About bags into bags and laser waxing!

Looking back to my " how did I use to travel".

A few days ago, I was sitting on the beach with Celia. Celia just finished her Dive Master course. She is in love with the ocean, a surfer and now a traveller.
She left home to go to Australia about a year ago now, and she is just in the middle of this time in life where there is no way back: your itchy feet are forever.

So we were chatting, Celia is 20, OMG, 14 years younger than me... but the same age, I started my life around "the oceans".

Travelling is such an adventure.
You think you can just pack a small bag, have your passport and a credit card... and off you go: but NO!

You need to pack in a clever way and never get attached to anything (say the one that adopted a Dog and a Cat in one of her trips).

So little tips about my little experience:

1- Pack bags into bags: tropical countries = Torrential rain. When you aren't ready, after 1 week, all your clothes are good for the rubbish.
Get yourself some waterproof bags from any sport shop and pack bags inside bags.

2- REPLACE. Never buy anything new, if you don't really need it. You get a t-shirt, the old one goes to the rubbish. Same with shorts, bikinis, flip flops etc...

3- Message for girls: Stop using TAMPAX! They are expensive, anti ecological, and very hard to find in many countries: FLEUR CUP is the answer!trust me in this one!

4- Message for girls Number 2: laser waxing. I know I know, it can be very expensive, but in countries like Thailand, Indonesia or even Singapore: It's CHEAP!! it's the happiness for dive instructors!

5- Go as digital as you can!

6- Scan Scan Scan and pack pack pack everything in a hard drive

7- Never loose your passport, and if you do, make sure you had everything scanned and safe in an ICloud, to can open it from any device... not only from one... in case you loose it too!

8-  Remember that post cards are cool. Send post cards and avoid opening your laptop instead of watching a sunset. And guess what... the beloved ones really get excited to get a letter that is not from the phone company.

9- Call from Skype

10- Teddy bear is allowed... because is NOT useless! even more if you travel alone and you need a big hug!

And that's the few little things I learned, since I'm travelling!
I try to so my best, but still, one bag for scuba gear, one bag for clothes and shit, my "little" cabin bag pack and my big "teddy bear" turtle... for sure I could do better than that, but at the end of the day... I'm a girl as well...

So Celia, this is for you!

I hope you had a fantastic trip back to your waves!
I see you soon!

                              Celia, Caro and I, girls travellers talk

The adventure... begins... every time (and you get to kiss the guys from the PADI videos ;-)

I guess this adventure started here, many years ago...

Ibiza, MY isla bonita.

I saw on the internet that a dive centre was looking for an Instructor... and I applied.

I arrive to the port of Ibiza and I met NICK, the man that changed my life and mostly the first man that told me, YOU CAN do it, and YOU WILL.

Sorry about the Pic Nick, but this is the one I have in my phone:

Nick is the smily Australian! He took me to the ISLAND and took me back every time!

He was there for me when I started Staffing IDCs and always got all his support. 
So for that and all the rest  NICK, THANK YOU!

From there to Thailand... between Phiphi and Koh Lanta.
Thank you RICH for taking me under your wing. Make me grow as a professional, and make me learn so much throughout all the IDCs that I was there with you.
As well to tell me every time, you will be good! you made me so good!

Then of course Kontiki Dive Centre, Specially PETER.
Thank you to take me as the first Course Director at KONTIKI Koh Lanta. To give me the confidence to run the IDCs the way I love. To always be there (you and ALL the company) to help me with everything. Mostly: Thank you for trusting me.... because I can tell you, I was feeling like a new Instructor fresh from his IE ;-)

Of course There is as well, all the time preparing my CDTC Dossier, staffing and working, drinking coffee and stressing, writing and studying...

For all the ones that suffered me while this was happening: if you are on Bali tomorrow, I PAY COFFEES! (Rich, you are around!)

After a crazy year of preparation that actually have been 14 years of diving and teaching and dreaming for this moment, I woke up at 6 o'clock, check my email and that was it:

Congratulations!

The PADI Course Director Training Course Selection Committee has approved your application for the 2013 Course Director Training Course held on 02-10 July in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Attached to this email you will find a number of very important documents. Please start by reading the acceptance letter containing the necessary information to prepare for this unique experience. Make sure to fill out and send back all the attached forms by the 31st of May.

To make sure that you received this email and all its attachments, please reply to confirm receipt.

On behalf of the PADI Course Director Training Course Selection Committee, congratulations on your achievement and I am looking forward to meeting you soon.

Sincerely,

Alan

So that was that!

What I was not ready for,was for meeting such amazing people and incredible mentors. My journey was just starting... again!

