the site and make sure they are all in one piece, and breathing. It made a major shift to see that not only I’m responsible for myself but also I’m responsible to people who look up on me.
As much as what I do underwater is as much as what I do when I’m at the dive shop — things like welcoming walk-ins, helping customers with paperworks, size up the gears for them and then wash the gears after the dive, ready to go for the next customer. I make sure that there are no missing expensive equipments like dive computers, and torches must have fresh batteries. Being a divemaster doesn’t bound you to guide divers underwater. And in the midst of it was the actual training for my course.
One time, when the shop was short staffed, I have to fill in tanks for tomorrow’s dive. From morning till night, while Ruvi was busy diving and teaching students, I was in the noisy compressor room filling tanks, making sure we don’t get short of tanks for tomorrow’s dive.
At night, when the dive shop is officially closed, is where I’m gonna do my work that pays and feeds me. After all, this is the last industry you want to be in if the idea of making six digits excites you.
I look at my life and realized that I was no longer leaving the shop- day till night. No sunsets to watch. No beer to drink. No beach to take a nap on.
I was rethinking if this is the life that I would want. Confining myself within the walls of the dive shop. Could this island be ever be a paradise if I don’t get to enjoy it? This was no different from my past life, where I know nothing other than to work. This has translated into one. It’s another system that I want to escape from.
I have to pause for a moment and draw an understanding of where I am at the point of my life. I’ve realized that I have to get a good grip on it. But make no mistake, I’m happy with the atmosphere of the shop. I’m happy making people happy. The difference is that I was happy doing it.
I have to take it to myself that my fantasies & expectations weren’t up to par with what’s going on with my stay here on the island. But, I intend to enjoy this place, it’s beautiful and world-class. But it’s not what I have imagined in my life.
For one, I have learned more than what I could have ever hoped for. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Ruvi was the best instructor on the island. I have met a lot of instructors in during my scuba diving life — some think that they have been through many experiences that they think they know it all.
But, Ruvi, is different. He always put something new on the table. Other than that, it feels like I’m missing something out whenever I’m not in the dive shop.
Training with Ruvi at the dive shop was exhausting, yet truly satisfying. Seeing people happy & that I bring them to another degree of happiness fuels up my desire to serve & continue what I was doing.
Yet, here I am, trying hard to shape the life that I’ve been imagining in my head. I just have to find that balance to enjoy this tropical paradise.