Sex, Surf, and Sunburn

By VJ Mochel

“What happens on the island stays on the island”. This was the battle cry of the tourists that descended on us each week. If they only knew I could write this might have turned out differently. Sex, Surf and Sunburn is a true account of my experiences while working as a scuba instructor in the Caribbean. So get comfortable, grab a drink and come spend thirteen months with me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VJ Mochel
• Release date: Jul 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781466017566

VJ Mochel

In 1976 I took the summer off to backpack across Europe. In 1982 I killed most of the year by motorcycling throughout the continental 48. So in 1999 going to the Caribbean to teach scuba diving just seemed like the right thing to do. The way my life is going I'm guessing that my next big adventure will be the final step into the afterlife. I guarantee I won't be writing about that so I guess if you want to read my work then this might be your last chance.

Book preview

Sex, Surf and Sunburn

My Life inside Club Med

By

V.J. Mochel

(Padre)

This is dedicated to all of you that were, are and will be, GOs.

Special thanks to:

Michael de Coninck (GODJ) from CLUBMEDPLANET.COM for allowing me to use his site to test public opinion of my work.

Matthew Lazorwitz (Flintstone) Freelance editor and friend, for his editorial assistance and guidance which allowed me to transform a collection of stories into a readable manuscript.

Ron Egatz (E) from The Torpedo Room, Inc. for his advice and cover design.

Too great in number to list here are all the people that followed this story online month by month and kept encouraging me to write more. To all of you my most sincere thanks, I hope you’re all reading this now.

Last but not least, to the twenty thousand plus people who worked or vacationed at the resort while I was there I’d like to say, Hey, let’s do it again sometime.Maybe it will lead to another book.

Under the copyright laws this work shall not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form, in whole or part, without the prior written consent of the author, V.J. Mochel.

© Copyright 2005PartyInMyPants Publishing{:>o--^===|

All rights reserved.First edition 2005.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1April 1999-Wecolme to Paradise

Chapter 2May 1999-Change

Chapter 3June 1999-A New Lifestyle

Chapter 4July 1999-Til Death Do Us Part

Chapter 5August 1999-Summers End

Chapter 6September 1999-Two Glorious Weeks

Chapter 7October 1999-Hello My Love

Chapter 8November 1999-Yes Dear

Chapter 9December 1999-Merry Christmas

Chapter 10January 2000-Turn of the Century

Chapter 11February 2000-Vacation

Chapter 12March 2000-Another Year Older

Chapter 13April 2000-End of the Road

EpilogueAugust2005

Preface

This book was written from my point of view and is not meant to be malicious or slanderous to any one person or organization. Every story has two sides and this is what I saw, heard, felt or was told at the time. Any opinions voiced here are my own and were formed based on what I saw, heard, felt or was told at that particular time. All the stories are true. I was either involved directly or I witnessed each of the events told here. When I was not involved or witness to these events then I have written the facts as they were told to me. Some of the stories are slightly embellished and may be out of chronological order. This was done to make the book as a whole flow better. Some of the characters are compilations of more than one person and in some cases I took two very similar stories and combined them only because they were so similar and the endings were virtually identical. With the repetition of the job also came the repetition of the drama, week after week after week. All the names have been changed with the exception of my own and Club Med.

Introduction

The twilight sky is changing from blue to black. The clouds of the afternoon disappear as the sun drops from sight behind them leaving the horizon a bright red-orange hue. The first stars of the night begin to twinkle as I sit on the stern of our single hull dive boat. I watch as twenty or so guests from the resort assemble their dive gear. There is happy chatter among them, some in English and some in French. My gaze wanders starboard towards the island we just left. The hills and valleys are now dotted with lights from the houses there. Spread out through the tropical vegetation they form patterns that outline the land. I look to the port side just in time to catch the last glimmer of sunlight in that fleeting few minutes before the entire sky darkens. Now, in the night sky, thousands of stars begin their evening dance for what seems to be my personal pleasure. As we roar up the coast I watch a show performed nightly for billions of people, but only really seen by a lucky few. Tonight I am among those few. I light a cigarette and sit back to absorb the ambiance of what is happening aboard ship. Most of the guests have now settled in and are listening to the dive briefings of the instructors they will soon be diving with. All of them are poised with great anticipation for what they might see this evening.

