We have this new system (new as in we’ve been doing it for 6 months) in which we radio from the house to the dive shop to let each other know when guests have arrived, when the trip has returned, etc. Calling cell phones we too expensive, plus these radios are great. I think there is a 3 mile radius or something. Hmmmm, perhaps these would be a good Christmas present someone…. Anyway. That is our system.

Sometimes I get a radio call from the house (this is really the departure site) from Stu.

“Goldilocks, Goldilocks, this is Papa Bear. Come in Goldilocks.” (This is Stu being funny on the radio. Only if he has had a sufficiently good nights sleep the night before however!

“Goldilocks here, what is it Papa Bear? Over”

“The Divers haven’t arrived yet, any sign of them at the shop? Over”

“No, nothing here yet. I’ll send them right down when they show up, over.”

“Ok, over.”

“Over, over.”

“Go away Sally, I’m trying to work. Over.”

“Ok, Over, I’ll go away, Over.”

Now we are in a situation that I hate, the divers are late. Should we wait for them? Should the boat leave? Are they even showing up? What if we wait 15 minutes and then they still don’t show up? What if we leave and then they arrive just as the boat is pulling out of mooring? How long can we wait and the other divers we have on the boat won’t be put out? After all, they got here on time.

Yikes, so many questions. The answer is: Don’t be late for the boat.

I suppose it is because we are the only, that is right… I said the only diving center that offers four dives a day, that we have a pretty tight schedule to keep to. The first boat leaves at 8 AM, gets back around 11:30, we get 20 minutes to turn over the boat for the afternoon trip, have some lunch, and then the afternoon divers should be arriving at 12:40. The boat then leaves at 1 PM and gets back at about 4:30. Sometimes we get back a little sooner, 11:15 or so, but it still isn’t a long time. We have a lot to do at lunch time! We need to get all the gear off the boat, rinse the gear, hang it up, sign log books, exchange emails with people, make sure that everyone has their belongings, then take the tanks off the boat, put fresh tanks back on the boat, clean the boat, fill the mornings empty tanks, plus Lil’ Rog needs attention! All this is hard work! Stu will vouch for this. Well, we all will vouch for this.

This means that if someone arrives late in the morning it makes it even more difficult to keep to the time schedule. Check in is at 7:40 AM, and this does seem early for vacation, but for those that want to stay out late drinking and then sleep in, we’ve got the 1PM trip (check in 12:40).

So, how long do you think that we should wait? Stu wants to get tee-shirts made that say “Octopus Diving – The boat leaves at 8 AM!” to see if it would make a difference or not. Normally we wait until 8:10 which means that the divers are officially 30 minutes late, but I still always feel bad if they show up a little later and the boat has already gone.

Then there are the people that show up super early. Are you one of those? Once I came to the dive shop at 7:25 in the morning, as usual, and there was a diver sleeping in front of the shop! I kid you not! He was laying out using his dive bag as his pillow. He was quite content actually… I don’t mind the early bird, rather early than late!

So, please, where ever you dive in the future, respect the timing. Think of it like catching a flight, except you are catching a boat, and as Stuart’s Tee-shirt says “THE BOAT LEAVES AT 8!”

(Sally wrote this blog )

Well, I said that my next blog would be an upbeat blog that would make you smile and laugh and nothing makes that happen more easily than dolphins.

Yesterday I went for a dive with Greg and Eden from Phoenix, Arizona. Greg hadn’t dived in about 5 years so he was with me for the afternoon doing a refresher dive. The wind was up, and the water was a little choppy so I was a bit worried about the clarity of the water. We went out on the boat to Creole Rock and I gave a thorough briefing on the basics of diving so that Greg was feeling comfortable on his dive.
(Are you bored yet? I know you just want to hear about the dolphins, but the anticipation of the event makes it more exciting, right?)

We got into the water and then dropped down the line for some exercises in shallow water. First with the regulator, then with the mask and then some out of air scenarios. Greg did a great job and I was thinking “has it really been 5 years for Greg?” I would like to say at this point that it is really important to do a refresher dive if you haven’t been diving in a long time.

(OK, OK, I’ll get to the dolphins soon).

We finished the exercises and then started off around Creole Rock. I showed them a little Christmas Tree worm (I love those) there were the remains of an Octopus’ dinner (but no octopus), a couple of banded cleaner shrimp and also some nice snapper fish. We were just making our way slowly around. The visibility wasn’t that great, so we could only see about 20 – 25 feet around us.

I just finished looking at a small insignificant shell that I thought might have a little hermit crab inside when I felt the need to look up. Out of the haziness in the distance these large dark shapes appeared. They were moving fast, and directly towards us. The shapes were quickly getting larger and larger and seemed to be multiplying. Then, just a millisecond later I could see five massive dolphins and one small baby surrounding us.

My first instinct was fright. I was scared. Did you know that everything looks 25% bigger underwater? These animals are HUGE! Not only are they huge but they made me feel like a clumsy toddler watching the ballerinas in Swan Lake – each graceful movement affirming the inadequacy of my equipment. I looked at Greg and Eden to make sure that they were okay and we all sort of floated there, wide eyed, in astonishment.
There was one dolphin that just kept circling us, over and over. He had quite a few scars on his dorsal fin and back where he probably got a bit too curious with a boat. But as he circled us he would follow you with his eye, and it really felt like he was trying to tell us something. Around and around and around he swam. Then he made this movement with his head, like “follow me.” And it was tempting, just to swim after them, grab hold and see what happened.

They stayed with us for about 5 minutes and then we carried on with the dive, everything paling in comparison. They joined us again about 15 minutes later further around the rock. It was a magical experience.

