Well, I would have never pictured myself in a million years doing what I am doing for work. For the past three years, I have been a teacher and have absolutely loved it! When I moved to Kauai my plan was to be a substitute teacher and continue my teaching career. I started on the paperwork in January because I knew the DOE takes a long time to process the application. I was doing everything I could so that right when I got to Kauai I could start working at a school. But I think God had a different plan because no matter how hard I tried I kept getting rejected it was the weirdest thing. That's when I was led to the job I have now which I found on craigslist while looking for a place to live.
I work for a dive shop in Kola which is just 4 minutes away from where Gavin works. Which is an added bonus! I work four days a week for about ten hours each day. Honestly, I have a love-hate relationship with my job. I love my job for a lot of reasons. I like it because I get to be outside all day and I spend a lot of time swimming which is a really good workout. I also really love the people I work with. All of them are about my age and have come to Kauai for a variety of different reasons. I also love that every day is different. I have new people on the tour every time and I see different kinds of fish and sea life every day it's awesome! My job honestly isn't that hard either. I give a short briefing on how to snorkel and wear a mask and talk about some of the fish we might see. Once I'm in the water with the guests I point out all the cool fish and turtles and we basically just have a really fun time.
What I don't like about my job is that sometimes it's pouring rain and freezing and I have to jump into the ocean over and over again and act like it's a bath. I also get super fried from being in the sun. Some of the employees I work with have scars on their eyes because of the glare of the water they look at for hours on end. I also get a little tired of being wet all the time. I'm never dry, clean, or look very nice. I soak my hair in coconut oil to protect it from the sun so basically, I look like a grease ball all day. Yay! Sometimes it's hard always being wet. Especially when you keep getting UTIs and yeast infections from being in a wet swimming suit forty hours out of the week.
So as you see it's a love-hate relationship. Most of the time I get out of the water feeling great and pumped about what I saw. Other times I had a whole group who didn't know how to swim so I was pulling all of them around in the water. For now, I am really grateful for my job and that I have it. It pays really well and it's probably the only time in my life I will have the chance to work on a boat and in the ocean.
There are a few different kinds of tours we do at my work. The first one is a shore snorkel. The shore snorkel takes place at Lawai beach. When I do the shore snorkel I have 8 people max. Before we go to the beach I show everyone how to wear masks, talk about how we are going to get into the water, and some of the Hawaiian endemic reef fish we are going to see. After I take them to the shore and we snorkel for about an hour or until people get tired or cold. When I do the shore I do it three times a day. Most of the time I have people who have never been in the ocean or know how to swim. So I teach people how to swim as well which is great and can be stressful sometimes. It's for some reason always the men who don't know how to snorkel or who struggle big time.
The other day I was training a new guy Ben. He isn't much of a swimmer and bless his heart because he seems to really struggle with the job but doesn't have the guts to say it's not for him. He always seems uncomfortable. Anyways, we were both out on a morning shore snorkel with a group of six people. There are boundaries we have to keep the people in while in the ocean because if they get too far out of them they can be swept down the coast because of the current.
This particular morning there was a little bit of a swell but nothing too crazy. We all jumped in the water safely and were swimming around. We saw two turtles and everyone was stoked about it. Well, the next thing I know one of the people in the group swam a little too far. I told Ben to take the raft to go get him. In the meantime, I was going to have the rest of the group follow me to the shore or to where the current isn't so strong. So I told my crew to follow me and I started kicking toward the shore. Well, about 20 seconds later I turn around everyone started freaking out, and swam to the raft with Ben which was being sucked down the coast. At that point, they were too far from me. I was treading in the water where I was and could see that everyone made it to the raft. All of them had life vests on and were not in any danger. They were just slowly going down the coast not out to sea. So I started swimming back to shore because I was in the rut of the current. I was swimming so hard to get back. As I was swimming back I saw the fire truck come and the lifeguard on a jet ski. Sure enough, they had to go out and rescue each of my people including the other guide. It was not a great morning. I tried to make light of the situation since nobody got hurt or swallowed a bunch of water. I said "hey pretty cool you get to ride on a jet ski! People pay big bucks to do that in Hawaii" and nobody seemed happy. I totally get it but they were totally fine. People become so helpless in the water.
On another tour, I had a family of 5. There were three kids ages 4,6, and 9. We had to go to a new snorkel spot because of the waves at Lawai beach were too big. I hadn't ever snorkeled at this spot so I wasn't sure where to go or what to look for but I was in for whatever was coming! You kinda have to have this attitude at a job like mine. Well, we got in the water and start snorkeling. The kids were kinda freaking out about sharks and fish so I tell them to hang onto the raft and float. In the meantime, I am snorkeling looking for a really cool fish for the kids to look at or a sea turtle. When and all of a sudden I see a three-foot white tip reef shark. I wasn't super scared just because I saw sharks for the first time last week in Niihau. But I also wasn't responsible for anyone but myself when I saw the shark. What I was worried about was the kids seeing them and freaking out. So I just kept swimming keeping my eye on the shark till it was out of view and we went on our way.
So as you can see every day is full of some kind of crazy adventure.
The other day I found this lobster skin in the ocean. I dove down and picked it up and came up out of the water with it on my head. I gave everyone a pretty big fright. I was throwing it around at all the tourists. It was hilarious. You got to make the tour fun somehow right?
The second tour we do is the boat snorkel. On the boat, we take a group of 14 out on a zodiac to two snorkel spots. One of them is in front of the Sheraton where we have our turtles and underwater lava tubes. If you are a really skilled diver you can dive down through the arches. The other one is at PK's where we follow the coral to a shelf to a beautiful wall filled with fish life and brightly colored reef. I prefer the shore over the boat just because some of the captains are crazy to work with. Also on the boat, you have to dive down to an underwater moring and connect the boat to it. I'm not super into diving and always get stressed out doing that. Also, usually when I am on the boat people are seasick or it's pouring rain which makes the ride freezing.
The last tour we do is the Napali coast! The Napali coast is one the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Napali stands for many cliffs. Which is exactly what the coast is. We follow the cliffs from the ocean. Often times we see dolphins, monk seals, and even a whale at times. We take off from the west side which is brown and dead and ride for an hour up north till we hit the sea cliffs. It's honestly always magical and beautiful. There are caves and waterfalls on the coast. Since we do our tour on a zodiac we can go through the caves it's so awesome!
We had a staff training day on the coast and it was so magical. We just swam all along the coast and even in some of the caves. They said Gavin can always jump on a tour when I work if there is an empty seat. Looking forward to when that can happen.
Grateful for my job and all the things I have learned because of it.
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