Love it or Hate it.

 

When you write a book there is always going to be criticism, negative and positive. I found my book falls into the “Love it or Hate it” category. And this is fine by me. I wrote my book for myself, for my fellow dive instructors and my family. It’s raw and opinionated but it is also honest. Here a a few reviews from both sides of the spectrum.

Colin reviewed Does This Island Go To The Bottom?: The Adventures of a SCUBA Instructor in the Caribbean

 Amazing Book!!! November 18, 2013

This book was a fantastic roller coaster ride. At first it seems dull and boring but you will soon learn that you will go on the adventures Eric did. Amazing book! I feel truly connected with the people that are written about in the book!

Add a comment View this book’s reviews on Amazon.com

cil reviewed Does This Island Go To The Bottom?: The Adventures of a SCUBA Instructor in the Caribbean

1 of 3 people found the following helpful

 Terrible July 12, 2013

Vulgar language, over and over. I could not even make it a 1/4 of the way through very disappointed!
Kindle should rate nasty books like this as… NASTY

MR JAMIE PUTLAND reviewed Does This Island Go To The Bottom?: The Adventures of a SCUBA Instructor in the Caribbean

 Thoroughly entertaining read 6 August 2013

Purchased this book due to being an instructor myself and wanted to read the stories from another mouth, can relate to everything written and loved the way Eric told it all.

Would recommend this book to anyone interested in diving or just for a laugh at the way the diving community live their adventurous lives.

Hope I now get the chance to experience being on the Caribbean paradise teaching too 🙂

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. Rushton “simonru” reviewed Does This Island Go To The Bottom?: The Adventures of a SCUBA Instructor in the Caribbean

 Sour 12 November 2013

A really sad read about someone who seems to have complete disdain for his dive students. Sorry, as a fellow Instructor I thought I would get some insights, amusing stories but didn’t get any of that.

Add a comment View this book’s reviews on Amazon.com

lAdam Helberg reviewed Does This Island Go To The Bottom?: The Adventures of a SCUBA Instructor in the Caribbean

 Enjoyable adventures of a scuba instructor. November 9, 2013

As a scuba diver myself I enjoyed reading this book of real life adventure. It’s about a guy from Southern California bored with his job who becomes a scuba instructor in the Caribbean, finds a compass to his life and returns to the US. The reality and technical accuracy helped make this a good read.

Now for the instructor that gave it a 1 star, he has obviously little experience working in a resort environment. If you read my book carefully you’ll see that I do in fact hold great compassion and respect for my dive students. Criticism is good, both negative and positive. I see so many self published books that have nothing but 5 star reviews. This sends up a red flag for me. I’m more apt to read a 3 star book knowing that someone has given it an honest review.

I will soon be in the process of expanding my book “Does This Island Go To The Bottom?” I have stories that I left out and details I think are important to add. But one thing is for sure, it will still be a roller coster ride!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43NeBiPEzqk

Review in “Diver Magazine”

Here is an honest review of my book “Does This Island go to the Bottom?” by the editor of the UK’s 1 selling dive magazine, Diver Magazine and its online format Divernet.com. I am honored and grateful for the editor to take the time to review my book and feature it in the magazine. It’s an awesome feeling to know that something you worked so hard at is selling over seas!

Thank you Diver Magazine.

Divernet | Scuba Diving | Scuba News | Scuba Gear | Underwater Photography

Click link below to go strait to article.

http://www.divernet.com/other_diving_topics/reviews/1938171/does_this_island_go_to_the_bottom_by_eric_h_pasley.html

Excerpt from “A Terrible Sting, Carnival and 3 Cases of Beer, Maybe 4”

Taken from one of my favorite chapters of  “Dose This Island Go All The Way To The Bottom?”

Aruba Carnival, 1998. Festive costumes. Feathers of multicolored patterns fanned out like peacock tails from dancing dark skined Aruban girls. Huge trucks with steel drum bands pounding out Caribbean music like wild chimpanzees. Flat bed trucks with stacks of amplifiers, floats and flowers. Crowds of people lining the streets grooving to the electric static assault on the ears. Hot wind blowing through the divi divi trees down by the beach. Shouts of joy and celebration roared through the crowd. And out of blood shot eyes irritated by booze, green smoke and wine I watched it all and wondered how much more my body could take.

I really don’t know how I got to where I was or how the day began; only bursts of flashbacks came to me that I could piece together like a broken jigsaw puzzle. Funny what we do to ourselves in the name of a good time: How we pollute our bodies with happy poison to the point where our minds are in a bending wonderland of chaos.

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A review from a diver on ScubaBoard: Does This Island Go To The Bottom?

If you’re a diver than you know about ScubaBoard.com. A social media site for divers that covers all things related to SCUBA. Here is a fellow divers review of my book “Does This Island Go To The Bottom?”

“I just finished the book on a flight back from FL to the frozen north of MN. It was a nice quick read with very good imagery. I could picture all the places and sites that Eric described in the book.

I always enjoy hero to zero escapades of the “been there, done that” divers you run into on dive boats. Eric also points out how instructors and DMs get a kick out of the new divers awe of being underwater for the first time.

