mermaids and shooting stars

A friend and colleague of mine was having a guest visit from India. She was Italian, however had been living in Auroville, India for 5 years which is where they met. When I talked about my mermaid blog and my connection with the mermaid, he said I would have to meet her. Cinzia was a beautiful mum of two, who had been invited over here on a short project. Between myself, Cinzia and her friend who i met two days following, Caroline, we were three women all connected by the theme of the mermaid. Cinzia has been a swimming teacher for 15 years and a few months ago she was gifted with a monofin (mermaid tail type flippers). Her friend Caroline has a business venture in India called 'Mermaid India' where women can have a 'mermaid make over'. Needless to say that we all connected immediately. I was so grateful to be extended the invitation to borrow and use both the monofin, and also a full mermaid costume & go for a swim in the ocean. I entered the ocean and kicked around with my mermaid tail, I swam up and down, doing sommersaults and flips through the air. I sped through the water with my long hair flowing through the water. The experience was so beautiful and I am so lucky that I met these wonderful people. I was photographed and wait with excitmenet to see the photo's.

When the photo's are ready, they will be uploaded on the 'Mermaid India' facebook page, and I will be able to have access to them to share. I was so overwhelming grateful at the kindness and opportunity given to me to 'become a mermaid' and Caroline and Cinzia were so touched that they could make my dream come true.

As the days pass, I am slowly more confident in my abilities as a Divemaster and I take every single moment as a progress in my experience. Whether I forget to do something, say something which is not accurate, oversee something, or otherwise, it immediately sits in the foreground of my mind for the next time. Each time I am assisting an Instructor, I learn something new, or remember something for the next time. It is something that overtime will be second nature, and though I was wishing to 'skip' the parts until this point, I am now enjoying the learning process and seeing the development within myself. Each Instructor may like their divemaster to do different things and have different expectations of them, so before each time, I ask what they expect of me and how they would like me to assist, and after each dive I ask for their honest feedback on what I could do better, or any suggestions that could give me to improve. So far I have had all positive feedback and one suggestion that perhaps I could look more confident in myself so I appear more confident to others - Or in my terms... Fake it until I make it!

The other day, while I was expecting to be the assistant, I was placed in a position of leading the orientation from start to finish. Though this caught me some-what by surprise - I believe I totally blitzed it. I have worked closely with several guests over the past few days and have built some very good relationships with them. I have been getting wonderful accolades and thanks, and today I was told a guest I guided yesterday (and had two days prior) was asking before they left the island "what was the name of the Australian dive instructor again" in a positive way! Also, another guest had requested me to be included in additional dives and had given me some wonderful personal feedback about how relatable I was to him as a guest and friendly and fun. This is what I am for. It also gave me a great sense of achievement when he was so inquisitive about diving, and asking many questions about diving, weather conditions, nitrox and air expansion etc. that I was able to answer them for him!

We have been doing more practise exams, three in fact. And though my confidence was quite down initially about have soo many blanks from the physics and physiology specifically.. after revised the questions today - i have improved so much. After three exams, I now have a clear understanding on the specific topics i need to study more, and no doubt, through Andy's teachings in the IDC, I will succeed!

On Wednesday however, I was having a rough day. I was having difficulties with a situation back home which was making me very upset. Cinzia and I discussed it and had some deep conversations. I then asked if she wanted to come to the beach and look at the starts as it was something I loved to do that made me happy. We walked down to the beach and just before getting there, I looked up at the stars and squealed! The entire sky was draped with more stars than I could ever imagine. We grabbed each other and jumped in excitement like little girls. We went to the beach and she pulled out a shawl and we laid down and looked at the stars. We could clearly see the milky way above us, and created our own constellations - The Mata Ray, and the Mermaid! We saw three shooting stars and also what I could only describe as a possible star exploding? I went down to the shore to put my feet in the water and as I looked back to her, there was illuminisecent blue plankton glowing on the shore. We played around like children again with the glowing plankton and were just so content with the beauty around us. We sat back down and reflected on how much the simple things in nature, are the ones that bring so much joy. An evening which we will cherish for a very long time to come. I will now walk to the beach in the evening with a towel and lay under the stars, enjoy the salt smell in the air and the crashing waves on the shore to bring me back down to earth when I am feeling detached and distracted by perceived problems in my life..

Something that cannot be underestimated here is the exhaustion I experience after each day. Whether we are doing theory in the class, or up to 3 dives in a day and all the tasks in between, it is most definitely a tiring and exhausting process. I hang until my day off where all i want to do is stay in bed. Between the 32+ degree days and very high humidity, 28 degree water, squeezing in and out of swimwear, a rashgaurd and a wetsuit back into a uniform 2-3 times in a day... It's hot and hard work! Even though there are so many things to be done and so many opportunities to enjoy tours and activities on the island.. it is perhaps something that i will build up to when I am a little more used to the new life i lead. As I had mentioned yesterday, I have not had a job where i stand on my feet all day since I was 16... however, even then it was no where near as labour intensive as this. I love that the work is so manual and that lifting air tanks, gear boxes, scuba equipment set ups and more is great for the guns! Also pushing a loaded trolley and walking everywhere instead of driving a buggy is also helpful!

