Dive-Monster Rhoody

… well, there Rudi (at that time I was far away from being Rhoody, but that story later) and Lissy walked on a sunny morning in Senggigi/ Lombok – Indonesia along the mainstreet to Astrid and Gerd’s Dream Divers at god-forbidden 7:30 am to start their first theory and pool lessons on their way to become certified Open Water Diver.

Of course we did not finish our assignment completely but went a good way through it. At the dive-shop we met our instructor and another couple who were (like we) quite nervous waiting for the things to come.

We went through the knowledge-reviews and first three quizzes… Fu@% me, I must have missed the quiz part during the introduction the evening before, but with 3 other students sitting next to me and 2 open rotating eyes, no problem, I passed all 3 quizzes with “honest” 90 %. At the end, PADI is teaching the buddy-system, so my buddies did one chapter each and I was following along … hehe

Honestly, I totally understand my students nowadays who wanna push through the course in three days, that they might have some problems in understanding how the course and the system in general works when they got explained everything, but I always try to remember my problems at the beginning.  PADI changed quite a bit during the last years and things are just easier now with plenty of options how to go through the Open Water course.

Having that mastered it was time to get some equipment. Well, while Lissy looked super hot in a 3 mm Neoprene wetsuit, my living 100 German Kilograms squeezed into that tight fitting thingy let the Michelin-Man appear like a sex-symbol.

The dive-shop is actually located in a 5-Star Resort and I really apologize for that view to all regular guests there, who needed to experience and see that sweaty, red-head German Sausage running around the pool for some hours…

Finally it was time to assemble the equipment and get into the water. Standing in waist-deep water fully geared up like a scuba diver, breathing from a regulator, bending forward and making the first breath under water from the “high-tech” equipment …

Rhoodys 1st logbook

… didn’t really impress me at all. I know that this is for many the most rememberable moment, but I was just happy to get into the water that I stop sweating in the hot sun above the surface.

We were (at least what I felt) a pretty cool group and nobody had any major problems with all the skills, or panicked with some water around the nose. The start of each Open Water course is basically breathing under Water, clearing mask, practicing the use of a alternate air source and swimming around. Well, having no clue about buoyancy it is more or less hopping along on the bottom of the pool or popping up to the surface. Buoyancy skills are scheduled for the afternoon.

Even without any buoyancy, I liked the bubble-blowing and playing around with all that stuff under water, and most important I did not sweat at all. The time flew by and after my Instructor checked my tank it was time for me to end the first session as it was pretty empty and just a few breaths short of getting the shape of a coke-bottle.

Our lunch “break” was mainly watching video part 4 and 5, having a quick bite to eat, and for (Lissy and me more important) sneaking out of the dive-shop, smocking some cigarettes to get our lungs back into normal surface-conditions.

To be continued…

cheers

Rhoody

PS: I will speed up and not write an article about each breath, it just happened while writing that all that stuff, feelings and memories came back as it was just a few weeks ago… anyway, I don’t force anybody to read my brain-rubbish anyway…

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I get asked many times by people what brought me here to the Philippines, when I started scuba diving, why Dumaguete and many more questions. So I thought, why not write some stuff down that I only need to forward the links and don’t need to tell the same story many times.

My whole dive story started in Lombok, a small neighbor island of Bali. I was working in the music business as sound-tech and each time I had a few weeks off I was on the way to south-east asia with Lissy, my long time girlfriend. Together we explored several countries in Asia. We usually went for 3 weeks and covered at least 2 regions of a country with a stopover in a South Asian big City like Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and other interesting places.

On a 3-week  trip which basically was the beginning of changing my life, we were 2 weeks all over Bali with the last week a lazy week in Senggigi on Lombok. Just after checking into our hotel we walked along the main street to an overview about restaurants and clubs and any kind of night hang-outs for the last week.

I have no idea what had obsessed me, but when we passed a office of Astrid and Gerd’s Dream Divers office situated at that time along the Senggigi main street I just told Lissy that I wanna go and try diving, so we stepped into the office without any clue it will change my life forever.

