_{"This story is more than 15 years old, mind you, so please don't judge it too harshly. It all started with the fact that in Egypt, you could make a translator's salary by learning how to dive and calmly becoming an instructor (PADI.com).}

_{Egypt boasts the most beautiful underwater fauna. However, this story is not about the paradise spots of the Red Sea; it's about paradise for a certified diver - a translator. $200 = 4 dives with guidance. Do the math.}

There were stories where a trip to Egypt cost 20,000 Russian rubles. But you could earn ten times more living in the sea while your luggage stayed at the hotel.

To cover the equipment rental and certification training, dive boats occasionally take tourists on board. The program is standard: reach the island, dive a couple of times, have lunch, dive again, and end the day with a sunset photo with a sunburned nose.

To get to the main story, let's start with the introduction about my duties. I was one of those who earned through translations and diplomacy, sometimes both. On ordinary tourist boats, people usually dive for the first time (their first ten dives). These are typically people with money or those who take loans for trips. They can be a handful. Diplomacy and translation skills are required to convey the distorted meaning of stars on vacation (in English, French, and creative Russian). Professional divers don't take on such clients. They fly too high.

Dive companies usually hired me for "star" clients (I had the shortest instructor path, only 60 registered dives). Dives with tourists don't count towards certification level advancement.

The variety of arrogance I encountered back then! Diplomacy skill certification was god-level. I even formulated the resistance formula:

(Ambitions + alcohol) 🏋🏼)* "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM" = defensive braking reactions

First-time divers are accompanied by a more experienced diver as a buddy. The task: put on the wetsuit, dive, breathe, swim by the corals, and look at the fish (often meaning taking a "I'M A MERMAID" photo with loose hair for social media, in short). No one really pays much attention to the fish. Diving is just a checkmark on their bucket list, often not even their own desires."

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