I am managing with my back injury and some days it is much worse than others, I just have to know my limitations now and remember that pain does not necessarily mean stop. I still have function and over time it will get better. It makes me quite upset when I think of how intense my training was and that is was these massive weights that I was pushing that created this injury.. I know so many of my friends are sill involved in such intense training regimes, and though they may not have any problems now, when you learn about the constant wear and stress you are putting your spine and discs... there is really little doubt that you will have a problem in the future. I was told to NEVER lift more than your body weight. And that you can get the same affects that you are aiming for with massive weights, as you do with lesser - if your not going to be a weight lifting Olympian, than really there is no need to be so hard on your body. I can only imagine how seamless, pain free, and enjoyable this job would be without a niggle in the back. I look forward to the future when my body has adjusted and I can load weight more comfortably.

I absolutely used to take my health for granted, and quite often i still do - leaving problems until the point where they are absolutely unbearable before getting them checked out. But this is one thing i must completely stop. I am not to consider myself weak if i seek consultation in the first instance, I need to consider myself as strong in having the ability to have it addressed before it gets any worse. I know it is something that so many of us do, but it's not the best way. Good health is not replaced easily, nor sometimes at all. Take care of your body and it will take care of you. 

Last night when I was looking through the limited clothing I had, I realised that subconsciously i was sorting them in a particular order once i had worn them, back into my cupboard. On the top shelf, i had piled running from left to right, in a way which i could only describe as being a scale from hard left - 'it's do-able' to mid range - 'likely wearable but sniff test required' through to the hard right of - 'incase of absolute emergency only'. Until I have time to wash, this is the order that my clothes will remain until cleaned and put back on the hangers in the 'im perfectly clean and nice smelling and have not been worn yet' area. But don't worry, I just put a load of washing on now and soon the top shelf will be free from worn clothes again!

Yesterday evening I went on my second night dive. It was on the house reef and immediately upon descending  found an octopus! a As the dive went on I found two more, As well as 4 lion fish, 2 hermit crabs, two varieties of eels and many more underwater life. Though it is so amazing to look around and not only see the creatures acting so differently to the way in they do in the day, or creatures that are not so easily found in the day... but my favourite thing to do... is to point the torch on a 45 degree angle from my chest to the surface, where the light illuminates all the plankton, miniature worms, and minute life in the sea. It glows and appears like a million stars in front of my. As I swim, it is like I am flying through space, between all the stars in the sky. This is the closest thing I will ever come to such an experience. It is breath-taking.

Something that I have been trying to determine is whether I want more to continue eating without discrimination, but compromise and exercise, or begin to discriminate against some foods and the quantities and not exercise... I cant seem to find the lesser of two evils, and it was suggested i take a little form column A and a little from column B... It's going to take sometime because right now i am thoroughly enjoying the oatmeal cookies on the boat, and the 11pm stake-outs in the canteen when the left over guest food is delivered and those staking out pounce on the dessert delicacies that make it back! Its great how they manager the food here i think. If there is left over food from breakfast or lunch, they will re-create a new meal, which is often better than the original. The variety is great and i am starting to remember the sequence of particular meals on particular days... like hot dog and hamburger Friday's, and stir-fry station Wednesday's - personal chef at your service!

Without fail, the social butterfly within is flying around without little effort. I think i completely underestimate my ability to make friends so easily, and genuine friends at that. There are a few select people which I have spent more time with than others in the past week and I have really enjoyed both sharing my story and seeing the interest in their eyes when i tell it, and asking about their history and experience up until and including what bought them here. Each person is from a different cultural background, jobs which ware so far removed from each other, and have such vast experience working on other industries prior and living and working in different countries. The conversations are so broad and interesting and i just love talking with everyone i meet. When it comes down to being ridiculously tired and exhausted, and considering it best to do a little study before bed... or spending a couple of hours to talk, laugh and sometimes share a beer with my fellow colleagues/friends.... it is the latter which always prevails. This will most definitely be compromised as the days go on to enable me to maintain a healthy balance, but for the time being, building the foundation relationships with those around me is of utmost importance and enjoyment.

This evening was the General manager cocktails on the beach where some staff come and meet and greet with the guests. It was the first time that I have been dressed up in a pretty frock and make up... which is a far cry from the over sized board shorts polo shirts i wear each day. When i arrived, this beautiful older couple who had been diving with us for a few days saw me and their jaws dropped! They thought it was just wonderful to see me out of uniform, and well... just looking like a girl!

I enjoyed a couple of wines and mingling with some guests and before leaving we had an astronomer fixed with a telescope who i went to see! A second dream come true in a week! Looking through a telescope! I saw Jupiter and it's three moons - just amazing. I then asked him to point me out a constellation... and the only one i could think of was Leo - my star sign. He got out his laser pointer and shower me the Leo constellation - And i could actually see it! I was no just bluffing! soo cool!

We then made it out with plenty of time to have dinner before the canteen closed. It was also movie night! so i caught the end of the movie 'The delivery man' ? I think it was with Vince Vaughn.. then I went back to watch movies with some more pals before finishing off this blog and hopefully soon going to sleep!

Take joy in the simple things in life, a walk on the beach, gazing at the stars, conversation with friends or strangers. Money and possessions and not the most valuable items in your life. Your helath and happiness is. Take care of your body and your body will take care of you. Dont make the mistake in thinking that you can buy your health - it is one thing that is not easily done.

Wish upon stars and give thanks for all the gifts you have recieved, and are yet to recieve in your lifetime. When you are following your passion, your dreams, and you align with your true self - everything wonderful in your life will multiply and you will experience more miracles than you could have ever imagined - trust me - i'm proof of it!

Let your dreams be your guide.

Love Kassie xx