I couldn’t wait to get back to the boat and talk with the others about the experience. I was hoping the whole time that Stuart had seen them as well. He was on a dive with another student and left about 10 minutes before me on his dive.

I surfaced, got my reg out of my mouth and I said to Stuart “How was your dive?” I guess it was the way that I said it, or the look on my face, or perhaps because Stuart and I spend way too much time together on the boat, but he replied “You saw dolphins, didn’t you?”

I then proceeded to tell him about the whole experience. He asked me where I saw them and I said “Well, about halfway around right where those banded coral shrimp are the dolphins came over. They stayed with us for about 10 minutes and then swam away and then came back again for another 5 minutes. They were so close you could’ve touched them.” To which Stu came back with “I didn’t ask you how close they were or how long they stayed with you, just where!” He was getting a little short tempered with jealousy I think.

At any rate, it was something that I really needed. An experience that confirmed for me why I do what I do everyday. It makes all the marketing, the accounting, the bookwork, the emails, the website development, the stress, the energy, it makes it all worth it!

So… Thank you, Dolphins, I really needed that!

(Sally wrote this blog )

I wanted to write a blog about daylight savings time, as we DO NOT PRACTICE Day Light savings time in St. Martin. This means that on November 6th everyone is going to “fall back” and 2 AM will become 1 AM, but we do not follow this on the island. 2 AM will still be 2 AM.

I intended to write a couple funny stories about how people in the past have arrived for the dive trip at 8:45 AM all ready to go and I tell them that they are an hour late. Then they argue with me that it is actually 7:45 AM and not 8:45 AM, and I have to explain that we don’t practice Day Light Savings Time. That was my intention. Except the stories were going to be witty and funny, both educational and entertaining at the same time.

However, I’m not feeling that right now. I’m not feeling witty or funny at the moment. In fact, I’m feeling really sad.

The reason that I’m feeling so sad is because a really amazing, kind, lovely woman passed away the other day. It was my grandmother who we all affectionately called “Nanna.” Some of you who have been avid blog readers of mine for the last year will remember my blog from early January 2011 about when my Nanna came to visit us in St. Martin. If you need a quick link, here it is. http://www.octopusdiving.com/2011/01/nanna-in-st-martin/ It somehow doesn’t seem possible that under a year ago she was walking down to the bottom of the garden to look out at the Caribbean Sea and now she is gone. Weren’t we just walking up Grand Case boulevard and then having a coffee in town?

She passed away on the 31st of October in England, surrounded by my mother and Uncle. She was 96.

I know a lot of you open my blog and like to escape for a bit into my world. A world of exciting scuba dives, a world where you can walk down the street at 11 AM with a beer and no one bats an eyelid. A world where the ocean is a wonderful turquoise and surprises are at every turn. So, I apologize for not providing that for you today. But right now, my world is grieving.

For those of you that were lucky enough to have met Nanna (everyone called her Nanna, even those that weren’t actually her grandchildren) you will understand our loss. I don’t think that I have fully come to term with it yet, and that is why I am on my way to England, to pay my respects and say goodbye. If that is possible, possible to say goodbye.

And I talk to people and they say things like “she had such a great life.” “She was so loved.” “She isn’t in pain anymore.” “She is in a happier place now.” And I feel angry with my selfishness that I don’t care about that. I just want her back, I don’t want to be in a world where she isn’t. It doesn’t seem possible.

So, my intention was to write about Day Light Savings, and remind everyone to change their watches and clocks when they arrive to the island next week, but the words aren’t coming out of my fingers that way. It feels disingenuous to write about something trivial when this is going on. And perhaps I shouldn’t share this online, perhaps this is too public a forum to express my sadness, but these are the words that are coming out of me right now, words that say “I’m sad and I just want a hug from my Nanna.” I’ve been meaning to write a blog since Monday, but I just kept writing something and then deleting it. I can’t seem to write anything until I write about this.

Hopefully Chris and I have created a diving center that when you visit, your know that we are real people, real people who work hard and have followed their dreams. And I’m sure that lots of you have suffered from loss and great anguish, and I know I’m not the only one. I know that life goes on, and although it feels like the world should stop turning (if just for a second) and the lights should all dim, and the birds should stop singing, and everyone should just be sad, I know that isn’t happening.

So, we go on. We haven’t stopped diving, or answering emails, or taking calls. It is still running smoothly back in St. Martin, just without me for a couple of days.

Perhaps by my writing this is feels like I am telling the world, “We lost something, we lost something really precious. Everyone, take note of that.” And it makes me feel a little better.

OK, okay, I promise to make the next blog a really super funny, entertaining one. Perhaps a good story about Stu, those are always the best. Until then, thanks for your thoughts and kind words, they mean a lot to me.

(A sad Sally wrote this blog )

Well, I haven’t blogged in a while and I wasn’t sure what to write about. Not that things haven’t been happening here. In fact, in the last 3 weeks we’ve had 3 birthdays! Chris had his birthday on the 7th, Stu’s was on the 17th, and Abbey’s was yesterday. Phew. I guess when it is cold in England (Jan/Feb time) there isn’t much to do but make babies

We’ve been diving, of course… In fact I’ve had some great dives. I went on a discover scuba dive with Patrick from Philly and it was like he was a secret agent from PADI coming to check up on me. I say this because he was so awesome in the water. I gave him my usual briefing, but unless I am the best instructor in the world (which is possible) he was a secret instructor from PADI making sure that I am doing my job correctly. I wonder which one it is?

Sometimes my blogs actually have useful information in them (I know it is rare) and I thought I would make this a useful one as well. People are often asking me whether or not they should tip their diving instructor and boat captain. In the PADI Open Water Manual they do cover some diving etiquette, like not being late for the dive boat and how to be a good dive buddy, but there is no section on tipping.