The smell of the diesel exhaust is starting to get to me so I wander up to the bow for some fresh air. The wind twists my hair as it smacks against my face. It’s at times like this that I know I am awake and oh so alive. The spray of the sea wets my arms and shirt ever so slightly as it plays a game of tag with the wind. The captain yells down to me from the bridge, Five minutes. I pass the word to the divers. Five short minutes and the dreams of the past year would become reality for them. I watch as they fumble about with weight belts and dive lights, twisting and squirming to don their equipment in preparation for that big step into the darkness. I readied the bowline and gaff as I watch for the white rubber buoy that marks our dive site for this evening. The captain reduces the engine speed and slowly our target comes into view.

I make my way back to the stern by walking a crooked path through the waiting divers and take my place on the swim platform, to check each diver before they enter the water. As the last one submerges I find a comfortable place and light another smoke. The captain turns on his portable radio and we listen to the sounds of one of the few stations on St. Lucia. As a song plays, my thoughts turn to how I wound up here.

At the age of forty-three, I’m living out a dream of mine. I left the mundane world and all its trappings behind and started a new life in a place that most people only come to visit on vacation. I don’t miss the hustle and confusion of the rat race one bit. The endless line of traffic each morning has been replaced with a leisurely walk to the breakfast buffet. Lunch is a gourmet feast and my mid-afternoon break is spent watching topless French girls sunning themselves by the pool. When I come home at the end of the day I am tired from activity, not stress. My evenings are always booked solid. Every night there’s a party and I am always invited. Each day I make new friends from all over the globe and take them diving. This is my normal working day and just like back in the world, it has turned into a grind.

The days are long and my responsibility is huge compared to the amount of money I earn each month. The money was never a motivating factor in my change of career. Travel, adventure, fun and women were high on the list, but for once I could honestly say I had a job that I really liked. It was something some people might consider glamorous; to go on vacation and stay there. Every week I have someone telling me how great a life it must be and how they wish they could do it too, and then come the excuses. They have obligations and bills and their lives have become too complicated. Be careful what you wish for, I tell them, because once you take a hobby and turn it into a job, it becomes work. Maybe more so for some than others, but it is still a job and no matter how you slice it, work is work. The guests see me on the boat and teaching class but what they don’t see is what happens behind the scenes, like cleaning the boats, repairing gear and all the bullshit meetings with management. Yes, meetings just like back in the world. And just like in the real world most of the people in charge know nothing about diving yet still insist on telling me how to do my job. Days spent in the sun with topless women become tedious and mundane as the months roll by. There is a beautiful beach and wonderful blue water, but it’s still a job.

It’s been forty minutes and the first of my divers are starting to return. I assist them back onto the boat with a mother’s touch and the voice of a drill sergeant. I take their fins, help them up the ladder and point them in the direction of their seat. After being weightless in the water they are confused by their bulk and gravity becomes their enemy. They sway to and fro like drunken sailors on shore leave. Their gear is peeled away as fast as they can undo the straps and buckles.Into dry towels and tee shirts they lunge as they head for the buffet laid out at the front of the cabin. They chatter on endlessly about the wonders they have seen as they gorge themselves on cold cuts and cheese.

Non-stop talk and laughter fills the boat now as our dive trip takes on more of a party atmosphere. The captain fires up the motors and as we head towards home the guests settle in for the ride. I stow the garbage and clean up after the mob that has invaded my ship tonight.All is quiet now. Some doze, some stare off into the darkness and others stare at the silhouette of the island. Happy with their adventure they have great stories to tell friends and family when they return home. They came, they saw, they survived. The dreams of the past year fulfilled they await the next day of diving wondering what new mysteries will be seen.

