Utila – Week 2, Day 3: The Potato Massacre
UTILA
Week 2
Day 3: The Potato Massacre
November 22, 2022
And there it finally was – my first day as a divemaster trainee (DMT). To be fair, it was just an honorary title at this point, since I’d only be allowed to assist with boat and gear prep – having not yet finished the three mandatory skill sessions.
As a DMT, I wouldn’t be expected to show up on the boat at 7AM and find everything ready. I’d have to be at the shed by 6:15AM to help out with whatever needed doing. I was quite confident with this part – mostly cause even a monkey could do it. Now familiar with the equipment shed, I’d just ask the other divemasters and instructors what they needed me to do, and I’d get on with it. It was the actual dives I was nervous about.
Our first one would be at Jack Neil’s Beach, and, luckily enough, we had just one client – the rest were fun divers, divemasters, or other trainees. I felt like I’d been let off easy. During the dive, I just hung back behind everyone with Gloria, another DMT from Colombia, and enjoyed the seascape and marine life.
Same goes for the second one, at a site called Ron’s Wreck – named after a small, old shrimp boat deliberately sunk by a crazy guy called Ron, who torched the whole thing for some unknown reason. While it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the Halliburton Wreck we had visited a few days before, it was still a cool dive site to explore.
While the dives were pretty uneventful, the excitement started when I got back on the boat. My gas tank slipped from the BCD (luckily caught by the safety strap). “You’ve got this!”, goes Fleur, a second before I buckled under the weight of the tank hanging low, effectively butchering my entire left knee on the rough surface of the boat. Turns out I didn’t, in fact, have it.
Scuba Skills and Self-Doubt
Once back, it was time for my first skills session with Fleur. We’d be running through 24 skills – some easy, like setting up our gear, and others way harder, like taking off all our scuba equipment underwater and putting it back on again.
I wouldn’t just have to practice the skill – I’d have to make a performance out of it. This meant I’d have to point to an imaginary audience and exaggerate all the signals like I was on stage. This, of course, was training for when I’d get to teach actual students – something I was never intent on doing given that I was doing this just for fun. Either way, I had to go with it.
I gotta confess, my first session didn’t exactly go as planned. I completely messed up the “you watch me” signal, feeling like a right idiot every time. And let’s just say the skills themselves weren’t exactly easy to perform either. But that’s what the three sessions were for. The first is a guided practice round, the second is a faster version with less help, and the third is like an exam where we’re scored on each skill.
While I stressed that I’m a slow learner and that it takes me a long time to build such coordination, Fleur was a sweetheart and reassured me over and over that I wasn’t as hopeless as I thought and that I was actually doing a good job.
Lionfish 101: A Lesson in Hunting
Then came something I’d been looking forward to all week. As part of the DMT programme, we had to take a specialty course. Being the reckless adventurer that I am, I signed up for the lionfish hunting one.
This kicked off with an introductory lecture by Catherine – one of Underwater Vision’s instructors and, hands down, my favourite. She told us all about how lionfish are invasive species, probably introduced to the Americas via Florida (where she’s from – “nothing good ever comes from there,” she joked). I beg to differ though — she’s an absolute legend and also family, which might explain the connection.
She dropped a ton of cool facts: there are two species of lionfish in the region, their fins and spines are venomous, they can lay up to 30,000 eggs at a time, they’re slow to react, which makes them easy targets, and hunting them helps preserve the reef’s biodiversity. So it’s a win-win – cool sport, good cause.
After the lesson, we moved on to a practice session. Catherine showed us how to use Hawaiian spears – long rods with three barbed tips and an elastic band. You wrap the band around your thumb, pull the spear back thereby stretching the band, aim between at the fish, and release – with the spear springing forward powerfully. She emphasised the importance of aiming between the creatures’ eyes in order to ensure a swift, painless death.
We took turns launching spears at a wooden board, then dunked in for confined water practice to pulverise our root vegetable victim. Once we all had a turn, we then geared up and headed to the confined water area for an underwater simulation. For practice, we used a sweet potato instead of a fish (RIP Mr Potato). Once speared, we’d shove the dead fish (or potato) into a “zookeeper” – a cylindrical plastic container that keeps the fish secure and away from curious predators.
Shooting the sling in midwater was, expectably so, much more difficult underwater. Apart from having to control your buoyancy, you have to load the sling while making sure to aim properly – not an easy task! I wondered if by the end, I’d be the one to get injured, rather than the lionfish.
Tequila Tuesday: The Graduation and the Farewell
With the diving portion done, it was time for Tequila Tuesday! We were celebrating Natalie 2’s Rescue Diver graduation – she’d completed her final dive earlier that day — and also mourning her loss since it was her last night on the island.
Knowing that Amelia and I had to be up early for the morning boat, we decided to stay out only until 10PM – which, by that point, already felt like 3AM. But our bedtime wouldn’t stop us from enjoying our night. We started with Four Lokos — disgusting cans of death juice that pack as much booze as a whole bottle of wine. They’re banned in the US after some kids died drinking them. One gets you tipsy, two gets you drunk, three gets you a hospital bed. After our second, we went to La Tranquila and kept the madness going. About ten tequila shots later, we were dancing on tabletops, painting the town red, and giving Natalie 2 the send-off she deserved.
At 10 PM sharp, Amelia had to cut short her hook-up with Louis – the DMT she’d been pining after for days (earning her the title of Dirty Little Elf). Meanwhile, I was completely wrecked. Amelia had to drag me back to Underwater Vision while I hurled my guts out the whole way. I swear, I hadn’t been that drunk in three years. The following day’s hangover was gonna be biblical.
Stay wild,
Marius
Post-Scriptum
Having been discharged from the course, Aviv – another DMT from Israel – asked if I wanted to explore under Underwater Vision’s pier to find some seahorses. I didn’t think to ask for permission and just went for it.
We didn’t find any seahorses, but we did spot a huge southern stingray and a massive moray eel. It was short-lived though – someone started banging their tank furiously. Catherine and her murderous glance stood behind us and shortly directed us both to the surface. Livid, she gave us a whole sermon as to how stupid our idea was – considering the site has a lot of boat traffic. Guess she did have a point…