Chris and I have worked all over the world and the tips do vary from country to country and from diving center to diving center. Some places put a little tip jar out, or a sign on the boat saying “tips are greatly appreciated.” I know what my dad would say to this, he would say “Here’s a good tip. Never pee into a strong wind!” However, as when I finally donned my cap and gown for my graduation from university this tip seemed wanting… and I think on a dive boat the instructors may feel the same.

We don’t like to put a tip jar out, or have a sign on the boat as I feel that this is a little trashy… but that’s just me.

Tipping of course, is completely optional. It depends on the experience. I am a New Yorker, and I fully endorse and support the tipping culture. When I walk into a restaurant the server is going to try and give me a great experience, so I tip well. There is nothing that bothers me more than bills that come at the end of a meal with the tip included. You should beware of this in St. Maarten, (only on the Dutch side though). Many restaurants on the Dutch side are now including a 15% tip in the bill. If you aren’t looking, (or you had too many Margarita’s), you may end up tipping twice, so please take care. I detest this. And you can refuse to pay the tip. I also know from many friends that work in the restaurant industry on the island that the servers are not getting that whole 15% tip. The owners are taking half of that for things like “breakage of restaurant materials” “staff drinks” and other obsolete fines that they are making up. Unfortunately a lot of the restaurant staff in St. Maarten are working illegally, so there isn’t much they can do about it. The best thing is to tip in cash, directly to the server.

However, what about the diving industry? Tipping servers in a restaurant is normal, should you tip your dive guide? Again, I would say that it is totally up to you. Our staff is so great that they do get tips quite a bit, and it is normally about 10% of the cost of the diving, or $10 for a two tank dive. However, some people tip more and some less and some not at all. We do seem to get a lot of alcohol as thanks for our services. Not sure why, perhaps because when people are leaving they decide to drop off any extra wine or beer to the dive shop. Also, I should add that we don’t provide a great service to get tips, we provide a great service because we love what we do. And I’ve never heard anyone curse any divers that didn’t tip, it’s just a nice added bonus when they do.

We had a really nice tip from one of our favorite divers (Tony Darst) when he left us a gift certificate to a restaurant in Grand Case, Le Ti Provencial. That was really nice. Also had a really nice tip from some snorkelers the other day who brought me two bags of Jolly Ranchers. The one’s that Lisa Wightman bought for me are almost gone…! But for Chris and I, a great review on Tripadvisor.com or just a nice email is enough.

So, there are some little tips about tipping in the diving industry.

(Sally wrote this blog )

So, I know I haven’t blogged for awhile and I apologize for that. The thing is, we were in NY relaxing with my parents and generally just soaking in the greenness of the trees and the beautiful September weather and I didn’t feel like it. Please don’t be offended, but I needed a little break from Octopus Diving and I wasn’t feeling it. So I didn’t blog. I did send out a newsletter though, did you get it?

Now I find that we are back in St. Martin and the season has begun and it is time for me to once again waste your precious time with my nonsense and ramblings.

We officially reopened for business on the 1st of October but didn’t actually take divers our until Monday the 3rd of October. There were lots of shenanigans getting the boats ready. Originally we had someone on island that was supposed to do a lot of work to both Octopussy and Arvor while we were away. Just fixing up the gel coat and also anti-fouling the boats. But alas, when we arrived the first day back (the 24th of September) none of the work had been done. This meant that the extra week that we were going to have in St. Martin (relaxing on the beach, having a beer at 1 in the afternoon, and slowly getting back into the island life… it takes a while!) didn’t exist. We went from no stress to total stress. So that week we spent getting everything ready in time to have the boats back in the water and ready to go.

Plus, Stuart cunningly arranged his flight so that he would arrive the night before we opened on the 1st of October, meaning that he wasn’t around to help us with the boats. (This was not an unplanned travel itinerary, trust me. Entering his 3rd season with us, Stu knows the deal. )

Finally everything was all set with just some minor hiccups for the 1st. We spent this day cleaning the boats and the departure sight and generally getting to know the new staff. “New staff?” You say, I think I even heard your ears prick up just then. “Oooooh, tell us about the new staff.” Well, I won’t say too much about the new staff because I don’t have any real dirt on them yet, but when I do, I will let you know.

Just briefly… (YES, it is possible for me to be brief!) there is Chris from England. This is confusing I know. This isn’t my Chris, the tall guy that I am shackled to for the rest of my life, it is another Chris. His full name is Chris Blackwell and we really need to come up with a nickname for him or something. I suggested “Blacky”, being short for Blackwell. However, Stu and Chris (my Chris, not “Blacky”) think that might be inappropriate to yell out as we live on a Caribbean Island. I think it’s fine! Anyway… We are currently flirting with the name “C.B.” but we will have to see what sticks. Really we need Chris (“Blacky” Chris not my Chris) to do something embarrassing so that we can paint him with this label for the rest of his time in the Caribbean with us. I’m just terrible, I know. Stu reminds me all the time.

(I guess it isn’t possible for me to be brief!)

Alright, let’s go with CB for now, it’s easier to type. CB is from England and was working in the BVI’s with his girlfriend Jude. CB and Jude are both instructors and boat captains and now they are part of the Octopus Diving Team. Jude is from Scotland and they arrived on island with Coco, which is their lil’ island dog rescued from the BVI’s.

We also have Abbey from England that is starting her Divemaster Internship with us. More on them in another blog… I promise.

