Stan Waterman Week

During the first week of our stay, it was Stan Waterman week!

What a NICE MAN! The way I figure it is, I wasn't blessed with meeting Jacques Cousteau, but I got to dive with Stan Waterman. More importantly, I got to talk to and listen to him. Stan is a pleasure to be around. He is charming and excited about the world around him. At 7 in the morning when the rest of us were clinging to our coffee cups, Stan was standing next to me in the breakfast buffet line exclaiming the virtues and features of the conveyer-style toaster oven.

Stan was also impressed with Kati's and my magaritas which he marvelled over and mistakenly thought were daquiris. Fortunately Kati and I were able to pose with him for a photograph after he signed our log books.

Coco View requires each diver to do an orientation and check-out dive. The orientation consists of 45 minutes of talking about the resort, dive setup, docks, boats, gear, etc. The check-out dive is the typical buoyancy check, mask clear, and buddy breathing followed by a tour of the dive site in front of the resort. As my wife and I were waiting the the other divers for the check-out dive, up swims Stan and his daughter. At this point, I didn't know who he was, and figured he was just a regular guy. He was very unpretentions. He was so humble. When we learned who we'd dived with, we knew it had been a real honor to be on his check-out dive.

Stan took video during the week, and presented it and some previously recorded work after dinner. The footage was awesome. Just listening to him talk about Palau and sharks was fascinating. He captured footage of some parrot fish spawning during one of his dives, and shared the beauty of this event with us. Later in the week, Kati and I saw the same behaviour on one of our dives, and were pleased to have been taught via Stan's video session what this was.

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