And is not to be funny, but you get to kiss the guys from the PADI videos ;-)

The incredible thing about all this story, is really how much I enjoyed every minute of it, and even better, how much I enjoy myself right now teaching people how to teach people to blow bubbles underwater!

I had a journey, 14 years of journey, before reaching THE EMAIL moment!

I don't regret any of this time, any of the travel, teaching, diving, carrying my bags and books around the world etc...

I will do it all over again!

EVERY DAY!

Best quotes. .. good memories. ..

I probably have many of them as well,  you can ask my lovely Matilda that spent her IDC writing them down. ..

Life is full of things that come out and we surely need to write them down. .. because even in a stressful situation. .. They are hilarious. ..

When I was teaching one of my open water student in Menorca.  I was explaining the compass skill,  and her face went blank, she looked at me and asked:
" so if I follow my bubbles. .. I won't find the boat back? "

What can you answer to that?

Or not so long ago,  we arrived to the IE.  One of my dear  student had the CESA.  The tide was so low that the sea looked super far away.
It was 7h30 am,  not enough coffee,  nerves only nerves for them but for me too.
I grabbed his arm and said,  please,  tide is low check the depth,  and I carry on towards the coffee shop.  But he stopped.
So I came back and asked him,  what is wrong?  Did you forget something.
And he said: no, but is the tide not only affect the surface?

What can you do?  I just started laughing ( nervous laugh. .. They are my kids,  remember? )  and walked. .. then he came running and said: oh my god,  I need coffee!  Yes you do!

We all have this thing. .. This fantastic moment of saying something totally surrealistic.
This moments make my day,  my life. .. and for sure my challenge!

When you decide to become a teacher,  any teacher,  you look at standarise systems.  And you soon realise, that no one is standard.
So you play with your tools to make your best music!

I love it!

Strange questions that make me think,  smile,  put my face of: seriously? ?????

Because teachers,  we are not standard either.  Because we get lost,  we can forget and we learn everyday.
We learn from all of you.
We talk and talk. .. but listen and listen to.
And is in the listening moment:
That we really become your teacher!

So thank you guys to make us better everyday!

Travel the world, meet people. ..

I left the first time 14 years ago. I packed my bags,  with too many kilos and left.
My bags became my life,  or so I thought. ... One: diving gear and PADI materials (forget about the digital revolution 14 years ago) and in the other bag: far too many clothes to be spending the rest of my life in bikini and barefoot.

And I left.  I remember the excitement at the airport and the tears (my mum still cry every time I leave).

I was creating my itchy feet,  without even knowing it yet. ..

I look back. 
My bags haven't been my life. .. but the people I met on the way.  In each part of my journey.

From Dominican Republic to Thailand,  passing through Bahamas,  St Martin, Maldives,  Ibiza, Bali. ..

Each place. .. is a reminder of someone/someones.

Sometimes I sit at the first day of the IDC,  look at my candidates and think to myself:
Objectif: by the end of this course you will be able to accept everyone exactly the way he is and become friends for life!

This never ends.

I have met along the way,  friends for life.  People for whom I would move mountains to go and see.

Friends for life.

What an amazing job we have.
Every day is a surprise,  every moment is unique. And every trip a new beginning to fulfill our experiences.

Travel the world,  meet people,  make friends forever. ..

Falling in love, again and again...

There is one place in the world, where I manage to fall in love all over again: Tulamben, Bali.

Of course I haven’t seen all the places in the world, but I’m lucky enough to have been diving in some amazing dive spots.

Tulamben for me is just magical.

There is an EVERYTHING about it that just…

On the Est of Bali, just arriving to Tulamben is breath taking. Amazing rice fields through the mountains, to end up on the squirts of the Agung, amazing deep blue ocean, with volcanic black rolling stones…

The USAT Liberty wreck, was a “victim” from the second world war. At the time, ended up on the beach (they say many houses are built with pieces of wreck), but on 1968, the powerful volcano Agung, pushed the boat back to the sea, leaving there for us, the most amazing wreck.

Any time of the day is good. But in my eyes, the best time, is 6am.

Sun is rising, and the sea is calm, quiet, waking up, like you.

You walk in from the stony beach, like you don’t want to make any noise.

As soon as your head is down, that’s it.

This multicolour corals, on black sand, are alive!

You descend slowly, checking out all the “mini oasis” in the middle of black dunes, shrimps, nudibranches (all the colours, all the shapes), crabs…

The water is 30 degrees and you know that looking at each thing, you could be there forever… but you carry on, and in front of you: the big stern of  the USAT Liberty.

The light still low, so the wreck is a ghost…

In front of us, a magnificient school of bump head parrot fish are leaving the wreck. You want to join the group and swim along with them all the way. Slow and relax… they just go for the day.

