One day I was working the counter at my friend’s scuba shop when a Latin couple came in. The guy was this kinda short, extremely ripped, and very macho type. Later I found out he was a Puerto Rican Golden Gloves boxer. He asked me about teaching him how to dive I gave him the price and a brief summary of the classes. When his lady fired off "Donch jou let my Poppies die". I said ”Whoa Hun I haven’t lost anybody yet”. At this, the guy gave her his very best “get back in the car Bitch” look. Well I signed him up and gave him the class schedule. Now one of the problem Athletes face when it comes to water is they have very little body fat and since fat floats they unfortunately sink like rock, unless they swim real fast. This guy thru years of near drowning had developed a kinda Mach 1 doggie style, not that he swam real fast or anything, it’s just that his arms and legs moved at the speed of sound as he sank to the bottom. Luckily for him in scuba diving you wear a inflatable vest which solves this problem. Well thru many attempts at drowning and flailing all the water out of the pool I managed to get this guy to the final class which was a 30 foot deep dive off a dive boat on a reef off Port Everglades. Well like I always do, I suited up first and got in the water so if the student has problems I'm right there. The guy did the diver leap perfectly, except he forgot to put some air in his vest first and preceded to join the anchor on the bottom. Now we were gonna go there anyway but not nearly as fast as he was going. I started down as fast as I could watching this guy panic, spitting out his air regulator and firing up the old mach 1 doggie style to no avail. Well I guess I shoulda swam down below him before up righting myself but I didn’t, cause when I did he already passed me a little bit and put me in this death grip bear hug around my legs with his head firmly buried in my crotch lol. I looked around and two fish were shaking their heads saying “there goes the neighborhood”. I peeled his head back from my crotch far enough to shove his air regulator back in his mouth and at the same time put some air in his vest. This little bastard was strong and took me awhile to break his death grip, but I guess he figured out he was still alive and let go. Now I was faced with another problem. If this guy had one more freak out left in him, he could possibly shoot to the surface like a titan missile. With all that compressed air in him, his lungs would pop like a party balloon. The only thing I could do at that point is catch him and punch him in the gut to let the air out of him. Remember this guy is a golden gloves and defending his title while drowning is too much to ask anybody. I opted to grab hold of his hand and drag him thru the rest of the dive. What the hell the fish already think we’re fags. He seemed to be doing good so three times I let go of his hand and three times he caught me and grabbed it back. At the end of the dive I pulled him away from his old lady and said ”I’m gonna pass you but don’t ever tell anybody what happened down there”. He said “no shit man”.