You may be asking what happened to Stefan, Michelle and Mike. Well, Stefan has bought himself a 47 foot yacht and is going to sail all around the Caribbean. He is still in St. Martin and is awaiting crew. Not sure where this crew is coming from, but Stef has a plan. If you would like to sail around the Caribbean with Stef, then just email me and I can tell him. It is preferable if you have some sailing experience please because Stef doesn’t have any and we are a little worried about him. The other day when we saw him he said “Check out my new boat. It is 45 foot from the back to the front and then another 2 foot on that thingy that sticks out the front of the boat.” We were in awe at his nautical vocabulary. Bless Stefan though, we wish him well in his adventure and also we wish that an experienced sailor will read this blog and go with Stefan!

Michelle is off to Grand Cayman to do underwater photography and topside photography. She leaves at the end of the month. Although I already miss her and all the fun we had on the boat together, we are happy that she is following her dream and traveling on. But oh, how I will miss her pretty eyes underwater!!! The way she flutters her eye lashes puts her clasped hands under her chin. We will all have to go to Grand Cayman to see her! Here is a photo of us on our last dive together.

Mike is returning back to London for a bit and then we aren’t sure what he is up to after that. Perhaps over to Grand Cayman to see Michelle, or back to South Africa, I’m not sure he knows exactly what he is going to do, but whatever it is, I know it’s going to be great.

So… back to getting ready for the season. We decided on the Sunday afternoon, (that would be the 2nd of October), that we would go for a fun dive! Yippee! One whole month out of the water and we were finally going diving again! This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? I decided to take my camera so I could get some shots of the new staff underwater, plus I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

The conditions were great and as we were all getting onto the boat a 4 foot Devil Ray was swimming around. In only 3 feet of water you could see it really clearly. It was beautiful. What a great start to the season! I tried to grab my camera and jump in to get a shot of it, but every time I got close enough she would swim in the other direction. So… I went onto the beach and would run ahead of it and then jump in the water. At which point she would turn and go in the other direction! This repeated itself a couple of times at which point my much paler and fatter body (after 3 weeks of eating amazing food in NY) told me to get back on the boat!

We went out to the dive site and I’m trying to be all cool in front of the new staff. You know, start off the season showing my excellent skills as first mate of Octopussy! We pull up to Turtle Reef and I grab the hook. I am explaining how I hook my leg on the pole so I don’t fall in the water, and I hold the end of the line from the boat in place with my other leg. I reach out, hook the buoy and attempt to pull it in. “Stu, I’ve got it!” I yell to captain Stu. “Stu, hold it there!” I repeat to Stu. “Stu, it’s gone under the boat, back it up!” I add. “Stu, it’s gone, I can’t hold it!”

Yeah, we were totally impressing the new guys!

Second attempt. I reach out and hook the mooring buoy, I pull in the line and as I do some water flicks up and splashed against my face. I don’t think much of it at the time (you see there is no way I am messing up our second attempt at getting the mooring buoy!!) and tie the boat up.

Then Stuart gives us his Turtle Reef briefing (which I have heard a million times and could probably repeat verbatim) for the new staff. I stop listening and I notice my face stings a little bit. Then it feels like I have something in my eye. I rub it a bit, but that doesn’t help. I squint my eye and try to itch my eye without touching my face. This means I am making the most ridiculous face you’ve ever seen! I ask Chris to look in my eye, but he doesn’t see anything.

Time to dive. My eye is still bothering me, but I think perhaps it will go away underwater. Diving makes everything better, right? I drop down. I can’t itch my eye now as I am wearing a mask, but it starts to sting and water. I wait for everyone else and find that after just two minutes I have to take my mask off my face to get rid of all of the lovely mucous that was rapidly accumulating at the bottom of my mask. And this isn’t easy when you are holding a large camera I might add. My eye is really hurting at this point. I see Chris and motion to him “something wrong, my eye.” He gives my hand a little squeeze and we keep diving. I snap a couple of photos of CB, Jude, Abbey, Chris and Stu.





You can see that Abbey is already racking up some beer fines with Stuart in this photo!

After 10 minutes my eye is getting worse, I can’t think of diving at all, let alone taking photos. My eye is seriously burning. I grab Chris, close my eyes and let him drag me around a bit. I am constantly taking my mask off and blowing my nose. Finally I hand Stu my camera so I can be free of it for a moment. He snaps this photo of me! Probably the best photo of the dive.

You can see my eye doesn’t look right.

Then I call it. That’s it. Dive done, I need to get up. I am so congested that every foot difference in depth is giving me a serious squeeze. I signal to Chris and Stu that I’m going back to the boat. Then, as I head back over the reef I see this amazing hawksbill. He looks at me and says “Please take my photo, Sally. If you take my photo it will be the most amazing photograph you’ve ever taken. Ignore your eye. Look how pretty I am.” So, of course, I photo the turtle.

I am half blind at this point and sort of swimming in circles around the Turtle not being able to see if my camera is even in focus. After a few more minutes the Turtle start swimming away and says to me “Follow me, follow me across the reef where we will encounter something else that will make for the most spectacular photograph.” I start to follow the turtle, and then I think “Damn Temptress, my eye hurts!”

I go back to the boat, flush my eye with fresh water. I notice my upper lip and cheek are stinging badly, and I think there must have been some kind of jellyfish tentacle or hydroid on the line. I say to myself “Is it even possible to get stung on your eyeball?”

I have the answer for you. The answer is YES, yes it is possible, and it YES, it freakin’ sucks!

It takes a lot for me to abort a dive, especially after one month out of the water. But I tell you, a jellyfish sting to the eyeball, that does it.

Much to my dads dismay I did not visit a doctor, or go to the hospital. I toughed it out with some eye wash, a little whiskey, red wine and a hot compress. I wasn’t feeling better until about 24 hours later. Not a good start to the season!

OK, with just about 2000 words I think I’m blogged out.

(Sally wrote this blog, and she isn’t blind in one eye, in case you were worried )

Well, I really should be working on something productive right now, like book keeping, or designing the new sign for outside the dive shop, but I don’t find myself motivated at all for those two activities, so instead, I thought I would waste your time by writing a blog (which you are obviously now reading!)

