Week 9- DMTs, RQ PIs, PX, BTEC, and last weekend of 093!

For those of you who don’t speak Pez Mayan this week was filled with Dive Masters (in training), Rescue Dives, Coral point intercept training, a double dive day to Punta Xamach, BTEC stuff and our last weekend before we go our separate ways. Early in the week DMT’s began learning how to demonstrate skills and manage open water divers. Although skills were tedious to learn, everyone enjoyed channelling their inner newbie diver to give the DMTs and chance to practice their patience. Laura made a very convincing 68 year old diver as well as a young extremely excited new diver. DMTs also completed their tired diver tow and float bright and early at 7am.

Monday morning and later in the week did their 400m swim, and 800m snorkel. DMTs enjoyed their equipment exchange while sharing one air source underwater, the most common issue was swapping fins and realizing they were nowhere near fitting. The new batch of Rescue Divers continued their training off shore and at the Gardens. The panic attacks and unconscious divers are always a bit stressful for trainees but enjoyable for those helping out. The first of the five weekers passed their PI exams and began monitoring. They were very excited to make their slates. Friday was an exciting day when most everyone got a chance to go to PX, a monitoring site about 9km away. Instead of returning back to base between dives we brought extra tanks, relaxed and had a snack on the boat before going back down for our second dive. Though the day was good practice for double dives it wasn’t the most successful for monitoring. The first wave was slowed down by three broken monitoring tapes, and later in the afternoon a few groups went deeper than their profile (if you break your profile you have to go up immediately!!) and only ended up with a 4.5 minute dive. On the plus side, a few people went out and completed their first successful transects! The weather was stunning this week. For a few days in the row the ocean was so calm you could see straight to the bottom a mile off shore! It was like a beautiful Caribbean swimming pool. Overall the week was productive for dive training and monitoring.

In other news, the president of Tulum visited us this week!

After a long week its safe to say everyone enjoyed their weekend off. During the first of the morning fun dives, 5 dolphins were spotted off the boat. A group of the ten weekers travelled to Playa to see their long lost 5 weeker friend Nissa. They all enjoyed a weekend of civilization. Another group went of to see the amazing Chichen Itza, the biggest Mayan ruins in Mexico. They too were excited to go exploring and also to have a nice shower and meal. The rest of us stayed on base for our last weekend and had a relaxing Saturday night. On Sunday a group hitched into Punta Allen whilst the rest lounged in hammocks and caught some sun. The Sunday movie choice, The Prestige, was a great success.

Only one more amazing Pez Mayan week to look forward to before we return to the real world!

Week 9- DMTs, RQ PIs, PX, BTEC, and last weekend of 093!