We were explained that scuba diving is a bit more than just jumping in the water and breath oxygen. Actually this was the first time that I heard that it is not Oxygen but just simple air in this bottles … ok 2^nd lesson … of course scuba tank…. Oh my god those diver are really picky…

Well , ok then … can I have a TANK with some AIR and go diving tomorrow with you guys… After some more explanation Lissy and I found our self sitting there signing up for a dive-course and were watching the first 2 hours of a crappy video tape to start the course right away.

We left the Dream Divers office in Senggigi on Lombok with an PADI Open Water Manual which probably went through 1000 student hands before so the manual was more or less 250 loose paper we need to sort first and with the task to study chapter one two and three over night and be back at the office at 8:00 am.

Great holiday, instead of sitting at the beach or a smoky club and getting drunk with cold beer and colorful cocktails, we were on our veranda with our worn-out manual and studied pages about snorkels, fins and of course AIR pressure in SCUBA TANKS.

tbc

cheers

Rhoody

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“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

I came over that quote while reading a book on my Off-Sunday laying at the beach. I couldn’t stop thinking about it as it brings quite some truth with it. Somehow It could have been be said on a TV-show just yesterday or 10 years ago.

It made me thinking a couple of years back when I left Germany. At that time people were demonstrating for the 35 hour week and retire with 60… I never had that. I was working in the music-business 14 – 18 hours daily since I was 19 and spend all weekends, Christmas, new years-eve, birthday’s somewhere in a crowd or a dark backstage area. I still loved my job and still don’t wanna miss a second.

Since I am 12 I write diary. As a typical German I also wrote down my working hours, places where I have been and a lot of statistical stuff. For example in 2000 I had 21 off-days the whole year and spend some of them in the outskirts of Bari, probably on of the ugliest towns in lovely Italy…

I quit my job and company early in the 30 to move to the Philippine. When I went to my tax-officer in my hometown I could not resist to tell him that I have already more working hours than he will have in his entire life with his 8am to 4pm job (37 hrs-week, and I know in English it’s a 9to5-job) in case he will live that long and can retire one day with 62.

His face expression was that of a deer standing frozen on a lonely road in pitch-black night, facing the fast closer coming bright headlights of a 40-ton-truck.
(Btw, you can get the same face-expression asking a local beauty if the moon or Berlin is closer to the Philippines… hmmm I can see the moon, but Berlin ? anyway what is that…)

When I went to the Philippines I reduced my time on Job to about 12 hours a day with 1 or two off-days a month and 10 days vacation (of course unpaid). Even now I easy beat the 40 hours a week on job.

So lets put my taxman in numbers for a year (365 days, 5 working days or 37 hours a week)

104 days weekend
30 days vacation
7 days sick (average in 2006, when I left Germany it was 9.5 days sick a year)
10 public holiday (normally 17 but some are on Sundays or fall depending on a year on a sunday)
3 other (days like Christmas eve where people work only half day and other stuff like socialising trips of the company and celebrations where nobody works)

That means there are 211 working days left, or a total amount of 1,561 working hours in the whole year. I reached this number in 2000 in less than 100 days.

There is obviously a reason why I can read a book at a beach surrounded by lovely people and pretty girls, great diving and cold beer. For my part, I won’t accept if my tax-officer whining around that he need to pay more money for his medicine and other stuff.

oops, sorry I almost forgot about it.

The quote above is more than 2000 years old and from

Marcus Tullius Cicero – 55 bC

Deja Vu

Rhoody

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A week ago or so I was writing about depression or something… It all happened in the middle of a cold or fever I caught. Being sick and feeling dizzy all the time just turned out to go into the second week now. I already feel way better than before and made my first short trips into Dumaguete for some hours.
I can’t explain how I feel being trapped at home. I need to be out and roaming around, meeting people and having fun.

During all that time at home I tried to be a bit healthy and did not drink any SMB. I finally  bought a scale for my bathroom (after 1.5 years) just to find out what I knew anyway… Fmucking hell, I am getting way too fat. … I still can see “my little Rhoody” while taking a wee without bending forward but it’s time to start the Project UHU.

