Day 48 - Scuba, scuba, and more scuba! (and some selfies)

This morning (Monday, July 27th) I woke up at 7:00am, but didn't quite get up (or at least start getting ready) then, which was a bad decision considering that at the hostel I'm staying at, breakfast doesn't start until 8:00 (other hostels/hotels I've been to here stopped serving breakfast at 9:30!), which means I can't really get breakfast, since I have to be at the scuba center at 8:00, and it's about an 8 minute walk. So, I began to make my own breakfast, which consted of strawberry hispanic (drinkable) yougurt with cereal and fresh passion fruit juice made by yours truly. I was pretty proud of myself! I've seen other people do it twice now and so I vowed to have my go at it when I had the opportunity. The only thing is that, despite having the passion fruits in the fridge, the juice was not cold, which didn't feel right considering it's juice. I don't think there's an ice maker, or really any way for me to have ice. So, I'll have to put my water in the freezer for a couple of minutes before I start making the juice next time! I didn't have time to do much else for breakfast, especially since there aren't a whole lot of dishes and so it's extremely important to wash all your dishes after using them. (..and as I wasn't going to be back until around 1:30-2:30, I couldn't just leave them out until I was free to clean them.) So the cleaning of everything took up the time that I could've had to make more food. The woman that makes the breakfast was there and did offer to make me something, however, I only had like 5 minutes before I had to leave and the breakfast she was going to be making was a fried egg and plain toast. I haven't been a big fan of eggs since I was little. However, being in Colombia for so long, I've learned to be able to eat scrambled eggs. I'm not sure if I'm ready for the yolks in fried eggs haha. I didn't even have time to finish my own maracuyá drink (passion fruit). But luckily, I was able to cover it and refrigerate it to enjoy later!

Since it's been about 8 months since I last scuba dived, and since I've only ever scuba dived four times in my life (only couting the dives that have been 40+ feet with a total combined dive time of 1 hour and 11 minutes), we decided that I would do a bit of a refresher dive before getting into the advanced open water training. The dive shop is called Under Pressure Dive Center, which is quite a clever name, in my opinion. It's weird, cause they offer NAUI and PADI courses. PADI is jsut more expensive, and it comes with a book. Omar told me that, in the advanced course, NAUI focusses more on practical skills than bookwork, unlike PADI. I'm scuba diving to be able to apply to a marine archaeology for youth program in the US. They were going to require me to get a bouyancy certificate, but since I'm going through NAUI, it's not necessary. PADI is more common, but it seems like I'm getting a better deal with NAUI! The head of the shop is Omar, but the man who took me on dives today was Sebastián. There is a girl from Germany, Laura, who just finished her certification to be a dive master. I'm not sure what all she speaks, but she certainly speaks German, Spanish, and she speaks pretty good English. The group that went out today was split into two: those with Omar, who were working on their open water certification (all from France), and then Sebastián was working with me, a man named Félix (he's from France and was traveling with the others from France) who is finishing up his advanced certification, and then two more people who are working on their open water: Annelie (Ann-uh-lee; I absolutely love that name! Sebastián has had a pretty hard time pronouncing it though haha) and Sofia, who are from England. Laura tagged along to help out and taught us the basics of navegating with a compass, which was a lot harder than I expected. There's so much going on in your head when you're underwater and in the ocean - trying not to touch the coral and therefore helping it die, breathing correctly to avoid any internal damage, paying attention to those that you're with, going the right direction, turning the compass the right way, AND math. It didn't help that I didn't completely understand how to do it even above water. I completely understand how to go in a straight line and back, but going in a rectangle or square involves math and not turning the dial on the compass incorrectly and therefore ruining the mission. But, I did it! We also practiced the skills of taking off your mask and putting it back on under water (which despite closing my eyes while my mask was off, my eyes certainly burned from the salt water for a bit afterwards). Then, we practiced taking off our BCs (bouyancy compensator - the vest with all the zips and whistles where the tank was attached), fixing your buddy's tank when it has come loose from the BC, and fixing your own tank when it has come lose from the BC. That first dive was about 40 minutes. To enter the water, since we were entering from a small boat, we do a thing where we sit on the edge of the boat and fall back into the water (Backward Roll Entry). It would be impossible to enter any other way with such a small rocky boat without a platform and while wearing fins, a snorkel, and with so much weight on our backs. I had never done this entry before since I had never entered the water using a boat, but I like this method. We saw an eel, which was pretty cool. I also saw two different giant flat fish things. Honestly, there was no way of telling that it was a fish (eyes, mouth, movement, etc.), except it was a pattern that was distinctly different from the coral and I've seen pictures of such things. It would have really been cool to see it swimming though, cause I don't quite understand it. It's awesome actually being in the ocean cause I've only ever scuba dived in a quarry which is gross looking and not too entertaining; there's some fish, but not many, and to entertain the scuba divers, the owners of the quarry put in random crap like the back of a truck, tv's, jukeboxes statues, etc. But all of those items are covered in brown algae, so yeah, after a while, it certainly gets boring. It's also great being someplace that isn't freezing. I'm not quite sure of the temperature of the water, but standing outside for a while will certainly get you sweating! In comparison, I've only ever dived in 65 and 63 degree water, where my hands and feet were numb after 20 minutes, so yeah, it's a nice change to say the least.