I went diving this morning with a guy called Hercule, he is French from St. Martin and I dove with him last year as well. Thing is, last year AND this year, I called him Hercule, but it turns out his name is really Daniel. I discovered this when we were diving at Turtle Reef. You see, there is this large piece of board on the reef that used to be part of a boat. I believe that the captain of said boat wasn’t checking his charts very well, so he accidentally crashed into Turtle Reef (which is only about 6 feet deep at it’s shallowest) and kindly left a large portion of his hull on the reef. Over time it develops this light cream colored coating on top of the black material of the hull. It is really satisfying to write things on it with your finger and it comes out really clearly. Then, about 3 weeks later, the growth comes back and it is an empty canvas once again. I like to write silly things on it. (“No, really? You? Do something silly underwater?” I hear you saying.) Sometimes I write “Croton Rules!” This is the small town I grew up in in the suburbs of New York. This makes me laugh.

One time when I was snorkeling with my mom I free dived down and wrote “I love my Mom” while she wasn’t looking. In my mind she was going to swim over the top of it, see how I had publicly pronounced my love for her and be forever grateful. However, the blind woman didn’t even see it, I had to point it out myself. Sorry, Mom, you know I love you.

Or, if it’s someone’s anniversary I like to write their names with a big heart around them and a “4 ever” in the middle.

So, I’m diving with Hercule this morning and I go to this large piece of hull where I had written “Sally was here” earlier in the week. I see that someone else (Stuart… it was Stuart, I know this for a fact) had written “and smells!” This meant that it read “Sally was here and smells.” So I quickly added the word “great” underneath. I don’t want the fish to get any wrong ideas, do I? Then I look over at Hercule and he is writing “Daniel was here.” I’m thinking, who is Daniel? And where is he? He isn’t here. Then (only a millisecond later) I realize that Hercule is actually Daniel, Daniel is Hercule, and I had been calling him the wrong name for two years! Chris will roll his eyes at this and say “no surprise there.” But c’mon, he could’ve said something, right?

I have to say I’m not the greatest at remembering names. It’s nothing personal, it in no way reflects my feelings, it is just that I’m not great with names. Ok, it’s not just that I’m not great with names, I tend to re-name people. Chris will say “What was the name of that diver this morning? The one from New Jersey that met us at Beneath the Sea?” And I will reply with all the confidence in the world “Bob. His name is Bob.” When in fact his name is most likely something entirely different, like Jason, or Lucas. For some reason I am convinced his name is Bob. You can imagine how this winds Chris up! I can tell you, however, that I am great at remembering people’s equipment. “Bob wears a Medium BCD with a Large wetsuit, he likes the Mares fins with the size 10 boots and the Frameless mask. Oh, and he dives with 12 pounds.” Except it isn’t Bob who wears it, it is someone else entirely whose name I can’t remember.

My favorite is when people come back to the dive shop and they say, “I had a great time diving with Steve this week. He is a fantastic instructor!” And I’m thinking… who’s Steve? Then I say “The tall English guy? The one that that thinks he’s super funny and likes to make fun of small, innocent American girls from New York (that’s me, by the way!)?” And they say, “Yeah, Steve.” Then I try and break it to them gently that Steve is actually Stuart and they have been calling him by the wrong name for the whole week. They then sort of slump over and drag a $20 note of of their wallet and say “Can you please give this to Steve.” Later I will ask Stuart about it and he will tell me “Well, the first time I just let it go, and then I felt bad correcting her. I don’t care anyway, I’ll answer to anything.”

Chris, though, he is different. It isn’t that he is great with names, but he never guesses. If he doesn’t know it, he won’t say it. He has also learned not to ask me. He thinks it is really embarrassing when I call people the wrong name. He says it is rude, “but I don’t do it on purpose.” I say. Picture me shrugging and pouting slightly when I say this.

Oh well, it is almost 4 pm now, I’ve got a meeting at 6 PM with the owner of Destination Magazine (we advertize with them every year, look for our article in the Destination Magazine on all the American Airline flights). I had two awesome dives this morning with Daniel at Turtle Reef and then with Petri and Titta at Creole Rock. (And Yes, I did just look up Petri and Titta to get their names correct from when they signed in. They are from Finland, so there was no way I was getting it correct first time!) So, I better do something constructive right now, and so should you!

I hope one day that you all come to Saint Martin so that I can forget your name too. Or perhaps I already have forgotten your name. If I ever do get it wrong, just say “Sarah, my name’s not Bob.”

(Sally wrote this blog )

The weather is so awesome this week, hardly any wind, little to no waves, the sun is shining, you would hardly believe it is the dreaded Cape Verde Season… I’m out diving this afternoon, yeah!

I thought that I would write about some strange occurrences that have happened to me while I have been surface cover on the boat. Normally when we are surface cover nothing super exciting happens. It is a great time to chill out, do a bit of boat cleaning, but mostly I like to take time to appreciate what I am doing. You see, when I am on land there is always something to do. There is always an email to write, a phone call to make, a page on the website that needs updating, or the horrible bookkeeping. On the boat there are no computers, there isn’t a phone (just the emergency cell phone) so it is almost a blessing as I am forced to just relax.

However, (I can hear you waiting with bated breath) sometimes bizarre things happen.

