I PASSED ALL THE HARD STUFF! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Ahem. Well, today began, as it is wont to do, with my waking up before sunrise and contemplating the misery of insomnia. Then it was off the UDC dock by around 6:45 to help load the boat and get gear together. The examiners showed up around 7:30, and split us into two groups of 9 each.
13 people are from the IDC through UDC. There are 5 additional people from either Bay Islands College of Diving or Underwater Vision. So there's 18 total. My group was 4 UDC people and all of the additional folks.
We did the briefings, all 9 of them with two skills each, then were on the boat heading out by 8:30. We went to Moonhole, so the boat right was maybe 10 minutes. Our examiner, Gary, phased us in, so there were rarely more than 5 people under at a time. Way easier than all the practice we've been doing as part of the IDC! I had Mast Remove Replace, and the problems he gave me were a student trying to take off my mask, turning the mask upside down, and dropping the mask. Then I was on to the hover with oral inflate, and the problems were using the lpi and power inflating, and that was it!
Then we went to the surface, took off our weights, and did Rescue Exercise 7. The examiner gave me only positive feedback on it.
It was tough to figure out the problem rationale. For the 5 point descent someone else had to do, the examiner dropped under before they were done with the 2nd of the 5 points.
Then we did the debriefings on the boat. I got a 5 and a 4.8, which are by far my highest scores, but honestly, I think everyone in our group got at least a 4.8.
Then we went back to UDC by around 11:30, rinsed gear, and I grabbed an egg, avocado and cheese bagel and an iced coffee from Rio Coco and leafed listlessly through theory notes.
The exams on physics, physiology, rdp, general/environment, equipment, and standards all started at Mango at 1:30. Took me till after 3 to finish them. They weren't easy, but we were all well prepared, so everyone in my class has passed everything so far! Not surprising actually, UDC has a 5 year track record of 100% pass rate on the IE. One of the reasons I came here.
Tomorrow are some more skills assessments, but honestly, today was the hard day, I'm not worried for tomorrow.
Grabbed an avocado baleada from Mama Rosa's on the way home, along with a celebratory slice of cake, which turned out to be really good, I'll get to that in a minute.
Was planning on being in for the night, but the facebook group messages lit up, and most everyone was going to Rehab for a drink then Driftwood for dinner, so I decided to head out. It's a good mile, mile and a half bike ride, all the way to the other side of the bay or whatever it is. Rehab is a nice chill spot, hung out there for an hour maybe, then headed just down the road to Driftwood.
Not much I can say about it there. Atmosphere seemed nice enough, but the server was the worst, rudest one I have ever seen anywhere.
I ordered vegetarian nachos, and they told me after almost everyone else had gotten their food (45 minutes) they they didn't have any, so they offered me a veggie burger. Fine, I say. Another 15 minutes goes by, and they don't have that either. I give up at that point, but when the owner eventually came by, I told her. Nice lady, she tried, but it was too late. She gave me 100 lempiras, which was weird, and told me to come back and she'd comp me a dinner. All well and good, but the server was so horrible there's no way I'll go back. Everyone else had shitty service as well.
A real shame, but for the service, the place seemed real nice.
Biked home, and here I sit. Tomorrow I need to get to Mango around 7:30 or so. Wore jeans, pretty sure some horrible bug was in them and bit me and I killed it. Not looking forward to taking them off.
Eww.
No comments:
Post a Comment