Swimming left shoulder, you descent to the deepest area of the wreck, 28m, but if you escape for a little on the sand, the sea fans hide some pigmy sea horses, and in the blue, giant trivalies swim on top of your head.

Staying close to the wreck, you realise very fast that he has become, with the years, a living reef.

After turning all around, I’m shallower, garden eels on my right on the sand, and anemones and corals dress the hull and pieces of the old ship.

It’s time to come out, and I don’t want to.

Swimming along the sand in 5m, I’m just discovering more and more, and there, in front of us, 3 black tips enjoy a morning swim.

Coming to the surface, the sun start to heat up the atmosphere. In front of us the Agung is showing his head between the morning clouds…

It’s just time for coffee.

I♡my mentors

MENTOR.

Such an amazing word actually.

A word full of meaning.

Most of the time a meaning that comes from the heart and not from the pure definition.

When I teach IDCs, there is this big question that appears on the screen:

What is a Mentor?

The definition from the dictionary is:

1.     a wise and trusted counsellor or teacher

2.     an influential senior sponsor or supporter

But what comes out from my students mouth is way more intense:

Someone that changes your life

Someone that knows how to pass there passion

Somebody that loves teaching

Anyone that spend all day with there students…

If I think about my mentors, I have this very special place for them.

There is my first dive Instructor: Bea. For her, and forever, I wear pink fins! When I turned 18, my parents asked me what do you want for your birthday? And with no hesitation, I said PINK fins, like Bea.

There is of course my Course Director, to take me under there wings, when I was the youngest of my course… an I felt sometimes… so small…

There is Rich (I always need Rich in my pocket ;-). That trusted me to Staff his IDCs, believed in me till the last minute and encourage me to present my CDTC dossier everyday.

It was the first phone call I made all the way from Spain to Thailand, to say I was IN and mostly to say THANK YOU.

And then finally, all the PADI staff that took us through the CDTC. Made me laugh and help me become who I am today.

This are the MENTORS, the people that stay forever in your heart… way more than in your head.

This people that have a little voice, that you can still hear even when they are far away.

Thank you all.

I was lucky. .. to become who I am

The other day,  I was asked to write about me.  To share who I was. 

If you have tried it before,  there is nothing more difficult than talk about who you are. 

At the begining you just think. .. mm mm. ... I'm Isa,  and then what? 

And in a late moment of inspiration (Spanish time,  always) I started thinking that I was a lucky girl.  And this is what came out:

" I was lucky,  I was one of this kind of students,  that doing no much,  always have very good marks. 
I was an unconditional dreamer.  I could see myself in every country we talked about in geography,  I could travel thusands of years and believe in mythology and I could play for hours with any experiment from physic class. 
I was lucky as well that my family grow up in a little fisherman house right on the sand.  I spent all my long 3 months summer holidays there. Barefoot. Salty.  With my mask and my fins always with me. 
I was the luckiest when my dad took me diving for the first time. 
I was 9. I was there.  Exactly where I wanted to be.

A few years later,  already doing my advanced,  I took the biggest decision of my life.  I that time,  I didn't know. .. but somewhere in my heart. .. It was tattooed. 
I went for this night dive.  It was so dark and moreyeels were out hunting, octopus saying hello,  and my world just flipted. I came out with the biguest smile,  looked at my dad and said:
This is what I want to do when I grow up.
I was 14 years old,  a good student and a swimmer. .. One of this swimmers that will never achieve really anything because competition was not my thing.  

When I turned 16,  university and decision times. .. what to study. .. I just wanted to be a dive instructor,  all my saving from teaching kids how to swim,  were for that. .. For the summer,  the diving,  all of it. 
So I study to become a sport teacher.  Half way through my second year I said to my dad:
I wish I had something special,  you know,  like this people that can sing,  draw or play an instrument. ..
and my dad told me,  you do: you have passion,  patience and you can teach. 
Wuauuuuu dad's are actually always right! 
The summer of my nearly 18th,  I did my dive master (a little of standard breaking. .. but at the time I didn't know; -))
I cycle 10km every morning to the dive centre and worked,  like probably I've never worked again for 10 hours,  to ride my bike back home and fall happily asleep till the next day.  3 month, no stop. 
At the end of the summer I got certify,  on my birthday. 
2 years later,  after working as a DM in summer and finishing my degree,  I did my instructor course. 
When I finished the exam,  my examiner asked me:
And now,  how do you going to use your instructor card.
my answer was clear: I'm going to use it like a passport and walk the word barefoot ;-)
And so I did. 
For 14 years. 
In amazing places,  amazing sea's and with incredible people. 
So if you ask me about who I am,  what I do. ..
I am what I do.  And I love it! "