Story 1

The first story is when I was surface cover for an advanced open water class that was diving The Fusheng (this is a deep wreck). This must have been back in 2008, perhaps 2009 I can’t remember. The weather was beautiful, with just a whisper of wind disturbing the silence. The sky was Blue. And yes, I meant to write Blue with a capital “B.” Not a cloud in the sky. The divers had been down for about 10 minutes, I had given the boat a once over and I decided to let some of the sad white parts of my body enjoy the glory of the sun. If you get what I mean…

So there I am, (try not to imagine it too clearly) relaxing on the boat. Then there is this strange sound, like a motor in the distance, but not really. The kind of sound you imagine that a ghost would make if it was haunting you or something. I looked around for a plane coming in, or another boat, but there was nothing. Just clear blue sky over my head. The sounds, however, were getting louder and louder. So bizarre. I’m looking around and in the distance I see not one, not two, but THREE twisters coming directly for the boat! They weren’t huge twisters, maybe 2 meters in diameter and rising up 5 meters from the surface of the water. They were big enough for me, though. At first, I couldn’t stop staring at them. Where on earth did they come from?

Sometimes when I’m on the boat all by myself I try to imagine different scenarios and what I would do in that situation. For example, a giant tsunami is on the horizon. Or a lightening storm suddenly comes over head. Or an alien ship rises from out of the water. What would I do? But I had never mentally prepared for this scenario. I started sort of running in little circles on the boat. Should I start the engine? Will they be powerful enough to suck me up and flip the boat? Should I detach from the mooring and drive away? Well, there is one thing that I did do almost immediately, and this was to put my bikini back on. Just imagine the looks on the faces of my instructor and the divers if they came up on to the boat and I was there with no bathing suit! What would I tell them? “Well… You see… Ummm…My suit got sucked up by these 3 twisters that suddenly appeared and went right over the boat.” No Way were those twisters taking my clothes!

Now that I was fully dressed and feeling better, I looked out again to see the twisters were not changing course. I decided to just throw everything that could be sucked away into the locker and brace myself. Then, just like three ghosts haunting me in my relaxed serenity, they swept right over the boat. I was instantly drenched in horizontal swirls of water. The wind was strong, but not strong enough to lift me up or anything, although it probably could have taken my clothes, so it was good thinking on my part to put them back on! Then, as quickly as they came, they left. Sometimes I ask myself, “Did that really happen?” No one was there to witness it with me. The divers came up from the dive, completely unaware of my surreal experience on the surface.

So… that was the first one. Are you ready for the second strange occurrence? (Enough with the bated breath already, this really isn’t that exciting!)

Story 2

This time I am on the Gregory and we are diving with a bunch of AUC students from the Medical University here. We were the only boat on site and the weather was nice, the waters calm. They had descended and were probably about 5 minutes into their dive when I see these bubbles at the back of the boat. My divers had gone in a different direction, so I figured something was wrong. Maybe someone couldn’t equalize? I go to the back of the boat (Chris would call this “the stern” ) and these two people emerge. They weren’t aliens, thankfully. I could see right away that they weren’t from my group of divers. There was a man and a woman on scuba.

Then, like something out of a sick comedy they say to me “Have you seen a grey dinghy?” No real emotion, no shock or panic. Just “Have you seen a grey dinghy?” I shake my head and say “No. I don’t see a grey dinghy.” They are acting strange, this couple. I can’t put my finger on it. I can see that he has run out of air because his BCD is empty and he is kicking like crazy. I wonder if I should tell him to orally inflate his jacket.

Yikes!

So, I jump up on the side of the boat and peer in the distance, the direction the wind would take a boat running adrift. On the horizon, more than a mile away there is a small grey dot. “Could that be your dinghy, there in the distance?” The guy gets on the boat, takes his gear off (and not in a controlled, pretty way) and jumps on the side.

“That’s it. That’s our dinghy! Can we go get it?” He says to me. I can tell they are Dutch locals. They have that Dutch accent but with a local Sint Maarten twist to it.

“Ummmm. No…” What are they thinking, that I am just going to leave my divers?

The girl pipes up. “It isn’t far, we could be back in 5 minutes.”

“I’m really sorry,” I reply, although I’m not actually really sorry. “I have divers down, I can’t leave them. You can wait on the boat with me and then once they come up, we can go and get it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” This is the blond. “I know, I know you can’t, I’m a diving instructor.”

Yikes!

“Well… can you call someone or something? I don’t know the right channel though, I’m not familiar with the American System.” (This is the blond instructor).

I’m thinking “American System.” Huh? We are on the Dutch side of Sint Maarten, why would the radio be American?

Anyway… I’m about to hail the coast guard on the radio when the Coast Guard randomly passes by. The guy waves his arms frantically from my boat and then as the coast guard boat gets closer he suddenly does this olympic dive into the water and starts swimming to the Coast Guard. I’m kind of in shock and I look around for the blond instructor and she’s gone. Gone. As in, not there any more. Now this is getting really weird.

The guy goes off with the coast guard to retrieve his dinghy, the girl has descended and I don’t know where she is exactly, so I wait. What else can I do? Finally the coast guard comes back following the guy and his grey dinghy. The coast guard leaves and then the girl instructor surfaces. Now this is when things become clearer to me. The girl is now on the surface and she hands up a large bag of fish, as well as a spear gun to her mate on the dinghy. Then she hands her equipment up, swims over to my boat to retrieve the guys equipment and she tells me that someone had cut her anchor line. That is why the boat drifted. I don’t know if this is true. I mean, perhaps she doesn’t want me to think that as well as being the “missing link” dive instructor she also can’t tie knots. I just don’t know. I do know that they are not only scuba diving with spear guns (which is illegal) they are doing it on a dive site, which she only knows about because she is a diving instructor.

I just say “You’re lucky I was here. Next time you are going to illegally spear fish on scuba, don’t do it at a dive site!” There may have been some expletives in there as well, but I will spare those from you.