This is my job. Day in and day out the only thing that changes are the faces of the tourists. Every day has a story to go with it and every story has to have a beginning. To find the beginning of this one I have to go back almost two years. To a time when it was still new and exciting to me, much as it is now for the guests. Away from St. Lucia and back to the first thirteen months of my new life. Back to a more barren island farther north, Providentiales in the Turks and Caicos chain. Twenty-six square miles of sand and rock with some of the best beaches I have ever had the pleasure to play on. Never heard of it?Me neither, that is until I wound up there on a vacation. It lies just east of Cuba and north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A short three and a half-hour flight from New York City puts you in this paradise. You’ll know when you’re there because as you fly over the island on approach you’ll see the most beautiful water surrounding it. It gives the illusion of being turquoise in color and in some places you can look straight down and see the bottom even at a depth of over sixty feet.In 1996 I came as a guest and I liked what I saw. I spent the next three years preparing to go back for an extended stay. So sit back and relax as I tell you the story of how I ran away from the rat race and stayed on vacation for a year.

April 1999…Welcome to Paradise

An unseasonably cold wind sent a chill down my back and made me realize that this was it. JFK was the first stop on my way to begin not only a new job but a new life too. I said my good-byes to my driver and pal, Will. Don’t let too many girls fall in love with you, he quipped. Twenty some years ago he would have been going with me, but with a wife and two kids at home now he had the weight of responsibility hanging on him like a saddle. He had taken a path common to most people our age; one that I had detoured around on several occasions. Even though he didn’t say it out loud I could tell that he was envious of my freedom. My ability to pack up and go and even at the fact that three years ago I set this very goal for myself and now it was happening. On the other hand you could say that I was envious of him too. I dragged my bags into the terminal and watched through the glass as his silver van pulled away from the curb and disappeared into traffic. I was now on my way to a new life and more than a little nervous at leaving everyone and everything that was familiar to me behind.

The culture shock and tension started to settle in as soon as we arrived in Miami.It was different than NYC in the fact that the humidity was nearing triple digits. In jeans and a long sleeve shirt I found myself over dressed. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I stared at the monitor for departing flights. Delayed for another hour, I thought. This makes a grand total of five in Miami and two in New York.Club Med, in their infinite wisdom, had booked me on the worst air odyssey of my life. Every week they ran a direct charter from JFK.It is now nine hours since I left the house that morning and I was only in Florida. It would have been much easier to put me on the charter but I was not a guest. I started to wonder if I made the right choice of companies to work for.

It took me almost a year studying part time to become eligible for instructor status and then a long weekend of testing in Ft. Lauderdale to see if I was good enough. Over a year of teaching and diving to gain practical experience and taking even more classes to earn further certifications to make my resume stand out from the rest. Not to mention the thousands of dollars spent on equipment that I left behind. Packing up my apartment and throwing out or giving away everything I didn’t need anymore. Moving in with my aunt for however long it would take to find a job and all the while still working my old boring job that was going to be downsized soon. All of this factored in to turning me into a total crazy person. Knowing I was feeling the stress of being homeless and soon to be jobless a friend suggested that I try calling Club Med instead of sending resumes like I had been doing. I called, faxed another resume and called some more. His suggestion was right on the money. It worked.

Those years of preparation were for a job with Club Med at one of their resorts. They were my first and only choice for an employer at the time. If you asked me why I would have told you it was for the women. I saw what went on there and it seemed too good to be true. Women actually pursued the men, and not only the good-looking ones but also the so-so ones.Of course I’m talking about the female guests and the males on staff. Talking a woman into bed seemed almost effortless by my standards.

Finally after three weeks and fourteen calls they hired me, sight unseen on a Wednesday afternoon. Three days later I was boarding a plane for the village they called Turkoise, the same place I had gone to on vacation years earlier. I was about to become a GO; the abbreviation basically stands for gracious host in French. All the guests are referred to as GMs, gracious guests. They also have GEs, an abbreviation for all the indigenous staff and exactly what it means I have no idea. If anyone ever told me, it went in one ear and out the other.

