Thank you to Cayman Brac for the most amazing Dive Pirates trip yet!

Jul., 8 2009 by: Laura  |  Category: Experiences

By Barbara Thompson

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I could not wait until June 20th for our Dive Pirates trip to Cayman Brac.  Thinking about the state of the resort and the need to constantly transport people from the nearby Alexander hotel and the not so near Breakers condos, I blurted out, “I really can’t wait for June 27th!”  Well, I was very wrong.

This trip has reinforced the following for me:
Planning leads to success
Working as a team pulling in the same direction overcomes any obstacle
Looking outside of yourself to help others is nothing but fun

The planning was accomplished by non-stop communication between me, VP Sophie Wimberley, the resort owner, Mary Brandes, and the resort manager, Trudy Viers.  I think after 6 months of daily phone calls, we literally thought of everything.  We actually worried about things that never happened (massive complaints, people getting lost, weather) and solved the others before they happened (showers, shuttle times, food service, pickup at airport, dive gear storage).  All of these things were non-events because of over-planning and I thank everyone for the extra effort.  Trudy and her staff are amazing, by the way.

The next ingredient for success was pulling the same direction.  Dive Pirates, Brac Reef Beach Resort, and Reef Divers II all had the same goal – Good Service, Safe Diving, Maximum Fun.  Because we all wanted the same thing, we pooled our resources and we got “there”.  We actually passed “there” and ended up “way out there”.  Review our pictures at http://divepiratesevents.shutterfly.com/714 and count the smiles.   One of the reasons is the excellent dive staff of Mick Maher – several of whom came back just for the week to dive with us.  Thank you Brett, Ian, Rob, Cary, Barb, BJ and Dottie.

Our true success comes from looking outside of ourselves to help others.  I am troubled by the narcissistic society that has become our world.  Too many of us are self-absorbed and quite miserable people.  This week proves that when we spend all of our time and for some, a lot of their own money, to focus on others, the return on investment is true joy for everyone.  Those of us diving with an adaptive buddy actually spend the week “diving for someone else”.  For a week out of our diving lives, we give up cameras and poking around the reefs and plummeting over the walls to show a disabled person another world and take their mind off of their particular disability and life experience.

I also learned from the disabled how to accept how life has turns we don’t expect, but we are at our best when we keep looking and moving forward.  Alex Nicholl had his lower leg blown off while kicking in doors in Fallujah.  He spent the week dragging his instructor on 50 acre dives and hip hop rapping at the bar with equal enthusiasm.  He even helped lift wheel chair folks like Stanley Vigil on and off of the dive boat.  Stanley is now a paraplegic after a freak surfing incident, but he is always smiling and having fun and convinced Stacey Smith and Carolyn VanDeWiele into applying sun screen lotion on him between dives.  Jake Hipps is a Vietnam Vet that was shot and paralyzed after his return.  He works at the VA in Buffalo and plays all kinds of sports; now he plays Scuba.

Traci Bryan and Alan Bailey are two quads with some similar histories – both were injured in car accidents and both have very supportive families that trained with them and joined us on the trip.  Traci talked her boyfriend, Domonic Corradin, a paraplegic, into diving and he joined her and the family Bryan on the trip.  He was plugged into the whole pirate thing so well that he won the spirit award on his pirate (dive) boat.  Alan was joined by his wife and two girls and he does like being fussed over.  He looks very Ethel Merman in his swim cap – be sure to look at the pictures – and maybe enjoys it too much.  

I was very impressed with the devotion of Rafe Flores to his wife, Juana, who was a diver before her accident and now re-learned as a quad.  They look great together above and below the water.  Also looking good were Becca Lockhart and her dad, Lee.  Becca was born in the former Soviet Union with hands and feet not quite formed.  Lee adopted her and she grew up in St Petersburg, Florida and is a 100% fun-loving high school graduate.  She promised to go back and get all her friends to go diving with her – she doesn’t let life hold her back.

Last year we trained Kelly Knight from Corpus Christi, and so she convinced her friend and school teacher who lost a leg in a car accident, Bonnie Brawner, to try Scuba and she did and then she joined our trip.  Bonnie is very outgoing and a bronze medal holder in wheelchair volleyball (Whoa) Another amputee on the trip was Albert Garcia from San Antonio.  Albert took to diving immediately and has plans to keep on diving.  He lost his arm in a motorcycle accident, but that has not stopped him – he now has a 3 wheeler instead of a 2 wheeler.

Our last 2 recipients were in the Army in Iraq.  Latseen Benson is a native Alaskan and was hurt on patrol from an explosion that took parts of both legs.  He is great in the water with his arms and one swim leg.  I do have to apologize for blowing through his air on my supposed “compass run” to find a lionfish.  We did find it eventually, but not by the compass or the shortest route.  (Where was Alex when we needed him?) Major Dan Gade, US Army, is still active and working on his PhD so that he can teach at West Point.  I trained him and his wife, Wendy, 3 years ago, but a surgery, a stint at the White House, and the birth of twin boys slowed him down a bit.  We were glad they finally came.  His highlight was night diving, because it reminded him of jumping out of planes at night as a Ranger.  Note to Dan, you can get back in the boat; the plane? Not so easy.

A gratifying element to each of our trips is the return of past recipients.  We encourage diving as a lifestyle change to our recipients and many of them accept that challenge and come back for more.  We call these people our “repeat offenders”.  Nathan Gonzalez and Eric Alva were this year’s repeat offenders.  Nathan returned with his father, Joe and brought along his brothers Danny and Bobby as new students and adaptive buddies for him.  Not satisfied to share the reef with his brothers, Nathan felt compelled to run them through harassment drills during their training dives.  Nathan IS a dive pirate.  Eric returned for his 3rd trip.  He was in our first “class” of dive pirate recipients in 2005 and dives whenever his schedule allows.  Eric is a busy motivational speaker, so we are very honored that he makes the time to dive with us and make mischief.

My final thought is about Cayman Brac itself.  Last November, it got “Paloma’ed” and it has not fully recovered.  We were the first and probably only group for months to visit the island because of lack of completed construction.  By carrying on with our trip even though we had logistics of multiple hotels and dining alfresco regardless of weather, we injected some needed life and purpose to the Brackers.  Thanks for having us and being so good to us.  Dan Gade pointed it out to me, “The Brac is (temporarily) disabled, just like me, but it keeps on going and doesn’t worry about what it can’t do.  They have done everything they can this week with what they have and we appreciate it”.    Well, look out Cayman Brac, we will return.

         

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