Well , the decision was made and I had worked hard to get my qualifications up to instructor. I had worked to get some experience instructing and loved doing it, even in the freezing cold and murky UK. The plan was becoming reality, so now I started looking for jobs on the PADI website and found out that firstly the pay was not good, barely subsistence for one person and secondly the jobs on offer were asking for 2 or 3 languages, and I was never very good at English (as undoubtedly you are discovering reading this) never mind the French classes I took.. Now I was faced with another problem, after supporting my girlfriend through two years of Uni, she had finally got a job, admittedly not well paid, but something and she was learning a trade on the IT help desk. We had had some problems with the balance and responsibilities in our partnership, but had pulled though and were still together. Well to cut a long story short her biological clock was chiming and the ultimatum was issued either children now or say goodbye… So I chose children and goodbye to the joint salary after waiting for it for so long, when I agreed to this I also said I was not going to carry on in the chemical and power industry and we agreed to support each other in what we wanted. So we planned one last holiday to the Caribbean an all inclusive blast before we tried properly for kids. Just before the holiday we found out it only takes one good try if you work out exactly when would be the best time to get someone pregnant. So no diving for her, but surly it would still be a great holiday…..
Well on the second week we found out that she gets horrendous morning sickness, so bad she could not function, eat or do anything other than beg for help… the slightest smell of anything makes her vomit and we are trapped in a room on a 4 star hotel wishing she could be home.. great… If only we had been on a short haul holiday like mine http://www.divemalta-gozo.com/holidays.htm we would have just jumped on a plane and been back in a few hours..
Well we survived and made it back, sick leave and maternity leave was the order of the day and eventually she got some medication that lessened the effect without risk to the baby.. Time was now running out for me, as looking at the future, to get a house somewhere in an area with decent schools I would have to borrow another 50-100k and that would be the rest of my working life paying it off. My partner no longer wanted to work and wanted to be a full time mum… Working as an instructor now just looked like a dream. The only thing on my side was house prices had shot up at last in my area and I had put a lot of work into making improvements saving up the cash from my job.
So I started thinking that the only chance to escape was to buy a diving centre business as there was no chance working as an instructor would be enough to support partner and child…
Well enough for now, have a look at my websites www.divemalta-gozo.com and www.learntodivemaltagozo.com to see how far we have come.. I’ll be back soon to carry on the story..