My life as it once was is gone. A car and some precious memories were packed away in storage until who knows when. I panicked for a split second, What if I don’t last for the term of my contract?I thought. Six months could be an eternity. I considered running back to the safety of New Jersey; if I did I would have had nowhere to go that I could call home. To turn chicken at that moment would have caused me to lose face with my friends. Club Med has two seasons that they hire for, the summer lasts from May until October and the winter from November until April. I was going in early according to their calendar because the scuba department was short staffed. This made me wonder, if they were short staffed now and had been that way for the past few months why the hell did they keep sending me rejection letters in response to my resumes?

For months the topic of conversation with most of my friends had been my change of career and how great it would be to work in the Caribbean. I talked about it so much that I’m lucky to still have friends who would speak to me. Finally my dream was in sight. It was so close that I could almost feel the island breeze on my face, see the water and white sand beach. I became calm again and even the sweat that formed on my brow did not bother me. So the plane is delayed, just as long as it doesn’t fall apart in midair. I relaxed and put my past life behind me. The final hour passed and we were called for boarding. In two short hours I’d be in my new home.

The second plane was much smaller than the first. I had one carry on bag the size of an eight-year-old child. It weighed sixty-five pounds and for some strange reason would not fit in overhead storage. I gracefully jammed as much of it as I could under the seat and wrapped my legs around the rest.Looking around I saw happy vacationers, not stressed business people like I did on my first leg. Anticipation and hopes for a good week or two were high. They were going to visit, and I was going to stay.

Our approach to the island was in darkness. I would have to wait until tomorrow to see the beaches and water. No matter, I knew what they looked like because the memory was still clear in my mind. We landed and exit the plane in darkness. I slung my bag over my shoulder and trudged across the runway to the terminal. Much to my surprise things had drastically changed. The terminal now had doors and real glass in the windows that were once open to the elements. As I walked under the lit sign that said, Providentiales International Airport, I pushed through the glass doors and found a welcome surprise, air conditioning. I was amazed at how everything had changed. Customs now had counters instead of portable folding tables and all the agents had the same style uniforms. Where you once claimed your baggage right off the truck now sat a wall with a baggage carousel revolving through it.My little island paradise had stepped into the twentieth century.

I claimed the other hundred and forty pounds of luggage from the carousel and headed towards customs. The agent looked me up and down and asked, How long you staying man?

Six months, I said.

Business or pleasure?

Business, I’m going to work for Club Med.

OK man, enjoy your stay.

Thank you.Well that’s one thing that hasn’t change. The attitude of most of the locals was still friendly. I wandered into arrivals looking for a familiar sign. I found it in the form of my new co-workers, a dozen or so sent to greet the plane. In white shorts and long sleeved white tee shirts they stood out in the crowd. They were all young and tan. Looking at them made me feel old and out of place. They searched for me and the eighty or so guests I’d flown in with. I found the leader of the group and told him my name. I watched as he scanned the massive list of people on this arrival. I’m sorry; your name is not on my list. I told him that I was a new member of the scuba team. Oh, a new first season GO. He flipped to the last page and there across the top was my name, hand written in pencil. I guessed that they found out I was coming at the last minute.

I threw my stuff into a taxi with five female guests and we took off for the village. All Club Med’s are referred to as villages. That’s how they started, secluded little villages of tents or huts that were inexpensive get-a-ways for Europeans that started popping up in the most relaxing spots after WWII. A few hours by train and you were in another world. It was the perfect vacation.

It was only a ten-minute drive from the airport to the village and our driver was flying so he could drop us off and go back for a new load. We cruised past security and down the long driveway into the cul-de-sac that was the arrival / departure area. Twenty or thirty GOs stood in two lines, all smiling and clapping their hands in unison to greet us. They made it look very inviting. I piled out and grabbed my bags and waited. I was a little perplexed as to what to do next while the guest’s filed off in the opposite direction to check in.

