Last I wrote I had decided to lay down my helmet for a month to complete my Diver Master Training.
First up was a First Aid Course refresher, since the last I had done was about 10 years ago. I was able to perfct my skills on a few random indonesians who lay motionless around various parts of the dive shop one afternoon.
The Rescue Diver course could then be commenced. After learning about various ways to assist divers in differing degrees of distress my ultimate test came one afternoon.
'Roel is missing' A random unconcerned customer told me.
'Oh is he?' I replied, 'well we better start a search'.
After donning my diving gear I entered the water together with Leslie, my instructor. We commenced a search pattern. I kept using the compass wrong and Leslie kept getting stressed. (In my defence diving compasses are backwards!) I kept glancing at my dive computer, after 30 minutes we should abort the search. 19 minutes had already passed. Suddenly I spotted him, face down and unconsious, entangled in a rope. I freed him and took him to the surface where I gave rescue breaths and towed him towards the beach.
Suddenly my air tank grated against a rock. Bugger. The tide was going out and had exposed some coral. We had managed to get trapped on our backs like ladybirds. Roel wasn't happy. We had to abort the rescue whilst it was every diver for themselves.
I was eventually able to dump Roel onto the beach where I could commence CPR. A confused and rather startled Indonesia family watched with concern until Roel got fed up of being a dummy. Despite the slight hiccup, I had passed. My Dive Master Training, DMT, could start in earnest.
Roel with Laura, his bodged rescue dummy hobbit.
Secondly, I needed to look the part. I was supposed to be a professional and a role model who people would respect. My bierdy wierdy look would have to go.
Oh Dear!
No one mentioned what sort of proffessional I should look like and after watching some of the PADI instructional videos featuring corny American actors with an array of hair styles from an 80's fashion shoot, 10 minutes with a shaver resulted in this...
Oh Yeah!
I was encouraged to dive as often as possible, so went at every available opportunity until I developed Indonesian Man flu so I resorted to studying for my exams. I purchased some Tiger Balm, as seen on Indonesian TV, and proceeded to embalm myself. Since I had lost all sense of smell I could not tell how strong the stuff was. People refused to sit near me for a few days due to the overwhelming smell of mint. It didn't stop the spread of Dunk flu though, I was simply the first.
Studying hard.
Once my illness had worn off a little we had to do a timed 400m swim with points being awarded depending upon our times. So one morning about 8am we all waded off the beach. 100 metres had already been marked off along a buoy line so 4 lengths were required. It didn't look very far until we discovered a swarm of jellyfish about halfway. We had to cross through them 4 time. I then had to tread water for 15 minutes in their midst.
One dive in particularly memorable for me. A couple of holidaying Germans wanted to finish with a deep dive. I thought this would be about 40 metres - PADI's reccomended limit for a recreational diver. As we free fell into the blue Nitrogen narcosis, possibly the greatest drug in the world, took hold due to the increased pressure. At 40 metres my dive computer started going mental warning me that we were too deep. A fantastic feeling of peacefulness and tranquility descended upon me. At 54.6 metres we levelled off. I wanted to stay there forever. I almost thought that I had gills and didn't need the air that was quickly being depleted from my tank and who cared that my computer was now calculating that I had exceded the no-decompression limit and had to spend some time in decompression.
We slowly ascended and as the effect of the excess Nitrogen wore off I sobered up rather instantly. We were at 30 metres after 30 minutes dive time. I had half a tank of air left and needed to spend 20 minutes to allow the excess Nitrogen to be removed from my body before I could even think about surfacing. This was to minimise the risks of decompression sickness aka 'The Bends'. If anything had gone wrong with my kit I was so close yet so far away from the surface. To make things pleasently worse there was now a very strong current meaning that four of us had to cling to an inflated balloon, which had been wedged onto the ocean floor, to complete our decomression stop at 3 metres depth. When I finally surfaced I felt like I had almost been to the edge of the world. At about 62 metres depth air becomes toxic.
It was a great experience and I learnt a lot about decompression diving. At some point I hope to go to the deep wreck here sunk during the Second World War which is about the same depth.
Life on the surface is also rather vibrant. I have adopted 3 stray beach dogs and feed them regularly. We have Mama Dog, Henry - AKA Papa Dog, and the black sheep of the bunch, Crack Fox, who spends most of his day hiding in a swamp itching his scabby skin and, we suspect, taking drugs.
I also have a pet cat, Ginger Tom, who regularly visits my tent at stupid o'clock at night sometimes accompanied by wild boar or stray cows.
The other day I had a restless night in the tent after we met some locals who had just slain a beast on the beach. They had bashed a massive Pythons head in because it had been stealing chickens. They coiled it up on the sand where us tourists could prod and poke it and take photos. When moved, the muscles contracted because it had not been long dead. They tied it to a buoyline and left it to feed the fishes. The next morning it was still there because nothing could bite through it's tough leathery skin. Personally I was up for a BBQ.
Due to the lack of cash machines on the island, a couple of us organised a day trip on the ferry to the mainland to stock up on cash and other supplies which are impossible to get. I had run out of cash a couple of weeks and was quite happily adding all my meals to a tab at the resataurant next door. This was until I completed a page and they asked me to cough up. I tried to explain that I would have to leave the island to get some cash and they gave me very unpleasant looks everytime I had to order food. I think they might have spat in it, hence the trip to Banda Aceh was imperitive.
After getting the early ferry to the mainland we were rather hungry so popped into a cafe for some breakie. I spoke English in a loud slow voice whilst waving my arms around and pointing at some eggs and coffee. When the owner didn't understand me I repeated myself, even slower and even louder. Eventually he cottoned on and I sat down to await the grub.
A old man with no teeth on the table next to us kept pointing at us and cackling. The cafe owner had cracked the eggs into a cup and was now whisking the yolks with a power drill. He then poured the coffee into the egg cups. I jumped up and started flapping around, realised I wasn't getting anywhere then gave up. Together with the eggy coffee we got a glass of warm water each and some coco-nutty squidgy things covered in flies. I stuck with the coffee. It wasn't so bad... but my stomach did make some interesting noises and I couldn't walk too fast afterwards and was extremely cautious when I sneezed...
After breakfast we spent several hours wandering around attempting to find any cash machines that would accept out evil western cards. When we did find one we would empty it. The locals waiting in line behind us weren't very happy.
Triumphant, we returned to the island together with copious amounts of shopping. I amused myself on the slow ferry back by pouring water over the heads of Indonesians on the decks below who kept experimenting as to whether the fish would eat discarded plastic.
A few days after our return there was an earthquake at 5am one morning. It was a couple of hundred kilometres away about 50km under the seabed. None of us really noticed until the next morning when the news was filled with details. Apparently the beach was bombarded by a 1/2 metre high tsunami... maybe we were lucky this time.
Another day, another dive...
And so life continues... sleeping, eating, drinking and diving... my beer tab is starting to become rather excessive and could actually end up costing more than my diving course. Small old monkey men climb stupidly tall trees and cut down coconuts. One day I will have to get back onto the bike and head for Australia, but not quite yet...
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