Day Twenty-two, -three and -four

Monday and today have both been cruise ship days. Today was good as I got to dive both bow and stern sections of the Rhone although the first dive was way short!! I had 5 divers and two of them are married. As we are about to descend down the line to the wreck the wife says to the husband "did you tell her about your ears?" He of course hadn't so I figure right we'll take our time down the line and be ok. Well he drops down the line just fine. I get half way down and look around thinking why do I only have 4 divers and when I look up the wife is still on the surface. Turns out the last dive she made she had a cold (NEVER DIVE WITH A COLD!!) and so she ended up getting a nose bleed and it freaked her out. She of course was now somewhat freaked at the memory and so we went down nice and slow and she was fine. I get to the bottom of the line and my 3 other divers have disappeared. They have decided to follow Jason (the other leader) around the back of the wreck even though I told them to wait for me at the bottom!! I haul ass to try to catch them and tell them to stop, wait for me and finally reach them as they are about to head into the swim thru!!

So finally we get on with the dive and I take them through the wreck. On the other side of the swim thru I ask for all their air and the husband is down to 1100 psi! We head for the line again at 1000 so I'm like "right where do I take them now for a couple of minutes that will leave him enough time to do his safety stop and not blow through the tank?!" So we rode the current over the top of the wreck and headed back. Shortest dive of my life - 18 mins including 3 minutes safety stop. Oy!!

So after the surface interval of almost an hour we head back to the stern section and there is quite a strong current there which I knew was going to be difficult for this group, especially going through the air so fast. We manage to get about 28 mins on the second dive and still I ended up having to send up the husband early. I didn't do that on the first dive because I wasn't too sure whether I could just leave him hanging on the line. Because the visibility wasn't so great either at the bow even if I knew I could have sent him up, I probably wouldn't be able to see him and that is something I need to do!

I was so bummed about the bow section because the other divers got to see the seahorse that has been hanging at the coral nearby and I of course totally missed him! Boo hiss!! I also never saw Lobzilla on the stern or much else.

Afternoon was snorkelling which I enjoy but no one else seems to! And we made good tips today too which is always fab! :)

The previous two days were of a similar vein although I didn't have as many problems with ears or air blowers. One dive was just me and a guy who's an engineer on one of the cruise ships! Very cool dive and we got to see lots more than normal. Still no camera for me though as I'm not allowed when leading. I have the next two days off and so I'm hoping to be able to dive on one of those days so I can at least take a camera down there with me. I'm also hoping that some of the other staff are going to email me some of their pics so I can post them on here for you all to see. :)

Anyhoo not sure what else I'm doing on my days off other than on Friday night we are having a booze cruise on one of the instructor's boats. Should be a good laugh and hopefully some pictures will be taken so you can see the people I'm talking about!

After that there are two more days then I'm gonna be pretty much heading back home. It's been fun and has flown by so fast! I would so recommend you come out here if you can. But make sure you organise transport if you plan to stay on Tortola. I would definitely say you should charter a boat and a captain too if you can't sail. The best way to see everything here, most definitely!

Hope everyone is well
Hugs
H x