Scuba in the Face of Adversity

About a year ago I started thinking about going to South Africa to study abroad. South Africa has some really amazing things to offer the brave traveler like wine tours, safari's, and the best BBQ's in the world. But there was a tourist attraction that excited me more then the rest. The Great White Shark.
I should probably preface this by saying that I never saw Jaws. From the age of 5 to 15 I was sure that I would become a marine biologist so that I could work with dolphins *cough* at sea world *cough*. For those of you who don't know, South Africa is the capital of the Great White, and you can cage dive commercially. While cage diving, you could just snorkel... but lets face it, scuba will give you a lot more immersion- which if you can't tell is my favorite type of learning.
So I signed up for Scuba in awe and anticipation of the amazing adventure it would be to learn the secrets of the almost mystical sport.
Those 7 weeks of Thursday evening classes from 6:30 to 9:30 PM were pretty tough. It was cold and we would fiddle around in a dirty and crowed pool for two hours. Aside from the revolting reality which is finding out what is at the bottom of an indoor pool, the class was not unbearable. I took scuba with one of my friends who is known for her blatant assertions and good humor. We always did our best to find the humor in swimming with 70 pounds of added weight on our person and making sure not to get too overwhelmed by the possible side effects of scuba diving... Like lung over expansion, the bends, or arterial gas embolisms. Our instructors were very patient and helpful, but we always had problems with the gear or the process of SCUBA. Week after week we would try to figure out why the damn fins didn't fit on Regina's foot or why my Buoyancy Control *the vest that inflates* was too big. It did not help that when it came time to try out dry-suits, Regina and I discovered that the 'perfect' dry-suit cuts of the circulation to your head and hands by way of nifty elastic bands. But we did not fret, because the practical exam, known as the open water dives, were apparently very fun.
These open water dives were supposed to take place in a picturesque lake out in the country. We had been warned that the lake had a reputation for being slightly chilly, but that it would not be an issue due to the magnificent dry suits that the scuba company would provide for us during the open water exam.
When the weekend came for this two-day adventure we were excited about going into the lake and becoming officially certified for life. We had called and double and triple checked that we had the right times and that they had our suit size. Then everything went to hell.
We started by putting the wrong address into the GPS, and drove around for two hours trying to find the lake, then freaking out because we thought they would make us reschedule it. The good news is that they did not even realize we were late... The bad news is that they acted like we had ALL the time in the world. Our instructor was a ripe 80 years old and took his time explaining to us that today we would be practicing the basic skills that we had all learned in class, but that it would be in two groups.
When I went to get my dry-suit, the man in charge said that they did not have my size suit, and he gave me a garment four sizes too small for me. I spent 30 minutes trying to get my calves to fit into the damn suit, and then had to enlist three people to try and help me shimmy my bulky hips into the suit. But it would not budge past my thighs, so the man looked me up and down, and reluctantly gave me a larger size.
This larger size did fit over my calves, but my hips still would not squeeze in.
By this time my frustration was overwhelming my other emotions... I wanted to sit in a corner and cry. They finally gave my the suit that I had used in the pool. The catch was that someone had just worn it and it was rather wet. Regina described the entire situation as "It was like they were surprised we were there." I am not the type to bitch about bad service. Everyone had off days on the job and it is especially hard to work training people. But when you pay as much as the company made us pay, and then they are so badly coordinated that there is hardly acknowledgment of your presence, it is so frustrating.
But everything was alright because we got our suits right? Wrong. We got out to the water and they made us put our gear on before we got into the water... and not just before, 30 minutes before. So we are standing there, immobilized by constricting dry suits and 70 odd pounds of gear. As I looked forward (as turning your head is not possible once zipped into the dry-suit) I saw our instructor just beginning to get his gear on.
Finally the moment came: getting in the water. Excitement blasted away the disappointment of the past few hours as I imagined being able to finally dive in an open area. But the excitement did not last long. Regina had been having problems getting her flippers on, but the co-instructor had told her that is was not a problem. After much pushing and shoving on my part, the flippers still would not go on. It was like the submarine version of Cinderella, but instead of a prince, we had a grouchy middle age man who had no interest in putting on the damn flippers. He went by us several times, looked down and said "that doesn't look good." Then walked away without helping. His only job was to help make our dive possible... not even enjoyable! All he had to do was make sure we were functional enough to dive, and he didn't even do that.
The primary instructor came over and told Regina that she would have to come back on another weekend- but that was unacceptable. Don't they know that we have lives! We have work! Don't they know how expensive it is to drive to bumble-fuck no-where! In a very brave and Regine-like manner (as I normally cower at the idea of challenging people) Regine explained that she was doing that damn dive and getting that damn certificate if they had to drag her out to the middle of the damn lake and breathe for her. So they did.
They literally dragged her out to the middle of the lake, sunk her to the bottom, left her there for a while, then dragged her back up. It was like they didn't know that you are supposed to ascend and descend slowly, except it was their company that taught us that.
My dive was a little better. At least I got to swim out to the middle of the lake. We did a quick tour of a small portion of the lake, and then went back to the shore. Now would be a good time to explain that they had over-booked saturday, so they had to take us out in two groups. But instead of taking one group out, doing a tour of the lake, doing skill, then bringing the second group in, they did the following:
1. Put group one in the water
2. Put group two in the water
3. Take group one through the lake
4. Leave group one at the shoreline in the 40 degree water while it snowed to take out group two
5. Repeat step 4 but put group two at the shoreline and take group one into the deep again.
6. Repeat step 4.
7. Let us all continue to freeze our toes off as our suits leaked and it snowed.
did I mention #7? seriously. They left us in the water when then sensible thing to do would have been to put one group in the water- do the required divers- let them leave, and then take out group two. It's like they wanted us to get hypothermia so we could know what it felt like. Well, mission accomplished. It's been a day and my toes are still slightly tingly.
There was more after that- but it was mostly waiting for grampa scuba to sign our logs. At least we were in a dry building.
Anyway, talking about the experience has tired me out. If you had any sense you just read the opening paragraph then these final ones. The three sentence version of my scuba open water dive goes something like this. Today I took my part one of my scuba final to achieve my long-term goal of diving with great whites. The instructors did not care and left us in hypothermia conditions because they weren't paying attention to how many people had been signed up for the day. We all had a miserable time, and only about half the people came back the second day.

On the bright side, we went back on Sunday, it went a lot quicker, and I am now scuba certified. Time to sleep and dream about sharks... Oh shit, I have a 9 AM class that I need to read for... I guess I'll just day-dream of sharks tomorrow.