Who knows what happened? I think that another diving center may have seen that they were diving with spear guns at a dive site and cut their line, then called the coast guard to either get them busted, or because they felt bad that they had put people’s lives at risk by setting their boat adrift. I don’t know. I do know that I will never forget that moment when two people popped up, with no other boats in site, and said “Have you seen a grey dinghy?”

OK, OK. Do I still have your attention? Is this an atrociously long blog here? Chris says I’m not blogging enough, but the thing is that I get really into the blog and they end up being 1,610 words. Well that is the word count now, well actually now it is 1622.

So, last one and then I will let you get on with your day.

Story 3

I was up at Tintamarre diving the Tugboat (well, my divers were, I was surface cover once again.) My divers had been down for about 20 minutes when I see this swimmer coming towards the boat. “HEY! HEY!” she is yelling. Now for those of you that can’t picture where the Tugboat is, it is on the northern side of Tintamarre and is pretty far away from the island. It is a sheltered site in a large elbow of the island overlooking large cliff faces with a tiny beach in the crook of the elbow about half a mile away.

Has this woman just swam over from that beach?

I get out the life ring to throw to her, she looks tired and out of breath, but she says no, I’m okay. I put down the ladder and she climbs on board. Then she starts talking a million miles per hour. There’s a group of kids on the beach, young kids, they’re all really scared. They don’t have water. There is a small dog. They have been walking for hours. She got lost. Their parents are all on the main beach. They were going to swim but the kids are too little, they won’t make it. Will I help them?

I try and calm her down, I give her some water. She sucks it down. I refill her cup, she empties it. I can see she is right on the edge. I say “Don’t worry. Of course I am going to help you.” I’m talking slowly so she understands what I am saying. The relief kind of washes over her face and this is when the tears start to threaten to come out. She must be 17, 18 years old. She is fit, she has to be to have swam all that way to the boat. “I feel so responsible.” She says. I don’t start saying what I’m thinking, which is “You are responsible. What were you thinking of? Why would you go hiking on Tintamarre with little kids?” Instead I let her get the story out of her system. She lives on the island, grew up here. She goes to Tintamarre island twice a year. They are with a big group of people out on Tintamarre for the day and she suggested a hike. She has hiked the island loads of times. Three kids said they would go with her, and she also took a little tiny dog. They ran out of water in the first hour, then they got lost. They had been walking for 4 hours through dense brush, getting cut up. She said it felt like being in the TV show Lost. She’s still talking fast, but as the story gets out she is calming down. The kids are on the beach still, but it is too far to yell to them, they are too tiny to almost see.

“Can we go now?”

Again, here I am in the same situation. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t leave my divers. We have to wait for them to get back on the boat.” I am genuinely sorry we can’t go right away.

“They must be really scared. They won’t understand why we are waiting.” She says.

“I’m really sorry, but we can’t leave yet. The divers will be back in 10, maybe 15 minutes. Look, you can see their bubbles. I’ll explain why we couldn’t get them right away.”

Then, I start to distract her. Where does she live? What grade is she in? Does she dive? Any brothers or sisters? Where does she go to school?

Finally the divers surface. They are a little confused as to where this girl came from. I get everyone on board as quick as possible and then we go and pick up the kids and the little tiny dog. Emma, that was her name, Emma swims to the beach to get the kids and the dog. I send her with buoyancy aids, like a swim board and a life ring. I’ve never been over there before, so I am looking for coral heads sticking up, and trying to get the kids on board before the wind blows me onto the rocks. “Hurry up, on the boat. Quick, quick, quick.”

They’re on board, looking really tired. There is 5 year old boy, and then two 10 (maybe 11) year old girls. The dog is tiny, my cat would eat it for dinner. It is covered in leaves and is shaking from the swim. We take them around the island back to the beach and then they jump off the boat to their families. They’re parents must have been really frightened. Once everyone is on the beach and we start to leave, I see Emma in the water. She is facing away from everyone, trying not to show let them see how upset she is. She keeps going under the water, but I can see that she is crying.

She knows how lucky she was that we were there. She now knows how bad can go to worse really quickly.

Well, I believe I must have truly exhausted your attention span with this blog. There is never a dull moment here at Octopus Diving, that is for sure!

(Sally wrote this ridiculously long blog. )

Why I love teaching Discover Scuba Divers.

Before I became an Instructor I was working as a Divemaster in the UK for Deep Blue Diving in Plymouth. As a Divemaster you can teach Discover Scuba divers when properly trained.

I love Discover Scuba Divers because they have no expectations, they have never breathed underwater before and most of them have never dreamed of being face to face with Eagle Rays, Sting Rays, Turtles feeding in the Sea grass and in Season we have had Dolphins swimming around people that have never snorkeled before!

Deep Blue would regularly teach Discover Scuba on a Thursday night in the local pool, where we would take groups of 4 into the water at a time to watch Bandaids and clumps of hair floating around the bottom (beautiful!!) and also to allow them to experience diving in the UK without the fear of frostbite, scaring themselves stupid in zero vis and 30 foot seas….
There was one Thursday evening where 2 young guys around 12 years old came to the pool with what I thought was there Dad. I was pulled to one side by my Instructor Sean and told that the 2 young guys were from a foster home, the guy with them was the Manager of the Foster home, both their parents had abused them from birth and they had severe ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), they have been in and out of several Foster homes and their Foster parents had even abused them. It was a seriously sad story and I will never forget it.

I was then told by Sean that their attention span was about 5 minutes so my briefing had to be super interesting……!

You see, this is what happens with Instructors… they can pick and chose what they want to do and give the difficult jobs they don’t want to do to the DM’s (I know because we do the same!) That particular night Sean got the two hot, fit chicks in Bikini’s and I got the two young boys with 5 minute attention spans.

As it turned out this was going to be the best experience ever!