UHU means simply “Under HUndret” and is in direct relationship to my weight…  so what is involved in that project?

First is no SMB for a while, water and coke light will do.
Plenty of vegetables and fruit, to get my daily Vitamins and all that crap… (I hate taking vitamin-pills and stuff in a country where there are fresh Mango, Banana,Pinapple,Coconut  and much more.)
Eating small portions… I am normally a plate licker… no matter how full my plate is, I will finish it completely. I won’t leave one rice corn on it (normally no need to wash my dishes…)
I’ll do some workout to get my boobs in better shape again, my shoulders even wider (six pack won’t work out with me)
and I’ll do some more stuff to get back on gwapo-track

UHU is about halftime of what I plan to reach in the next 2 month.  I may have some days in between, where I am going out and eat all I can just satisfy my brain. No Rhoody can life on that healthy stuff over a period of 2 month.

A funny sidenote. I was drinking way too much when I was going out, I am pretty aware of that. I was suspecting some kind of problems with stopping SMB. I did not go out each evening, but about 3-4 times a week, so I count myself as a kind of alcoholic. But guess what, I don’t feel  any difference or any demand that I need a beer now. I was with good friends at Mikes place yesterday and stuck to Coke-light without problems.

Guess I am just a stubborn german fat fart, hehe. It’s about 250 hours without SMB and the only problem I had were the complaints of some local places that they can’t pay the salaries due to lacking income. I’ll keep you posted how Rhoody’s project UHU will continue.
Cheers
Rhoody

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I just decided to make another category here on dive-monster.

Many things going through my head where I wanna talk about but they don’t fit in any of the existing ones. There are quite personal thoughts and I guess a blog is the diary of the 21st century. Like in some of my other reports before I will insult, laugh and cry and put my salty fingers into fresh wounds
…  so if you are sensible, just stop reading exactly here !!!

My life changed a lot the last few years but the biggest change was about one year ago when one of my course-directors and bosses at the dive-shop I was working  was not man enough to tell me that I am fired. Kim a one of the rare real friends took little Rhoody by his hand and told him: Man, why don’t you do the same I do….

Hey, great Idea – I thought by myself- and started beer drinking and mongering around in many regions of the Philippines. After a while Kim told me…. Rhoody not that, why you don’t start a webpage, I help you to get on your feet and show you how to earn your cost of living with that. 

OK-ok, sounds like work but give it a try… as I am not under financial pressure; I started a bit slow but after a 2 days or so I had my first Dollar earned. Yeah only a dollar, but it showed me that it is possible. Kim told me some secrets and helped me with ALL stupid questions I had and still have.

Now my first year of a new existence is done and there were many up’s and downs. One great thing of my life is that I am still diving a lot but I am not a slave at a Dive-Mc Donalds in Dauin. I am now diving up and down the beach, have bookings on Siquijor and help Mike at his Adventure-Diveshop. Next to all of that I am not sitting in a wanna-be-the-best dive-center and waste my life.

I can go out meet great people and know that exactly at this point I earn the money I spend on a good meal somewhere in Dumaguete.

I pissed more people off than I did in my 6 years before in the Philippines but I also met more great guys and friends. At this point I need to thank a couple of people without them I would never be at that stage I am now.

First of all Kim and Tom who showed me that things are possible (in many ways),

 my little little one and her mother (couldn’t do anything without the love, energy and the support you 2 give to me).

Mike and Bruce (who are responsible that I still dive for free AND have some cold beer)

My good friend, The “Fat Austrian” (who ensures with his monster-portions that I don’t get too skinny)

All the lovely people here in the country who make me feel welcome, who make me smile, who make me happy… I am proud to be in your wonderful place as a guest…

Enough tears…. My reputation is to be a bad guy… do I wanna be one ????  yeah, 100% …. good guys are boring and go to heaven… bad guys  go everywhere…

Just saw on some boards that guys asking for some advice…. and insults…. stay tuned, I am on the way

Rhoody

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