First Dives

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After a long sleep James and I woke up at 7:30am, ready to get started. The course starts at 9am and already it is really hot out with not a cloud in the sky. It begins with the set up of our scuba gear, getting everything hooked up and on then taking it all off and repeating the process. Once we are all proficient at it, we step off the dock one at a time. Two hours of underwater time later and we can all do all the safe diving skills such as go with alternate regs, swim without masks, give all the hand signals and buddy dive. It was great doing it in a group of five with our two laid back instructors. The buddy system works for us all as we pair up and practice sharing regs. Phil is our head instructor and the only time he doesn't have a cigarette or beer in his hands is when he is diving. While we dive everyone wears wet suits, even the other dive masters; Phil goes in shorts. After a long time of water work we head to the classroom to finish the knowledge based part. Our instructor thinks it is bogus as he waches us practice in the water so he goes and gets a beer to talk with the other divers, leaving us to write the exam as a group with text books to check answers. So if we all score 50/50 there is a reason. Being Chistmas Eve we decide to celebrate and it seems the whole island has the same intentions. After a fish dinner (baracuda, tuna, snapper), we head to the Tree Top bar. It is amazing being board walks all through the jungle. We get into the packed bar where we socialize for a few hours. At one in the morning we heard at a different bar there are free shots so we ran over there. Glad we did because there were definitly free shots. After we all had too much to drink we figure we should wander around the island. All of us eventually get split up at this point doing random things, the was at three in the morning. Personally I was stuck in a line trying to get a Baleada (tortilla with beans and stuff). We all eventually made it back to the dive shop where we are staying at 3:30, 3:40, 4:00, 5:00, and the last of us at 7:30am. I'll leave it up to you to figure which of us goes with which time. The person that got back at 7:30 slept on a wood bench for an hour or two before heading back :D.

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