Overall a solid book and good money spent.”

And here’s another . . . this one’s great!

“I read this book almost in its entirety and it is not for the faint of heart. Disturbing on so many levels. A rather sobering view on the scuba industry and dive ‘professionals’ narrated by the author.”

Audio Review from ScubaRadio.com, 2 Fins Up!

The host of ScubaRadio.com, Greg “The Divemaster,” sent me an email saying that he had finished my book. He told me that he really liked it a lot. So much so, that he decided to do a follow up review of my book, “Does This Island Go To The Bottom?” on his radio show. This was a bit of a surprise to me for the reason that ScubaRadio.com adheres to strict safety standards set forth by the scuba agency and promotes the positive aspect of the sport of scuba diving. My book on the other hand, at times, is the total opposite. Like a maverick on the open ocean. It was the reality of the business at that time.

Here is Greg’s review. Skip to 29:50.

 

Interview on ScubaRadio.com

After recently publishing my book, “Does This Island Go To The Bottom?”  I wanted feed back from my peers, and maybe just a little exposure. So last week I sent a copy of my book to this guy in Florida who’s love of diving caused him to start up the first radio show dedicated to scuba diving called ScubaRadio.com. He goes by the name “Greg the Divemaster.” He started up the show about 15 years ago at the same time I was on my island hopping hiatus in the Caribbean and it has been going strong ever since.

I wasn’t expecting a response from Greg, at least not a quick response, but I got an email from him on Friday. He said he already read the first 50 pages of my book and loved it! He asked if I would come on the show Saturday, which was the next day, and talk about the book. Of course! Why would I say no?

It was a great experience and a little intimidating being interviewed on a radio show that’s broadcasted throughout the United States. ScubaRadio.com covers news and stories about all things evolved around diving and provides valuable information on ocean awareness and conservation while having fun doing it.

Here is the link to my interview with ScubaRadio.com promoting my book. Cut to minute mark 39:30 start of the interview. Or listen to the whole thing. Subscribe to ScubaRadio.com and listen to their podcasts for free on iTunes. It’s a great show!

Copy and paste link: http://archives.warpradio.com/btr/ScubaRadio/020915.mp3

Thanks again Greg!

http://www.scubaradio.com

Drunk in a police station

From the chapter “The Contract, Drunk in the Cop Shop, Off to Aruba.”

The last stop of the tour was the best part. Our tour guide took us into an open area bar where they gave us all we could drink rum. Rum punch, rum and coke, rum with this, rum with that. Bad news. We all got blurry eyed shit faced. I don’t even know how long we were there pounding down rum like blood thirsty pirates, but then something clicked in my twisted head.

“Our letters!” I jumped up from the bar stool.

“What?” my dad asked in a daze.

“Oh, shit.” Veronica said slamming the rest of her drink.

“We gotta go.” I said. “Who’s driving?”

“Not me.” they both said at the same time.

“OK, give me the keys I’m experienced at drunk island driving.” I started to hold out my hand.

“You have them, dude.” my dad slurred.

I fumbled in my shorts pockets and heard a jingle. “I sure do. Let’s get out of here before we can’t walk.”

After parking crocked between two cop cars, we stumbled out of our vehicle still holding our last rum punch drinks we took for the road. It didn’t dawn on me until my dad said something as we walked to the police station entrance. “Christ, dude, we’re going into the cop station, bombed out of our gourds, to get you guys a letter of good conduct.”

“Try to act natural,” I said tripping over a rock and spilling a little of my rum.

“I’m not even opening my mouth,” Veronica said.

The same giant female cop was still behind her card table. I stumbled up the stairs with my rum sloshing around in my cup. I stood in front of her desk with twisted blood shot eyes. I imagined the rum stench was filling the stairwell.

“Pasley,” I said, setting my drink down on her work station.

She looked at me. At that moment she gave me a chill up my spine. She was a terrifying beast, cold brown eyes looking at me with hateful disgust. I burped. She drew back scrunching up her nose trying to block the alcohol fumes. Oh no, I’ve gone too far this time. Only a fool would stagger into a police station holding a rum punch, drunk, asking for a letter of good conduct.

The officer raised her beefy arm and pointed past me. Her blue uniform was drenched around her armpit with sweat. “Go sit down,” she said in a raw voice, “And take your cup of rum with you.”

As I walked like a crab down the stairs to where Veronica and my dad were sitting, I heard the beast yell up the other flight of stairs, “Are the papers ready for Pasley and the girl yet?”

Ten minutes later we had our letters of good conduct and the next morning we were off to Aruba with a rum hangover.

Note: The photo above is not the police station we stumbled into. I don’t know where in the hell this photo was taken or even if it’s real. But I love it!

Snippet from “St. Croix, USVI”

This short snippet is from the chapter “St. Croix, USVI” from the book “Does This Island go to the Bottom?”

