Wel­come back to part 3 of 5 in this series. All names have been changed to pro­tect the pri­vacy of my former stu­dents. Make sure to read the first and second parts as well and sub­scribe to our RSS feed if you haven’t done so already.

Cesar and Brutus

Teach­ing kids how to dive was one of the most reward­ing exper­i­ence dur­ing my life as a dive instructor. Usu­ally they’re not afraid of any­thing, but have enough respect of these new sur­round­ings to do as they’re told. Bru­tus was dif­fer­ent. A little 12 year old chubby boy from Switzer­land who had to learn to dive because his dad, Ceasar, didn’t want to do the course alone.

Bru­tus couldn’t be bothered with sit­ting in a classroom. Every day was sunny and he could hear the other kids fool­ing around in the swim­ming pool. Duh, school was out, in case I had missed it!! So I moved our classroom ses­sions into the café on the beach next to our classroom. But it was still class and Bru­tus refused to even acknow­lege me. So I bribed him with ice cream, but his atten­tion never las­ted longer than the one scoop he had in front of him.

Ceasar on the other hand was an examplary stu­dent. His home­work was always done and always cor­rect. He assured me that he would learn with Ceasar in the even­ings and it seemed to pay off. Bru­tus man­aged to pass all quizzes and just about passed the final exam. Dur­ing the swim­ming pool les­sons, Bru­tus was more attent­ive, but it was still hard keep­ing him con­cen­trated. We just about managed.

After two days in the classroom and pool we finally went diving for real. To Sail Rock, in the Gulf of Thai­l­and, just north­east of Koh Pha Ngan. Not the best dive site for your first two dives, but as a nor­mal dive instructor you don’t usu­ally get a say in that mat­ter. Sail Rock is a 30m deep pin­nacle that can be bril­liant on a nice day and really nasty and choppy on a bad day. We were unlucky and had a bad, dark and rainy day. You could hear the waves crash­ing into the rock and it soun­ded any­thing but friendly.

I car­ried a buoy with me to allow my stu­dents to des­cend in rel­at­ive peace. There was a long rope attached, so it would also pre­vent them from being swept away on the sur­face if they held onto it. I jumped into the water first, then waited for other instruct­ors to help Ceasar and Bru­tus into the water. Ceasar jumped first. I made sure he was alright, then told him to hold onto the rope. Bru­tus was about to jump in, when he ripped his mask off and stared wide-eyed at his father. I turned around. Cesar was try­ing to climb on top of the buoy, but never quite man­aged. He was hyper­vent­il­at­ing and had the worst panic attack I had seen to date. He had spit out his reg­u­lator and got water into his mouth with every new wave.

By the time I got to him he had finally got­ten a good grip on the buoy, stuck his head as far out of the water as pos­sible and wouldn’t let go. He kept whis­per­ing that he didn’t want to drown, which would hap­pen if he let go. I dragged him back to the lad­der, assur­ing him, that he’ll be fine, but he was in a world of his own. I doubt he even saw me or the boat or any­thing for that mat­ter. I tried to pry his fin­gers off the buoy, but Cesar was strong in his panic. In the end a boat boy jumped in to help me. Alto­gether five staff pulled and pushed Cesar back onto the boat. For him the diving day was over.

On the boat I turned round to Bru­tus to ask him what he wanted to do. And that chubby little boy was excited. He couldn’t wait to jump in. It looked like he found his fath­ers dis­com­fort almost funny. We had two really pleas­ant dives that day. As soon as we got below 7 meters there was hardly any cur­rent and Bru­tus soon swam around like a fish. We even saw a shark that day. In the end Ceasar never fin­ished his course, but Bru­tus was the proud owner of a Junior Open Water Diver certification…

If you enjoyed this post make sure not to miss part four where things go a little bit wrong!