Unbelievably a familiar face came out of the darkness. Her name was Cindy. Like most of the group she is Canadian. She too worked in scuba and oddly enough she was there just to welcome me. I met her on my last visit and dove with her once or twice. It was her first season with the club then and she has since worked at several other ones in the Caribbean and Mexico. She had lost weight and was incredibly tanned compared to the last time I saw her. Her face was only one of a few for me but mine is one of thousands for her. She did not remember me and I was not disappointed; how could I have been? It was to be expected. If the situation were reversed I would’ve probably not remember her either. A memory of that week came back to me, one she could have not possibly forgotten. The memory was that of another guest, Rhonda.

Now Rhonda was a very special person and very hard to forget.She was about six feet three inches tall and must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. She was one of those people who were not satisfied with what god gave them and wanted more. What Rhonda wanted was breasts and a vagina. The French braid hairdo, the eye make-up and stylish one-piece bathing suit didn’t really do much, Rhonda was still Ronald. Cindy still didn’t remember me but she did very much remember that week.What she found as unbelievable as I did was the fact that I ran into Rhonda in Ft. Lauderdale when I went to do my diving instructor evaluations a year later. At this point Rhonda had her breasts, what else she had is none of my business and by the grace of god will stay a mystery to me forever.

We laughed together at the story and Cindy filled me in on what she had been doing the past few years. She had gone from Turks to the Bahamas to Mexico and several islands in between and then back to Turks. She would be leaving in a few weeks like most of the present crew. Her destination was St. Lucia. The St. Lucia club handles a mostly European clientele and she was eager to try to fit in with the Europeans. For employees from North America, working with the European crowd proves that you have the capacity to deal with all sorts of people and if you’re good, it puts you in line to work on the other side of the world. It was something for me to keep in mind if I ever wanted to go and dive at one of the clubs in Europe or Asia.

Everything around us was turning into a mass of confusion as more guests arrived. Along with my day job at scuba I also had to be available to handle baggage and show guests to their rooms. Now with eighty people all trying to check in at once and forty people trying to help them you can see how things could get out of hand, especially with several different languages being spoken at the same time. I could only imagine what the morning’s charter from NYC was like. Supposedly over three hundred new guests had arrived then.Fortunately for me I was not expected to start work immediately.Lucky for Cindy I was her only arrival duty for the evening so she could drop me off and disappear into the night like I would soon learn to do. Just like in the real world, show your face to the right people and then bug out.

We checked my bags, put them on the luggage cart and headed off to find my room. Outside of the reception area things were bustling just as I remembered. Even though I spent over nine hours to reach my final destination, when I saw the lights and heard the music I found myself ready to party. This company owned over one hundred resorts and this is one of the few remaining singles clubs, set up for the single set, most of who were New Yorkers. They ran with one motto, what happens on the island stays on the island. A real little party town set off on a quiet stretch of beach. Cindy and I walked through the center of the village and most of it was as I remembered.

Now, before I go any further, I have some explaining to do. Even though I use familiar words like resort and hotel it’s not like your imagining. Like most Caribbean resorts there are no doors and in some cases, no walls for areas like the bar and theater. There really wasn’t a permanent reception area or even a front desk there either. They had set up some portable tables in the breezeway and when check in was over the tables disappeared. Everything was pretty much under large roofs and exposed to the elements. The guests were housed in six large buildings that for the most part looked like the two and three story motels that you would find anywhere in the states. From here it’s a two to three minute walk to the main area. It’s almost laid out like a small town but with no streets.

In the center of the village you had the hostess desk, travel office, bank, theater, boutique, some small shops, bar, and restaurant. All of this was around the swimming pool and outdoor stage where the main part of all activity took place. The guest rooms branched off in two directions away from the center of it and parallel to them you’d find the employees rooms. These little bungalows had two sections. Each section had two bedrooms connected to a bathroom. Also in the village you’d find other amenities like massage, medical, and the excursions office. Scattered around the property there was another bar and restaurant near the beach and just before that you had sailing, tennis and the flying trapeze. Club Med billed themselves as the biggest sports school in the world and at this club they taught flying trapeze.

