Okay, wow, so it's already almost April and I haven't caught up since the end of Feb. I think that I'm just gonna work backwards and maybe when I post I'll post them in the right order and if not, sorry. Internet and time are two commodities that I just don't really have here. So yeah sorry.
March 22
Today is Monday, March 22. We finally have a day off so I could sleep in and I only slept until 8am but I guess that was good enough because no puking this morning, yay! For those of you that don't know, when I don't get enough sleep, I throw up. It's not the heat or bugs, this bed is just rough and the walls are literally made of paper so there's so much light and noise constantly coming in. But I finally got some good sleep last night so that's very exciting.
So yesterday we went diving again! Woo hoo. Sam is on vacation and Nick isn't at Sharklife anymore (he'll be back to Sodwana in a week but with Scuba Center). So in the past week we (Craig and I) have gone diving with Coral 3 days and it was my week to dive Raggie Reef. So I've been diving a lot. Glad to get my logged dived numbers up as I didn't even have a dive log until my Advanced (so I'm missing all the dives between open water and advanced) and everyone keeps harping me on not being "experienced enough" even tho I only need 40 logged dives to start my divemaster, which I'm gonna go to Honduras to get after mermaid season.
Sidenote, I turned music on to help me focus but it's doing the opposite and I've been jamming instead of writing for a half hour lol ya'll might never get these blog posts just know I'm having a great time and I love South Africa.
Anyways, yesterday's dives. So I love diving with Donno. It's so fun when we go diving because I can just relax and we just have so much fun finding shark teeth and booping regs and making bubble rings and such. So whenever I dive with Coral and he doesn't get to come I get a little sad but yesterday's dive was actually SO GOOD and Donno wasn't even on it. I know a lot of the Coral divers because as Matt said, I spend like every night at Vis-agie, the bar/restaurant/resort (they have the best Wifi in town). So we were supposed to go diving with Liam, Craig's old instructor, so I was like "okay at least I know him" but then he got bumped off onto a different dive so we ended up with someone I didn't know, but it was one of the best dives I've had here.
We got to go to Ribbon, which is on 5-mile, which is so much sweeter than 2 mile AGAIN. I hadn't been to Ribbon so I was actually pretty excited. So our divemaster, Stef, actually has family on Kent Island, of all places! and NoVa and Annapolis, so he actually visits Maryland quite a bit and learned to sail in Baltimore. Interesting. So I should make friends with him (4/14 as I'm typing update I did make friends and have his WhatsApp). But back to the dive, we saw a grey reef shark! I love sharkies! (Duh) and I was working on my breathing because the day before at Raggie Reef, Grant said my bubbles are too loud and scare away the raggies, so I need to exhale slower. So Nat was saying how she breathes in 8 out 16 and it helps preserve air too. I'm already really good at not using air but I need to not scare away the sharks so I tried and I was like very concerned because breathing like that actually makes me breathe a lot more, but it is more controlled and after the 45 min dive I still had 140 bar of air left so even tho I breathed more it used less.
There was also a Scuba Center boat there before us and on our fancy dive I found a GoPro! I figured it came from Scuba Center boat and I'd look at the footage to see who to give it back to but dude our boat wasn't even pulled onto the beach yet when the Coral guy driving the tractor was like "did you find a GoPro it's from Scuba Center" like yes I know that, chill, they'll get it back. So we took it back over there and turns out it's Nat and Summer's manager/friend, Nikki's! I just had dinner with her yesterday. Honestly, not a fan but whatever, she gave me a piece of peanut butter fudge as a thank you and since I was already at Scuba Center, I went to say hi to Connor and them and he was like "go back to Coral" ok fine then, be that way. Whatever.
By the time I got back over to Coral, Donno had arrived but he was busy with some Caitlyn girl from Joburg that he met on Valentine's Day which is 4 days before he met me and she was just back down to visit for the weekend and they were gonna go spearfishing after her dive. So between the Scuba Center encounter and being replaced, if only for the weekend, had me feeling a little salty, which is sad because I was in such a good mood after the dive and talking to Stef. & ya'll know how I'm not very good at fixing my face and when I get upset it looks like my best friends just died. So Donne and Donno kept asking me if I was okay, oopsie. So then Donno and Craig and I went snorkeling until it was time for our next dive and my dang GoPro was dead! Wouldn't even turn on even tho I thought I charged it all night. The stupid wire was loose, it's fine now but I didn't have it for snorkeling with Donno or my second dive.
So anyways since I was in a mood I was like "oh wait I'm a mermaid, I can just go chill on the bottom til I calm down" so I go down and LOL I am in a town of divers so Donno comes down too but he's wearing a weight belt and I'm not so he can chill down longer than me so that plan went horribly lol. On the way back up from snorkeling Donno was like "did you have fun" and I was like "sure" and he was like "well if you didn't have fun I just won't invite you again" and I know he was joking but I probably looked like I was going to cry. Then we got back up to the Coral area. He was hungry so I gave him a granola bar and pretzels and I didn't want any pretzels but he kept feeding them to me anyways and with each pretzel I felt a lot better lol
Our second dive was with Sascha and in the afternoon the winds and current pick up so it was a drift dive over 2 mile. There were only 5 of us including Sascha so she tried to convince Donno to come with us but he had a blister on his toe and his gear was back at camp so he refused but at least she tried.
The topography was actually really cool and there were a lot of places to swim in/out/below/through so that was fun. I also practiced breathing like Natalie said again and this time over about 76 minutes only went from 225 to 130 bar. Craig is amazed at how little air I use. With Natalie's way of breathing I can't even hold my breath (which you should never do on scuba anyways!). Unfortunately, I really, really, really had to pee and I have 2 rules - don't pee in the tail and don't pee in the wetsuit. So I was really hoping Craig would run out of air soon so we could go up and he did, but it was only like less than 10 minutes before everyone else anyways.
So I spent the rest of the night snapchatting Jacob until our CSP scheduling meeting. I was scared Morgana wouldn't book me due to me being in Africa and therefore not vaccinated yet, but the first few gigs are in Delaware/Ocean City so I was the first one offered! I'm pleasantly surprised the internet worked for the whole thing but it did and now my schedule is full and after the call I determined where I can fit in Mermaid Camps and holy poop, it's gonna be a busy summer/fall. Literally no days off because lifeguarding, but I only have those few months to make all my money for the year so bet I'm gonna make it worth it. & the mermaid camps are all client depended of course, I think I need at least 4 per camp to have it run. Then it looks like Nov-Dec I can go to Honduras for my divemaster and be back in time for Christmas. Things are looking bright for a career/future full of mermaiding, diving, and travel.
Until next time,
xoxo,
Tasha
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