When the airport looked like this, long about 1984….
Didn't Osman use to be a dive guide at Cocoview 20 years ago?
Yes.
I first met him in 1984. He was clinging to his momma’s dress, she was vending frescas out of their home/bodega in First Bight. One of the Roatan OG van drivers, Pelican, he took us by on a “tour”.
He later became a “yard boy” at CCV, where he did the raking and machete work, and he learned English. Next time I saw him he was the Night DM at CCV and he was looking at our new, high tech black plastic flashlights- he thought they were MagLights and cautioned us that they wouldn’t work for diving.
I have always teased him mercilessly about his English which is of course way better than my Spanish… or better said… his Honduran.
Osman coined any number of SCUBA related phrases in English, here are a few:
“Go slow, Seymour”
One you get the actual reference here from his oft-repeated line, you had to just smile that -something- something actually made it through being lost in translation, no small thing in the realm of language idioms.
He is the consummate DM and Critter Gitter. Much as a Baracuda, he does not seem too move body parts yet he moves through the water. This is no exaggeration. This is likely why he uses 1/2 the air that the best Gringo diver does.
“The dive site six
and one half minutes” away…
I am not sure how he came up with this one but it became the standard time measurement for all boat rides. Everything included the 1/2 thing, I guess he realized he had found a tag line that worked.
He then cultivated a conveyor belt of the Gomez Family Dive Masters. They are everywhere on the island, it’s in their DNA. If there ever was a Roatan DM Hall of Fame, he would be in the first inductees, along with Peter Hughes and Doc Radawski.
Osman? We always called him “Donny”. To this day, he still does not know why.