So we got started and these two guys were pumped, they were extremely interested in what I was saying and were super excited to dive. They listened intently for about 45 minutes and then we got ready to jump in the pool.

They were like fish…. swimming around, perfect buoyancy and we had loads of fun.

When they went off to get changed, the Foster home Manager talked to me and made it clear what an impression I had on these two guys. Before we started the course the Manager was concerned that after 10 minutes the kids would have been carving their initials in the leg of the table, or trying to burn the fake palm trees, but instead they had an awesome time. Both of them hugged me before they left and just couldn’t stop talking about the experience.

For me this was a very emotional experience and one that was to change my life forever…… Because it was then I decided to become a Scuba Instructor.

In St. Martin we get hundreds, if not thousands of Discover Scuba Divers. (We are currently trying to think of different names for the Discover Scuba Dive because it really doesn’t do it justice. If you have any ideas we would be pleased to hear them!)

Basically a Discover Scuba Dive is a shallow dive and the participant needs no previous experience, they just need sign a Medical Certificate preferably before they get to St. Maarten so they can get Medical clearance if needs be.

We kit you up at the dive shop, check medicals and jump on the boat for a fast comfortable ride to a sheltered bay called Creole Rock, the diving here is awesome!

The briefing is given on the boat and everything is explained to you in detail before we start getting kitted up.
What we do differently at Octopus Diving that NO other dive shop does, Is we guarantee TWO students per Instructor.
Why does this make a difference?

When I teach a Scuba course at any level I always like to give real life examples of what can happen while Scuba Diving, most of the time it is serious but sometimes funny too.
Sally and I have worked all over the world as Instructor.
In one place (the name or location I shall not mention) Discover Scuba Divers (or DSD’s for short) were taken to a shallow dive site on what I can only describe as a floating platform with two old smokey engines rattling away on the back of it. I will never forget my first day on the boat with a Danish Instructor called Tom. We had 30 DSD’s on the boat and 5 Instructor’s so that’s 6 DSD’s per Instructor…..
I asked Tom exactly how we were going to get 30 people who have never Scuba dived into the water, then take them to 30 feet, do a 35 minute dive and hopefully get them all back on the boat?
The answer still worries me now “Well Chris, forget everything you know about Scuba Diving, this is a machine, as long as you do what we tell you, everything will be fine”.

Worried was an understatement. In the end most of the DSD’s saw some sand, a few others saw some fish and a couple people saw the beach because the experience was so rushed they couldn’t equalize and had to forfeit the dive. It was seriously like a machine and the other Instructor’s knew exactly how it worked… I had a rather steep learning curve.

So when we take Discover Scuba Divers at Octopus Diving we guarantee 2 Students per Instructor and with a Maximum 6 divers per boat we offer a completely different experience.
Your first experience breathing underwater is critical not just to Octopus Diving but the diving Industry as a whole.
If you have an awesome experience, you are more than likely going to take your Open Water course which hopefully you will take with Octopus Diving as again we only take 2 students per Instructor and you will probably buy a mask, snorkel, fins, Dive computer and then take dive trips all over the world.

So if you are interested in Scuba diving for the first time and are maybe a little anxious then let us know and we will take great care of you. Check out our awesome reviews that we are extremely proud of as it’s taken a huge amount of dedication and hard work to maintain our extremely high standards:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147351-d1092282-Reviews-Octopus_Diving-Grand_Case_St_Maarten_St_Martin.html

If you would like more information about a DSD or would like me (Chris as your private DSD Instructor!) just shoot us an email and we would be more than happy to help you.
chris@octopusdiving.com

Chris wrote this blog

We recently got an email from two of our past divers, Art and Lynne, and they said that they had seen our branch or “name sake” in Vietnam while on a non-diving vacation. Chris and I thought that this was strange as we don’t have a sister company (nor branch) anywhere, let alone in Vietnam. We have traveled through Vietnam and loved it there. We even spent quite a bit of time in Nha Trang (where this diving center is located) but we never stopped and set up a dive shop (not that I’m aware of anyway.)

Nonetheless, Art and Lynne not only emailed us to tell us they saw it, they also included photographs!

Now, one thing is true, they are called Octopus Diving. And that is cool, there are few Octopus Divings out there. In fact, there is one in the Seychelles and I frequently get emails from people that want to sign up for diving, and after a few exchanges it becomes apparent that they will in fact be thousands of miles away and do not want to book with us, but want to book with the other Octopus Diving.

The second thing that is true, is that this particular Octopus Diving has taken our logo and used it for themselves. I guess this is also cool, I mean, it is flattering, right? We definitely had it first though. When I initially saw Art and Lynne’s email I was a little peeved, but then I talked to Chris and he said… “It doesn’t really matter. In fact, it is good for us, more publicity. They aren’t really competition for us, after all.”

So, I thought about it, and I don’t really mind too much. We did pay to have that logo created, and we did spend a lot of time thinking about it, and how we wanted it to look. We wanted a “mean-looking” octopus. Well, not really “mean” but sort of cool looking. More James Bond then Pink Panther. Does that make sense? A local guy called Julien created it for us. He has now left the island. Wait! Do you think that Julien went to Vietnam? It is possible.

I think that it is more likely that the Vietnam Octopus Diving found our website, liked the logo and decided to steal the design. Perhaps they check our website frequently. Maybe they even read my blog. Maybe they are reading this right now and finding out that they have been busted! I have looked for their website, but I can’t find one for them. If you find one, let me know.

Oh well, doesn’t matter too much. In fact, it is pretty cool to think that we have had an influence all the way across the world in Vietnam.

Sally wrote this blog

Just click below to see my article in this month’s Lady Diver Magazine. Thanks, Karma, for asking me to write it in the first place.

Enjoy!