Did You Make It?!?!

You see this pier right here? I have a fun story about this pier…. Hold on….

So in May, I’ve mentioned in passing a few times, we went to Cozumel, Mexico. When you board a dive boat, right there under that roof is usually where people enter the dive boat they are going out on.. that and a little bit to this side even. You know, those big pillars are to tie boats off to to keep them at the dock.

I’m not sure exactly how deep it is right there at the end of the peer, but it’s deep enough that dive boats can get in easily. I’ve heard around 20 feet… I now my friend Grady accidentally had his gear dropped off a boat and they had to free dive down to get it.

Okay, so now that you have a little back ground history…. Let’s proceed with today’s story.

The last night we were in Cozumel, around dinner time I ran out to get sunset pictures (the above photo is from the first night….). There were 3 people, appeared to be a mother and 2 kids possibly. The girl I assume was daughter was probably early 20’s and the guy I assume to be son was late teens. So guesstimate mom’s age by those numbers… if she was near 20 when she had said daughter, we’re looking at least at age 40.

They were getting ready to go out and do a night dive. They didn’t seem real confident in their diving abilities based off their conversations of, how do I put this on, where does this go, did I set this up correctly, etc. Hey, as a new diver I was there too. It happens to everyone until you get some dives in under your belt.

Now, those things on your feet, they’re called fins, not flipper. In our group if you call them flipper’s someone starts singing “Flipper, Flipper, Faster than Lightning”… you know the theme song from the show Flipper form the 70’s…. <crickets>

You don’t walk in fins. You walk to where you’re going, right before you get in the water you place your fins on, then you’re ready to go. Or if you get in the water, say at the lake from the shore, you get in the water until the water helps support you through air in your BC, then you put your fins on. Let’s just say Fins are not easy to walk in and you’ll likely fall if you try. It’s a balance, coordination, un-grace thing.

So the boy decides he wants to go to the end of the dock and do a giant stride entry. Mom isn’t sure the water is deep enough to do that. At this point, I hear the conversation and I know the answer but I didn’t totally want to say anything either. So I continued to listen.

The boy proceeds to put his fins on and try and walk down the dock in them, all while mom is saying that she doesn’t think it’s deep enough for him to do a giant stride entry. Now I have my camera in hand remember because I went to take sunset pictures, but I could have always taken pictures of him crashing face first too. I mean….. Luckily after one attempted step, he realized he couldn’t walk in the fins and took them off.

Meanwhile, mom and daughter are still trying to put together dive gear and discussing if they have it set up correctly, etc. I kept having to bite my tongue to answer them, not because I was trying to be a know-it-all, but just trying to be helpful.

Okay, so son walks to the end of the peer, puts fins on, does a correct giant stride entry, surfaces, puts air in his BC, and then swims back to where mom and sister are entering the water via latter. All looked correct. He gets a gold star for the day. Then I kid you not, Mom looks at him and says, “Did you make it?”

Here is where I about lost it people, because if he didn’t make it, I’m not sure he would have been swimming back to mom and sister. I had to hide my laughter and quickly get out of the area so I could giggle. It just struck a funny bone in me and I couldn’t help myself.

Now that I’m done being childish about it… Have you ever had any moments like that? Please share, I need a good laugh! Best medicine is a laugh a day (or 2 or 3 or 12).