I
once had a diver sign-up for a dip when the conditions
were less than ideal. It was a cloudy, rainy day and
there were small waves breaking on the beach. I had
warned the diver that it wasn't really worth going but
he insisted. As we waded out through the waves I noticed
that I couldn't actually see my feet and hoped it would
be clearer beyond the surf.
We swam to the reef and descended holding on to each
other to prevent separation. The visibility was terrible.
Murky water limited our vision to only a few centimetres
with the occasional pocket of a metre. I signalled to
my buddy, 'Up?' but he gave me an emphatic thumbs-down
hand-signal and we continued on.
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I felt proud to locate a few nudibranchs and many feather
stars, which in Samui generally only come out at night.
I was even able to point out a small stingray under the
sand. Finally our dive was over and I was thinking this
guy was going to be so disappointed he would surely ask
for a refund.
"That
was great!" he said as he spat out his regulator.
"I saw three fish, there were so many colours!"
I was dumbstruck! "Where have you dived before?"
I asked as we swam for the shore. "Only in quarries
and some lakes in Europe," he answered, "this
is my first dive in the sea and I'm amazed at the quantity
of marine life!" If only all divers were so easy
to please, but they are not of course. Some people seem
determined to have a whinge whatever happens.One afternoon
at the dive centre two instructors burst through the door
and started dancing around the room. They were clearly
in a jubilant mood. Their huge smiles were contagious
and I found myself smiling along with them. "We saw
a whale shark!" they sang in unison. "It came
right up to us and looked me in the eye! It brushed right
against us, and played with us for the whole dive!"
they babbled.
"Did our divers get to see it?" I asked, anticipating
happy satisfied customers.
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Before
they could answer the door swung open and one of the divers
walked in.
"How was the dive?" I asked with a knowing grin.
"Visibility sucked!" he said with a sour expression,
"It couldn't have been more than five or six metres".
"You really should warn your customers that the visibility
could get so bad" I thought he was joking, "But
didn't you see a whale shark?" I asked. "Yeah,
that was interesting but it wasn't very big, they can
grow up to 15 metres long you know."
"So let me get this straight." I said, with
a friendly, vaguely interested look on my face. "You
saw a whale shark, which stayed with you for your whole
dive". "You saw dense schools of fish, your
equipment worked, the weather was great and yet you're
saying that you're very disappointed because the visibility
was only 6 metres."
"Of course I'm disappointed," he said dismissively.
"I only dive in the best places!"
To my amazement I still had my friendly smile glued to
my face, but I was furious. He had just experienced what
most divers would consider a gift, and he wanted me to
apologise for giving him a bad dive?
"I hope you have a better dive in the next place
you go, but there's really only one place that would measure
up to your standards." I chirped.
"Oh, and where's that?" he asked. "On the
Discovery Channel, of course!"
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