Escuela de Buceo y Náutica

Escuela de Buceo y Náutica is the diving school next door to Sofia Papastergiadis’s beach apartment. It is both a working seaside business, with lessons and boat preparations, and the setting for a recurring conflict over the dog kept on its roof terrace by its director, Pablo.

Setting and Facilities

The school occupies a white, two-storey building with porthole-shaped windows. Its reception area is being painted, and two Mexican men are at work on the walls. The school stands beside the small apartment Sofia and her mother have rented, placing its daily activity close to their home and to the beach.

Work and Routine

In the morning, male staff teach student divers how to put on their diving suits. Their work then turns to boat preparation: they pour petrol through a funnel into plastic tanks and use an electric device to wheel the tanks across the sand for loading. These tasks make the school’s operation visible as a routine of instruction, equipment handling and transport.

Pablo’s Dog and the School’s Neighbours

Pablo, the school’s director, keeps a lean Alsatian chained to an iron bar on the roof terrace. The dog pulls at its chains and howls; from above the terrace wall, it watches and snarls at beach life below. The animal’s distress is not confined to the school: the Swedish masseur Ingmar complains that the dog’s whining, howling and barking prevent clients from relaxing during beachside aromatherapy massages. The diving-school staff are also uneasy about the dog being chained up, although they continue with their assigned work.

The dog’s presence is bound up with a wider imbalance at the school. While Pablo spends his time at his computer playing Infinite Scuba, he shouts at the two men painting the walls. They cannot answer back because they lack the legal documents that would allow them to do so. As the dog howls, Pablo’s shouting grows louder, joining the animal’s noise to the unequal relations around the workplace.

Conflict and Narrative Role

The school’s routines provide a contrast to the disorder created by the dog and the tensions surrounding Pablo. Sofia first lives beside the school and observes its daily life; later, after the dog’s renewed howling overwhelms her, she runs barefoot across the sand and pushes open the school’s door to look for Pablo. The building thus becomes the point where an ongoing disturbance outside Sofia’s home turns into a direct confrontation with its owner.