We passed through the village and headed over to the east side where the scuba shack and dock were. The scuba shack was about the size of a five-car garage. It had a small office, locker room for staff, equipment room, lockers for the guests and a repair shop. It had been a few years but nothing much had changed. Every day of my holiday I had walked this path to go diving and every day since I had relived the memories over and over in my mind. It was what I did to ease the boredom of my normal routine at work. It greatly helped to pass the workday, to take small ten-minute vacations back in time. The same twists in the path, the same beige bungalows and the same brightly painted buildings for the guests. Short trees and flowering bushes followed the path like a wall to help keep us on course. I remembered my old room as a guest, production line art on the wall, clean bathroom, chairs and table and a large comfortable bed. No television or phone or anything that would make you want to stay inside. A Club Med vacation was to be spent outside having fun and not hiding in your room.

Cindy had been talking about something but I’m afraid I wasn’t listening. I was off in the splendor of my own little vacation dream.We took a quick right turn off the sidewalk and stopped at the very last room on the right, G-30. She handed me my key and told me the last thing she could think of about my new roommate, He’s from California and is a really nice guy but sometimes he parties too much. I guess this was what she had been talking about for the last few minutes. We said goodnight and she disappeared.

I opened the door and entered what I would call home for the next six months. The front door opened into, the bathroom? To my right in its own little closet was the toilet. Next to this was the shower and on the far wall the sink and mirror. In the wall facing me were two doors, one open and one closed. I assumed the open one was mine. I reached in and fumbled for the light switch. They shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble just for me, I thought. On the far wall of my eight by fourteen-foot home was a bare forty-watt bulb that lit the room. Next to it was a window of good size considering how big the room was. It had shutters on the inside and a broken venetian blind hung from its mantle. To the left was a cabinet hung on the wall to be used as a closet and between it and me was the bed. A single mattress on a sheet of plywood propped up on milk crates. The floor was a vinyl pattern from the sixties and the walls were covered with beige paneling. Another light was positioned over the bed with its own separate switch and on the ceiling, a fan three times larger than the room needed for circulation. At least everything was clean.

Lying on the bed was a folded piece of paper. I opened it and read, Welcome to the team, hope you had a good trip in, meet you at the bar, signed Boomer.OK, so what’s a Boomer? My guess was my new roommate. Great, I’d be sharing quarters with a very loud person from California. Well Cindy did say he was a nice guy. Screw it. I started to unpack my clothes and put them in the closet. No hangers, I’d have to lay everything out on the shelves. I looked at all the clothes I brought and gave up the unpacking idea. I grabbed a pair of shorts and clean shirt and decided to go out and get reacquainted with the place.

My first stop was scuba. Nothing had changed. Same murals on the walls painted free hand by some past GO.Aluminum benches set into the concrete walkway and large dark wooden garage doors covering the entrances to the repair room and locker rooms. At the end of the building was an entrance to the beach and the boat dock.Ravaged by a storm even before my first visit it was still missing about sixty feet off the end. Next to the dock were the fuel pumps, diesel and gas for the boats. Out on the ocean I could see the three scuba boats and the smaller one used for snorkeling. One dive boat was the same one that I had dove from years before. It was a catamaran with twin diesel engines. The other two were new to me. Larger and newer they were cats also, but with upper decks for sunning yourself. Both of them were of good size and very impressive looking even in the dark. I would have guessed anywhere from fifty to sixty feet in length with a beam of as much as twenty-six feet. Well at least they had given me some great toys to play with while I was here.

I wandered towards the village along the sidewalk next to the beach. As I drew closer I could hear the music and laughter getting louder. I was starting off with a new weeks worth of guests getting acquainted and beginning to enjoy their vacation. The sounds and the lights all stimulated my senses and I felt as if I had traveled back in time to my own holiday here. The ambiance was overwhelming. There was an excitement in the crowd. It was that type of energy you feel when you get away to a different place and have the chance to break your normal routine. There was a chance to make new friends and let your hair down for a good party. Not to mention the possibility of jumping in the sack for a completely meaningless fling for a day or two. I gladly immersed myself into the center of it all.

