Lesson learned...again!

I like to think of the ocean as the mother of all mothers. She'll cradle you to sleep, introduce you to dazzling new experiences, and impart upon you a form of wisdom which she is uniquely suited to share.
She will also smack you in the mouth for disprespecting her!
Whenever I go for a long period of time without any unplanned surprises from the ocean, I get to thinking that I've finally figured her out. As soon as that happens she will, without fail, remind me to mind my manners when in her presence.
I had planned to go kayaking in Carmel this morning, with a guy that I met playing pick-up soccer on the weekends. Uli has some open water experience but, being born and raised in Germany, is perhaps not as familiar with the Pacific ocean as I (supposedly) am.
When we arrived at Carmel beach, I took my customary five minutes to watch the waves and judge the mood of the sea. I saw that conditions were much rougher than I'd expected and yet, both stubbornly and stupidly, I decided that a surf entry was "doable". Maybe it was, but not by me.
Uli and I managed to get over (or through) the first breaking wave, but that was the extent of our success. The second one gobbled us up, chewed for a moment, and spat us out in disgust. I don't blame the sea for being disappointed with us, because we really shouldn't have been there in the first place. As part of this lesson in humility, we both lost our diving masks. I consider it a fair price though, because we were spared injury to all but our pride.
In the end, I decided to thank her for the relatively painless lesson and show that there were no hard feelings by settling for a bit of body surfing. It was cold, but nevertheless wonderful.
Lesson learned!

Got Work?

At last count, I had 6 different jobs. The funny thing about it is that I'm STILL not working full-time. It's okay though because I'm just trying to get through the slow winter season with the understanding that dive work will pick up significantly in February and March. By summertime, I'm told that there's as much divemaster work as you can handle. I'm looking forward to that!
Here are the current jobs that I have (all of which are on an as-needed basis):

-deckhanding on a whale-watching boat
-underwater maintenance of boats, moorings, etc. in the harbor
-Divemaster beach-dive guide
-Divemaster on one dive boat (soon to be two)
-general laborer for a local innkeeper
-I helped a family move garbage (more or less literally) from one storage unit to another yesterday, with the understanding that they'll want to do it again soon

It's nice to have such a diversity of work. Ultimately, I'm intending to go full-time with the beach-dive guide and boat DM work because a) it pays up to 5 times what any of the other jobs pay, b) I can schedule the dives however I want and, c) it's fun! After all, the main reason I moved to the Monterey Peninsula is to have access the the incredible array of dive sites here.
I've also started playing on a weekly volleyball team in Monterey, which is a nice evening to look forward to each week.