Week 5 - a trip to the country side!

Monday (01/02/23) - Having survived the turn of the year well, it starts again on Monday with 2 DSD, as usual, first in the pool and then in the sea; a nice start and a bit closer to the goal "MDST" (and the next step "IDC-Staff Instructor", but more on that soon)

Tuesday - the demos in the pool are having an effect! Made 4 DSD dives today, 3 of them did a demo before! 2 siblings from France and daughter + father from Spain! All 4 really good in the sea so the dive (almost 40 minutes) was very relaxed! By the way, the father used up the most air! It's almost always the case, women usually consume less than men, older people more than younger people, and the more weight on the scale, the more air consumption - although there are of course always exceptions!

Wednesday - German speaking guests again! Today I was allowed to lead a couple from Switzerland and also an American to the dive site "Coral Garden" and then to "Pared Faro" (Spanish, translated "Lighthouse Wall") - 2 very nice relaxed dives for which there are also videos ! (You can find Coral Garden here, Pared Faro is this link!) By the way, at the end of the 2nd dive I saw my first eagle ray here! What an experience! But that's not all! Immediately afterwards I went diving again, this time with 4 guests, 2 of them DSD (who did the theory and the pool part in my old base in Playa del Carmen) and 2 certified divers. (Note: as soon as DSD are present on a dive, there is no video (at least not from me), because I have to be able to intervene immediately if a situation threatens to become critical.) The highlight: 4 eagle rays die swam past us in formation completely unimpressed! On the way back to the beach I found out: "there is a customer waiting for you for a demo in the pool, afterwards they - whole family - want to do DSD"; so straight from the boat to the pool! A family with 2 sons is waiting for me there, the younger one should do the demo - I'd love to! Surprise afterwards: "and now the other son!" - so much for "a customer wants a demo". But it doesn't matter, I'm already there, so I've also taken the older son on a tour of the pool. The problem was one of timing, by the way, as the hotel's animation team organizes games in the pool in the afternoon - and when there are 30 people jumping around, it's not compatible with diving.

Thursday - and we continue in the pool with DSD! Again 4 customers (this time France and Canada) as well as an additional refreshment from the States, i.e. 5 guests. Nothing extraordinary, so off to the sea! There - of course only with 4 DSD, that is the maximum number of divers per diving instructor for this level - a little more than half an hour along the wall or the reef without any major problems - the best guarantee for enthusiastic customers!

Friday - my day off this week which I used to go to Tulum. And with a shared taxi. There is a bus stop 10 minutes' walk from my apartment, where the "Colectivo" pass. You pay 50 pesos in each direction for the approx. 60 km (approx. 45 minutes driving time), which is roughly the equivalent of €2.50. Before you get to the "Zona Archiologica" (exactly the cash desks at the entrance) you first have to go through an area with a hundred souvenir shops, that's just part of it! At the cash register, either queue up in front of the ticket booth or try your luck at the machines. Lucky because the machines only "speak" Spanish, but they are supported with lots of colorful pictures... Admission (1 person): 90 pesos. (regardless of whether cash register or machine) . In return, you get to see a relatively well-preserved Mayan settlement that is located directly on the coast on a small plateau - everything is very green and open! By the way, all the iguanas resting in the sun are funny! The temples were very nice, half hidden behind palm trees in the green... After about 3 hours - including a small picnic - I drove back. All in all, the trip cost me 270 pesos - that includes the expenses for the picnic. (roughly converted € 15,-)

Saturday - Diving! At least it was announced... According to the plan: at 09:00 4 certified divers with a diving instructor / guide in the sea and 6 DSD in the pool. They should then go diving at 11:00 a.m.... At 12:30 a.m. another 8 DSDs in the pool who then wanted to dive at 3:00 p.m. with the certified divers from the morning dive (a large family with 12 customers in total). By the way, the boat holds 18 people - including the boat crew! The family was quite mixed, between 11 and a little over 50 years old. Oh, and at 13h00 another snorkeling trip was planned, of course with the same boat! First : nobody came; or, to be precise: a complaint: apparently no one has pointed out that you are not allowed to dive if you get on the plane on the same day (afternoon). (I'll throw in here that the base didn't just exist since yesterday and we give this information several times a day...) For us this meant: of the 16 planned "customer dives" (4 certified + 6 DSD in the pool + 6 DSD in the sea) there were suddenly only 4 left - and we were looking for the extended family with the attempt, not just to 12h30 to start. (Spoilers: didn't work). Out of 8 DSDs, 6 finally went diving (1x seasick and 1x "feeling I can't breathe"), so we went diving in 3 groups with a total of 10 customers! However, without lunch because we didn't know when we would start.

Sunday - A diver from Munich and a diver from southern France jumped into the waves with me for the first dive - to even get to the boat! Far out where the waves aren't breaking yet, the guests can't get there, and where the waves are small and harmless the boat can't go, so... put on your fins and swim across the waves to the boat - diving is also an adventure ! But the dive (Coral Garden) was really nice - all 3 equipped with cameras and so we took photos / videos of lobsters, green moray eels and nudibranchs ("Flamingo tounge")! (Here is the video!)  The 2nd dive (again Pared Faro) then included large schools, nudibranchs and lobsters, there is also a video from this dive. Then - in the afternoon - a few more demos in the pool and that was the end of the week!

Summary: We - the dive masters of the base - share a large group and eagle rays "fly" by us!