I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer. No cash needed here. Instead all beverages were bought with coupons from little books. I still had half a book left from my last vacation. I took a long hard swig from the bottle and then lit a cigarette. There was Ernie, a staple at the village. He was a long time employee working the bar. I remembered him but I was just another faceless beer guzzling tourist in the never-ending crowd to him.

I stood back and began to watch a wonderful show called life. I found it curious though that this was the same show you could see in any bar anywhere in the world. You know the one I’m talking about, groups of women gathered together for protection while the mass of men parade back and forth performing the mating ritual. We don’t dance or beat our chests anymore to attract the female of the species like we may have done thousands of years ago. Instead it has become a verbal dance, where did you go to school, who do you work for and where do you live. Why don’t we just cut through all the bullshit and get to the bottom line, money and sex.

I love to watch as a woman blows some guy right out of the water. She has gone to a better school, has a better job and lives in a better neighborhood. Some of these guys better quit while they’re still on their feet. Why don’t we just get tee shirts made up with our net worth and projected annual income printed on them?It might make things a lot simpler for a lot of people. We could cut right through the boring conversation and get to the bottom line: sex. Looking around it seemed that there was going to be an awful lot of the bottom line for a lot of people that week, especially the male staff. Yeah, fraternization was allowed as long as it was discreet. How’s Joe Stockbroker going to compete with Joe Beach? Maybe back in the real world he’d win but not here on the home turf. Tan and blonde with an exotic job is pretty tough competition. Any of these NYC ladies could have found a stockbroker at home just about anytime they wanted. What they had here was a chance to fulfill a fantasy straight from a romance novel: sex on a wind swept beach in a faraway exotic land. That my friend is way better than any pick up line you can imagine.

All at once I was overwhelmed with joy. I had actually gone and done it. I set a goal for myself that to some was a pipe dream. I went on vacation and then went back to live and work. Work. Man what a horrible four-letter word. This was going to be easy as pie. Dive during the day, party at night and in the free time relax and enjoy myself with all that was available to me. I could water ski, wind surf, and learn the trapeze. Play golf and tennis, sail or just lie on the beach. Things were looking pretty damn good to me right about then.Man I missed this place. I was really glad to be back. I don’t think I would have traded this for anything else in the world right then.

The evening’s festivities were getting started, a little group line dancing commonly referred to as crazy signs, and then a show performed by the staff. The shows and the dancing were also a part of my duties. I remember on my last visit leaving the bar one night and stopping to watch some of the staff rehearse a dance number. They looked tired and no wonder, it was almost two-thirty in the morning. I told myself when I got the job that since I would be diving almost every day at seven-forty-five in the morning it might not be such a great idea to be doing shows and partying until the wee hours. Performing wasn’t mandatory but yet it was definitely implied.

A good night’s sleep is one of the many important things you need to dive. Drinking a lot of alcohol isn’t a real smart thing either. Besides being tired and having a hangover it increases your chances of getting DCS, decompression sickness.DCS is more commonly referred to as the bends.The only way to get rid of DCS is to sit in a decompression chamber. Without going into all the technical stuff I’ll just say it’s a pain in the ass. You could dive for less than an hour and get yourself bent. The end result would be you spending hours and hours in a chamber depending on the severity of the symptoms and the doctor’s opinion.Plus on the even darker side you could wind up with permanent effects from this such as paralysis. You get the picture; it’s not something to play around with. I was going to be a good boy and hit the sack before midnight and stay away from performing. The shows themselves didn’t kill you; it was the rehearsals that were always scheduled for after midnight. Hell it was bad enough I smoked and was a little out of shape, why push the limits.

