A day filled with hard skills and soft skills.

The day started off with two amazing dives with my Advanced Open Water students at Mountain Point. I was proud to see how far my students have come and how they are transitioning from being dependent on others for their safety to being more responsible and confident about their abilities. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them dive their dive plan and not intermingling with their experience. As I weightlessly floated around minding my own business a mantis shrimp was kind enough to show itself and aggressively thumped its fist-like appendages in a manner that I could only compare to what I imagine a petite French chef with a slick diminutive moustache at a five-star restaurant would look like if someone tampered with his soup. The rest of the day was to my appreciation relatively relaxed and I had time to catch up with some paper work (yes, they exist even in the Caribbean). At this point of our three-week long adventure the impressive radiance caused by the novelty of an extraordinary nature of a program like this starts to fade, and the daily lives of our students slowly resume to lull in a more familiar manner. In the past couple of days we (the staff) have started to feel that our students slowly slip back into their roles that they would take at home. The next couple of days will set the tone for the rest of the trip in regard to whether the shipmates will step up to the challenge or lay the burden of responsibility onto someone else. I do not enjoy the role of being the almighty leader, which might be the result if I push the shipmates too much into situations that require responsibility. Every interaction I have with each and every one of my students is critical for their future. I can make or break them. It is my hope and ambition to facilitate their transition into beings that believe in their own values and capabilities so that they can succeed in whatever they chose to devote their energy and passion into. As I am writing this, my shipmates are participating what we call a lifeworks forum. It is an open discussion lead by the group where values and life experiences are in the focus. For many of these kids it is the first time in their life they can share thoughts and feelings about things they never previously have in an accepting and respectful environment. Nothing is wrong, nothing is right. It is such an awe-inspiring experience to see how a group comes together over time if given the right tools, and how these small experiences really can change people to the better.

#BVIs