 

All I knew was that I could feel the nitrogen fizzing through my blood stream. I felt like I was outside myself, a zombie with drool down my chin. This is it, Pasley. This time you are gonna get bent for sure. Arms and legs twisted like a pretzel as they put me in the re-compression chamber on St. Thomas for two twelve hour sessions.

So there was only one logical thing to do. And that was to belly up to the bar and get loaded. If I was going to get bent why not speed up the process and be drunk at the same time? But I never did get bent. I just woke up the next morning with blood shot eyes, a pounding headache and a horrible taste like a raccoon shit in my mouth.

 

Pictured below is Cane Bay Beach, St. Croix. The snippet refers to how I felt at the end of the many back to back days after I had done five dives with students and certified divers. Crazy reverse dive profiles, of course.

Taken from “A Power Nap.”

This section in the book takes place the morning after a very rough night on the cruise ship which I was working on. It was a party every night. The cruise ship at the time was crowned The Raddison Diamond, pictured below.

Taken from the chapter “A Power Nap.”

I was underwater quite some time. I can’t even remember how many people Damon sent down to me, maybe nine or ten? I was tired, starting to peter out. It didn’t look like no one else was coming down so I decided to just sit on the bottom of the pool and rest for a minute or two. That’s when everything went black.

There was a VW Bug tricked out in Baja fashion with stubby wings on each side gliding in open water just off the coral reef wall. It had its mouth open and was filtering plankton through the gills located behind each fender. Brick colored smoke was pouring out of its exhaust pipe like smoke from a locomotive. A 354 pound black lady with an orange beard was in the drivers seat puffing on a huge stogie.

What the hell?

I looked at my depth gauge. I was 122 feet down and kneeling on a little ledge. I can’t be narced. I have only suffered from nitrogen narcoses once, and that’s when I went to 180 feet for some unknown reason. I looked back at the VW which was soaring back and fourth about twenty yards in front of me. Then the driver rolled down the window and looked in my direction. She pulled the cigar out of her distorted,  fat mouth and said, “Watch out, it’s starting to rain snowballs.”

All of a sudden, snowballs the size of lemons were falling all around me. One hit my head. I winced, closing my eyes. I almost spit my regulator out of my mouth. Then another one hit my head. And still another.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself still sitting on the bottom of the pool. Holy shit, I fell asleep underwater! The snowballs that I felt were Pretty Boy tapping me on the head with a pole. I went to the surface.

“Jesus dude, I thought you died down there,” Damon said. “There was barely a trickle of bubbles coming out of your reg. What were you doing, meditating?”

“Meditating, hell, I fell asleep.” I said.

“You passed out underwater?” Pretty Boy started to laugh.

“Yeah. Damn, I had one wild dream too.”

“Hey Eric, these are our new students,” Pretty Boy said. There were six people standing beside him that I had just given the scuba demo to. They all had terribly concerned looks on their faces.

“Don’t worry, I’m a trained professional. You’re in good hands.” I said.

Let the bullets fly!

My book has consumed me. I haven’t had the mental capacity to write about anything else. The final edit is underway, that is, if there is such a thing as a final edit. I haven’t kept up with this site for this reason. So I felt it was time to post another section of my book to keep it breathing, to keep it alive.

This piece takes place in St. Thomas USVI. It was wild. I really couldn’t believe it was happening until it was over. Time put on the breaks and everything moved in slow motion. Taken from the chapter “Bullets Fly in Paradise.”

 

One fine Caribbean morning I had a resort course in chest deep water at Coki Beach. I was going over the power inflater on the BC with my students and explaining how to deflate to go underwater when bullets rang out, cracking the still air savagely like barking dogs. The tranquil morning was broken. I looked in the direction of the shots and saw two West Indians running up the beach in our direction. The dude in back was holding a vicious looking hand gun and was taking wild pop shots at the other West Indian he was chasing. The natives were definitely restless.

Holy shit! Was I seeing what I was seeing? Island violence in all it’s glory. Brutal and mean, it was not only a sight of terror but also a theater of comical mayhem. The beach was littered with pasty white cruise ship passengers and hard body vacationers one minute, and then the next minute came white flashes of people scattering like ants, trying to take cover. Cups of rum punch and beer bottles flew up in the air, beach chairs clanked and squeaked kicking up fine white sand as they were thrown about. It was total chaos.

My students were facing me and were oblivious to what was happening. They were too focussed on me, which was a good thing. I had to think quick. Cat-like reflexes were key to avoiding stray lead shooting about. The students were still holding onto their inflater/deflater hoses and their regulators were in their mouths. Perfect!

“Ok everyone hold up your hoses and press the top deflate button and let all the air out of your BC,” I said. “Go all the way underwater and lay on your bellies. Do it now!” There must have been a sense of urgency in my voice because there was no hesitation on the students’ part. They dropped like rocks to the sandy bottom. As I went under I heard one more round fire. The threatening sound of the discharge while underwater was wicked and amplified. I looked at all my students and gave them the “OK” sign. They all gave me the sign back.

Thank God. I said to myself.

 

This excerpt just may appear in the next issue of Aquatica Magazine.

Below is Coki Beach where the shooting took place.