| St. Maarten
by Kurt Runco
Getting Certified in St. Maarten or How to Avoid the Quarry
I broke the surface of the Caribbean blue after having just completed my first dive ever
and felt thrilled and exalted (Yeah baby!). The only
disappointment I had was that I didn't have enough air left to continue
exploring the reef -- a labrynthine coral structure called the Maze --
with the rest of the divers. Nonetheless, I felt a great sense of
accomplishment, as my friends and I had worked hard in the previous weeks to get to the
point of doing our checkout dives in St. Maarten. I removed my equipment in the water per
the instructor's directions, climbed the rope ladder into the skiff, sat for a moment
reflecting and enjoying the memory... then began violently puking.
My two friends, brothers Chris and Craig, have a timeshare in St. Maarten, and when they
invited me to join them for a vacation this year, I jumped at the chance. We kicked around
the idea of doing some SCUBA diving, something we'd all wanted to do for a long time.
Chris said he knew someone who knew an instructor. As far as I knew, you didn't need to
take classes. Couldn't you just take some lessons in the morning and then go out? No, I
was told, to get a SCUBA certification you had to take 30 hours of combined class and pool
instruction. We decided to go for it.
It was only a little over three weeks before our departure but this guy,
Jay Swartley, told us he'd work around our schedules and do everything he could to prepare
us for the final exam of sorts, the checkout dives, which we could do as part of our
vacation. And not to worry, because if we weren't ready for the checkout dives in St.
Maarten, we could just
accompany him to the Dutch Springs quarry when we got back. Now I'm not knocking the
quarry, but I don't even feel comfortable swimming at the Jersey shore, so I had no
interest in swimming around some muddy pond.
OK, I guess I am knocking the quarry. It would be my express goal
to finish our coursework before we left, find an instructor in St. Maarten who would
certify us as part of the universal referral program, and get that C card in clear, warm,
Caribbean waters.
We began looking for a dive shop to help us out. The first one we found
wanted us to redo the coursework, test, and some pool work. No no no.
With the help of that wonderful tool, the Internet, we located a dive shop
on St. Maarten owned and operated by a guy from Jersey. After a phone call from Jay to
ensure that we'd be in good hands, wouldn't dive too deep, etc., we were set up to dive
with Chuck at the Trade Winds dive shop.
Class with Jay was informative, fun, and -- as anyone who's taken lessons with him knows
-- thorough. We were well practiced and ready for everything from how much to drink the
night before to how to compute dive tables to how to remove and reassemble our equipment
with no mask on. We practiced giant strides, "OK diver" signals, how to monitor
your air and when to resurface, the importance of doing your deepest dive first, and how
to avoid the bends and other ailments in general. We were ready.
The Trade Winds boat was small - 30 footer - and pontoon style with a large round bladder
which served as the boat sides and had to be occasionally refilled with air. Sitting on
that big balloon, I felt every undulation of every wave. Now I'm notoriously prone to
seasickness, but at this point I really started to regret the previous evening's
activities. See, we knew that you shouldn't drink the night before a dive, so we figured
we'd just go to Happy Hour at the beach bar and be sure to drink a liter of water with
every round of beers we bought. When Happy "Hour" stretched from 5:00 to 11:00
with no dinner, we figured this fell into Jay's category of "unadvisable".
We backrolled into the water, surfaced to give the "OK diver" signal (no
one looking) and began our descent to the reef 45 feet below. I guess
everyone who dives has the same first experience: the rush of excitement and fear, the
feeling of flying down upon another world, the thrill of seeing exotic and colorful fish,
graceful rays, teethy barracuda. If only it lasted longer.
My friend Craig and I were the first divers out after about, oh maybe 22
minutes. All that hard work and life risking for 20 minutes of fun! Now
my seasickness starts to kick in. Meanwhile Craig and Chris are bleeding from the nose and
unable to clear their ears. One by one the other divers return to the boat. All the male
divers, anyway. Here I am dry-wretching and we're still waiting for the women divers to
finish all 75 minutes of their allowable time at 50 feet. I didn't think I could take
anymore. I finally turned to the French-speaking guide and said, "Allons-y! Ils sont
tous morts par maintenant!" (Let's go! They're all dead by now!)
We finally returned to refill for the second dive and I took some Dramamine that another
guest was kind enough to give me (wonderful stuff!). We wondered if Jay would have
objected to our second dive -- deeper than the first to a cargo shipwreck 60 feet down.
Interestingly, the wreck was lost for a few years after it moved during Hurricane Louis in
1995 and was recently rediscovered. We got our picture taken on the deck (air check: 1000
pounds) and then dove down to the ocean floor and swam around the hull. Got a close up
look at a nice size ray taking a nap in the shadows. Swam around the other side (air
check: 500 pounds - how the hell did that happen?). I made it to the surface with 250
pounds left and did the "wait for the women divers" routine again. Really need
to learn to conserve my air.
The next day was to be our big day, the day we'd become certified divers.
Unfortunately Chris and Craig were still having problems with their ears, so our
instructor suggested we locate a nearby med center run by a diver doctor. We got our
directions confused so we wandered around town for an hour asking people to direct us to
the clinic near the library. I just stood in the background, pointed at Chris and Craig,
and made scratching gestures at my crotch.
They got some drops and we rescheduled for Thursday. When the dive was cancelled due to
high winds, I was worried -- we only had one more chance to finish the other two dives and
get our certification. I could hear the quarry calling me, mocking me. Or as we
affectionately called it, the f@#&ing quarry.
Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day with good size but manageable swells. It was a
go. We dove the wreck of the HMS Proselyte, a ship captained by a 24-year old Briton when
it hit the reef in 1801. Huge anchor and coral encrusted cannons, plenty of barracuda -- a
great dive. I managed about 30 minutes this time. Then on the second dive we went to a
spot near shore and finished our drills in 25 feet of water (which seemed really shallow
at this point) and teased some lobsters (OK, bugs).
We did it! Our hard work had paid off and we were now certified divers.
And we had fun doing it, too. There was no question that we got the diving "bug"
and are looking forward to seeing what underwater delights Bimini has to offer. There was
only one task left to do. We had to update Jay -- who was anxiously waiting to hear -- on
how we did. Craig sent the following email:
Jay, we had a great time in St. Maarten! On our first dive we went down
to 120 feet for 30 minutes, being sure to stay away from that 130 foot
limit you told us about. Then we practiced our emergency out-of-air
ascents. Man, the decompression chamber on St. Maarten is a blast! You should try it
sometime. Sure wish we had taken that DAN insurance you recommended.
So now there are three new members to the diving sport. On behalf of my partners, I'd like
to thank Jay for introducing us to this exciting new way to risk our lives and spend our
money. Order that dive computer for me, baby!
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