The shop I worked at. It's gone now after the last major hurricane.

What I miss most is teaching. Watching people experience breathing underwater for the first time was amazing. Even better was to be privileged enough to take them on their first dive and watch grown men and women turned into children on Christmas morning. They would be so excited over things I didn't even notice anymore and make it all new again for me.



Most of the time while taking people who already knew how to dive on a tour I'd be thinking about my grocery list, what was for dinner, what errands needed to be done. My thoughts certainly weren't where my body was. When I had first time divers it was all made new again for me. Grand Cayman is an incredible place to be a SCUBA instructor.

I loved our boats. Loved driving them, working on them, repainting, engine work, or whatever else. I just wanted to be on the boat. That desire made my first year at the shop very difficult and is part of the 'hate' of working there.

It was an unwritten rule that I was unaware of when I moved. Guys worked on the boats and girls worked in the shop. It was a long, tough, and many times very angry battle to get equal opportunity to work outside.

I started in the shop and ended as the Operations Manager. I'm proud of that. I was the first woman boat captain and became in charge of the training of new captains. The fight to get there left a lasting impression and I did more growing up in those three years than at any other time in my adult life.

I had some of the most incredible experiences of my life living and working there and I'll never regret either moving there or moving home. It's incredibly hard work and tough on the body. Sixty hour work weeks, being wet from sun up to sun down, the constant stress of being responsible for the lives of the people on the boat. Some of those people should not be allowed to dive but they are. You are responsible for them. They can get you hurt.

I got decompression sickness by making the mistake of acting before thinking. You have to take care of yourself first before you can help anyone else. Instead of doing that I charged after a guy that was on his way to a number of possible bad outcomes including getting himself bent or blowing up a lung.

He was fine, I was not. I took two rides in the decompression chamber and am very fortunate the lasting effects are only occasionally noticeable. I have numbness in my pinkie and if I stand with my feet together and eyes closed I'll most likely fall over.

Diving is not something I love anymore and that is a bit sad for me. I was able to certify my mom, brother, and sister-in-law and that was amazing. I've been under over a thousand times and will be okay if I never do it again. We went to Austrailia a few years ago and I only dove one time. There are definitely still a few dives I'd like to do but I'll be alright if I don't get the chance.

My brother and I.

In the end I moved home because I was done. Diving became a job and I was as far as it was possible to go at the dive shop. I burnt out pretty quickly once there wasn't anything left to fight for. I heard once, 'You may live in paradise, but you don't work there.' That about summed it up. I loved it but I was ready to go home.

Edit: I give up on the formatting for this post. Everytime I fix the spaceing in one place it goes crazy somewhere else. Hrmpf.

Edit again: Seriously, it was driving me nuts but I think I've got it now.