Since I didn’t think I was diving the next day I ordered another beer. As I began to drink I noticed a dark-haired fellow with a mustache puffing away on a cigarette and staring at me. He approached me and asked if I was John, the new scuba instructor. I suppose that would be me unless you were expecting more than one? I replied.He introduced himself as Joe, the assistant chief of scuba and then he didn’t stop talking for the next five minutes. I don’t even think he stopped to breathe. He started going on about the job and all the related responsibilities. One thing after another and most of what he said didn’t make much sense to me. I guess he was trying to give me the total orientation right there at the bar. He seemed to be in the habit of taking something simple to say and turning it into a ten-minute conversation that was one sided. Sort of like asking someone what time it was and getting a reply that included how to build a clock.He ended the whole thing by threatening to give me something called shit duty if I screwed up at work and that I had to change my name to something else. When I asked him why and he said, We already have a few people named John here and it will make it easier for you to find yourself when checking the daily schedules. He also told me to go and introduce myself to Andy, chief of scuba, Alain, chief of sports and Malique, the chief of village. With that he said goodnight and walked off. Well we certainly did seem to have enough chiefs’ around here, I just hoped I wasn’t the only indian. First impressions mean a lot to me and I guessed that Joe was trying to move up the company ladder to a position of chief himself.

The club does not call their department heads managers but instead they have chiefs, chief of village, chief of department and chief of activity. The chief of village, or CDV was the general manager and in charge of everything. Scuba was an activity that was under the sports department. All departments and the activities under them are referred to as teams. It sounds confusing only because of the chiefs and teams thing. It really breaks down just like any other big company. I was tired from the trip and decided to hit the sack. I could find my way around in the morning to meet everyone else.

With half my stuff unpacked I made room on the bed and lay down. I was tired but couldn’t sleep. To finish unpacking wouldn’t take too long so what the hell. It was going on one a.m. and I was putting away the last of my stuff when the Californian rolled through the door.

Dude, how’s it going? he asked.

Not bad for starters. I said.Boomer turned out to be Corey. We talked for a while and got the ground rules for our co-existence out in the open. Like, whatever you do in your room is your business just keep it out of my room and let’s at least try to keep the bathroom relatively clean. If you’re going to party till you puke make damn sure you hit the toilet and not the floor around it. It was a simple start but a beginning nonetheless.

Corey had just popped in to change his shirt and go back out to party for a while. Seems being from California he didn’t handle humidity or mosquitoes too well. Judging from the pile on the floor Boomer really liked to change his shirt a lot. The only time I had seen that many white cotton Fruit of the Loom tee-shirts before was in Wal-Mart. Bugs and sweat are two things that are abundant in the summertime in Jersey at no extra charge, so I was used to it. He hit the road and I hit the sack.

I fell into a deep sleep, so deep I never heard Boomer return home.He must have had a pretty good buzz going that night because when his alarm went off in the morning he had absolutely no trouble finding the floor with his entire body. At least that’s what it sounded like. Hey dude, are you OK? I asked. The answer I got started off with a considerable amount of mumbling and ended with,

Yeah man, it’s all good.Boomer wasn’t much of a morning person. He had early duties to do and pushed his way into the morning sun with a loud gasp just slightly past seven-thirty. I knew the first boat out everyday was at eight, so I made myself presentable an ambled down to the dock with five minutes to spare.

I looked about at the organized chaos. People scrambling getting gear, searching their dive bags to make sure they brought everything and asking the same silly questions I’d learn to hate in the months to come. Will we see sharks? Where are we diving? I know the water feels chilly here but will it be warmer at the dive site?Those three plus a dozen more about me, where I was from and what I used to do would haunt me week after week for the rest of my stay.

I walked out on the dock and watched as the last of the divers swam out to board the boat. Joe was on the stern. He saw me looking at him and gave me the same look as when he said shit duty. He turned and made his way through the crowded boat trying to get everyone’s attention by yelling, Divers, divers. Six months may be a lot longer than I thought. I wandered back towards the office and inside I found an attractive Canadian girl named Sugar. How cute I thought, a lot of