Elena | PADI Divemaster

¡Hola, yo soy Elena!

I came to Curaçao during the COVID pandemic to visit my friend Alba, who had already been on the island for a while and had just started working as an instructor at Porto Mari. The plan was simple: vacation, sunshine, diving, and finishing my Divemaster course (at another dive center). At the end of that journey, of course, there was supposed to be a party — and shortly after, I would fly back to Barcelona.

But that very afternoon, the dive shop turned out to be short-staffed. So I was faced with a dilemma. Party? Or help?

I chose to help.

I spoke fluent Spanish and Catalan, but most customers spoke Dutch or English — so there wasn’t much overlap. My English at the time was quite limited. Still, with hands, feet, and a big smile, I usually managed to explain everything just fine.

What started as helping out for one afternoon turned into almost four months. We had just come out of the second lockdown, and Curaçao was experiencing an incredible post-COVID tourism boom. It was busy — very busy. The instructors were constantly in the water doing intro dives and courses. That meant I was often left alone in the shop or hauling tanks back and forth. It was my free daily workout.

But my toughest “workout” was probably an intro dive at the end of a long day, when two rather corpulent participants — who were underweighted — decided to outsource all swimming to me. I had to keep them balanced and push them forward at the same time. By the end of that dive, my tank was almost empty. And them? They probably still think that’s how it’s supposed to work.

When the instructors came back, I proudly told them we had basically been a zapatería that day — a shoe store. I had sold yet another pile of water shoes. We couldn’t keep them in stock.

Back in Barcelona, I worked as a police officer in a specialized unit dealing with major drug trafficking cases. Hard work didn’t scare me. And yes, I’m pretty muscular — bodybuilding definitely helps when loading and unloading tanks.

By the end of my time in Curaçao, my English had improved a lot, and I had even picked up a few words of Dutch. Eventually, I returned to Spain. Not long after, I met my husband in Egypt. I’m still active in the diving world today, mainly working on liveaboards in the Red Sea.

What started as a vacation — and a missed party — turned into an unexpected chapter that changed the direction of my life.