My newest project/ hobby/ general time consumer (I should rather spend my time studying but whatever): snorkeling. This course I am taking is supposed to be a beginners’ course and later graduates to diving. Now, I had never snorkeled before. Please note that when I say never, I mean never ever.
So here I was, not knowing what kind of equipment to buy that would effectively prevent me from drowning during my first hands on experience in the nicely shallow pool of the local gym.
What do you do when you don’t know what to buy? You get yourself professional advice!
First I tried one of the really big sporting goods stores. As it turned out they did have neither my seize fins nor many options to chose from. In addition to that I did not get the feeling that the saleswoman even knew what it was she was trying to sell me. Come on, I didn’t need her for that! I managed not understanding anything fine on my own, thank you very much! What I needed her to do was hand me the right set of fins! Preferably the ones! Perfect fit, perfect rigidity, perfect length. I would not even have asked her to wrap them in a pretty package. I would have carried them home just like that (the better to show them off).Of course I wouldn’t have minded if she had thrown in a breeze of talent as well. I didn’t bother asking, however. After all she couldn’t even sell me fins.
So the search went on. Next up on my list was a ‘professional’ diving store. Now you would believe that the people working there, especially the shop owner (which I guess the guy was since the shop is a very, very small) would know what I was looking for. Sadly the real world has a very crude way of disappointing me sometimes, because in truth it went something like this:
Me: Hi, I’m searching for fins.
Owner: Hmmm.
Me: ?...... For snorkeling and later for diving.
He continued looking at me, not saying a word and I was like: O-kay….
Let’s face it, I should probably have left right then. But hey! Cut me some slack. At that point I was desperate. I needed those fins in one day flat and the choice of diving stores in this area is seriously limited. Waikiki beach this is not!
Fighting desperately for his attention (Hello-ho! Customer anyone!?) I tried to get him to sell me those fins I was so urgently in need of. I explained to him that I am doing a snorkeling course which later offers us to get our diving license and that I was totally clueless as to what to pay attention to when chosing fins.
So he: Are you doing a diving course? (Why, thank you for listening to me so far.)
Me: Well (no)…. First we do snorkeling and later, if we want to we are offered the possibility to get a diving license.
Owner: Will you dive outdoors?
Me: We will start diving in the swimming pool fist and only switch to the lake sometime in May or June next year. BUT we do snorkeling first. So what kind of fins would I buy in this case?
Owner: You want strapped ones then. And you need sock liners, too.
Thinking: at least we are getting somewhere now, I went on: Why not the full foot ones?
Owner: The strapped ones will be better secured when you dive in cold water.
Me: We will be in the pool for at least another 9 months…
Owner: Oh you can use them there too.
Me: Hm, okay. If you say that those are better…If they don’t work out for me can I return them?
Better safe than sorry right?
Owner: If you really don’t get along with them.
He didn’t sound too happy that I had pinned him on that. Anyways, I bought both fins and sock liners in good faith, unimaginably glad that I was finally set up for my first snorkeling lesson. Ecstatic really, that I had a ‘real’ pair of fins.
Man, I thought I had the coolest, most awesome fins in the whole freaking pool! Or at least close.
I WAS SO VERY PROUD.
Yeah. Right. Pride comes before fall…..or in my case: drowning.
Anyways, there I was at the swimming pool for the first time with my new fins (goggles and glasses I had borrowed from my future brother-in-law) all excited.
Let’s cut to the chase and see what went wrong:
1: my goggles fogged over within two minutes…. swimming nearly blind is no fun
2. I never managed to get rid of all the water in my snorkel causing me to swallow half the water in the pool by the time we were finished (It was the snorkels fault! Believe me! I tried with my friends and it was just fine! Future-brother-in-law, please don’t be mad now but your snorkel is crap!)
3. those fins I bought…let’s just say the three of us did not get along. At all. When I didn’t lose them their ascending force was so strong I hardly managed to push them beneath the water! lower body floating, upper body sinking? … not a very good combination.
So much for my first experience in snorkeling. Talk about embarrassing!
At least that guy at the store said I could return the damn fins!
I think this goes a long way to show that just because you know a lot about diving, which I am sure the guy did, does not automatically mean that you will make a good salesperson. Sorry Mr. Shop Owner! I’m sure you are a good diver but your ability as a salesman sucks!
I’d hate to think of my experience as a total disaster however.
The bright side: at least there were no sharks in the pool!
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