Elias's 100th dive

I had talked to Christophe, the Course Director that did our instructor course, about the 10 days of diving we had not utilized yet. He talked to the guys in the office and we were put on the boat both Saturday and Sunday.
Finally we could do some fun diving, not having to care about customers or students messing up our day.
Today was a special day, as it was officially Elias's 100th dive, and that dive you have to do naked... At least some people do.
Looks like Elias had just been waiting for the excuse to do so, haha. No, he was a good sport and agreed to do so, after all it is tradition I told him.
First we dressed him up in some really neat and skimpy Jägermeister shorts with a cap to match. He wasn't too proud to wear it, but I guess it was better than jumping in naked from the boat?
The other people left the boat and we were the only two guys left, and we could finally enter the water. Looked like Elias was getting cold feet after all...
We had already agreed what to do, but it turned out that it would be a little more difficult to execute than first anticipated. He would have to remove fins, after which he would not be able to move anywhere anymore.
There was a little current across the boat and the moment he removed the fins, he was just floating in the water like a roll of toilet paper, because of the scuba gear. Trying to swim with out the fins would not make a lot of difference.
He had to take the scuba gear off, but that meant the weights as well, which meant he became like a piece of paper in the water. The solution was to add some weights in the boots, which apparently work pretty good, at least preventing him from going upside down. He looked a little like having suction cups on the feet.
Ones off with the scuba gear it was time to laugh it off so that he could hold his breath long enough that I could do a few shots of him.
Elias's own equipment was hidden behind him 4-5 meters away, which doesn't sound too bad, but if he lost grip of the boat and got swept away by the current, he would be in a bit of trouble.
I would be up there at the front of the boat providing air, moving back a few meters to take the shot and back again to give him some air. I think we used a whole lot of air just laughing of the whole setup, but it turned out fine.
All this was being done at 20 meters, so this was not without danger. I had enough weight to be able to drop fast if needed was all the time focused on safety more than the picture taking. Fear not - we are professionals, haha.
We got the pictures, I congratulated Elias on his 100th dive and we went to shallower to gas off. That's where we met the current IDC candidates in the water together with Christophe. We did a close proximity swim-by to promote Jägermeister and Alias did turn a few heads. Maybe because those skimpy shorts only covered half of his white butt.
The next day we were on the boat again, this time going to the King Cruiser wreck, a ferry that hit a reef and sunk afterwards.
I was excited to go there and take some pictures, but when we came down there, I couldn't understand that all I got were black pictures. Turned out the lens cap was still on my camera inside the housing. Doh!
On one of the other dives we had a couple of very close shark encounter with Leopard sharks. We spent maybe 25 minutes with the shark and approached it really slow. It didn't seem to mind, we didn't mean any harm either and got super close.
Pretty neat to end the diving being this close to a shark, one of the animals most costumers want to see. Here it was just laying next to us looking at us as much as we looked at it.
Back on the boat with big smiles, cleaned the equipment and talked to Chart the tour leader. He let us know how hard the Leopard shark can bite, which didn't seem to matter too much when laying next to it on the bottom an hour earlier, haha