The first dive took place at Calichan. I googled the location, and here is an image I found, which seems pretty accurate (although a lot of the areas look similar):

Afterwards, we went ashore and had a minilunch. I'm not sure what exactly I ate, but it was good, haha. It was a sandwich with bellpeppers and meat peaces and other spices. I'll have to ask what it is, cause it's probably giong to reappear again in my time scuba diving here. They gave us water (in bags, of course - where you bite a hole into it and drink it out of a bag), a banana, and some sort of fruit tea. I'm not normally a big fan of tea, but it wasn't so tea-like and it was definitely one of the best teas I've had. I'll have to ask about that as well. Afterwards, we went back for another dive. This time, it was going to be a fun one with no skills practicing. Although, we did do a thing where we put our finger in the sand and floated with our bodies vertical, without kicking. I've never done that before, and it was a really weird sensation cause the water from my wetsuit would ripple all up my body. It was also a lot harder than I expected cause your body just wants to float away and not stay attached to the ground through your finger resting upon the sand. It's also a really awkward feeling to be completely upsidedown in the water while scuba diving. That dive was about 35-40 minutes, but it did not feel as long at all. We were going to practice cutting through currents, which we may have done, but it wasn't too noticeable for me. We ended up coming up early cause another one of the divers started to rise and at that point, it's not good to go down to a large depth, so we were all forced to quit early (although in the moment, they told us the ocean was rough - which is certainly was at the surface, but it was not a problem on the ground at all). I definitely got a good amount of saltwater in my mouth and up my nose due to waiting at the urbulent surface. (The boat wasn't expecting us so soon and so we had to wait a bit).

When I googled a picture of the location of the second dive (Punta Aguja), I found this. It looks a lot like where we had lunch, sitting on the log on the shore (although the beach we were at had two logs haha)

After returning all the equipment and cleaning it all off, it was decided that Félix and I were going to do a night dive. I had to be back at the dive shop at 6:45 and it was currently around 1:30. I stopped at a store on the way back to the hostel (since I found one on the way that accepted credit cards! - although they charge a 5% fee, but I'd rather pay a 5% fee for that and be able to pay for my scuba in cash as much as possible, since they also charge a 5% fee and I don't quite have enough cash to pay for it all). For a second lunch (since my first was really more of a snack and scuba diving gets you really hungry --and really tired, but that could just be since I woke up early.), I made a grilled ham and cheese sandwhich, but with grilled carmelized onions and oregano. I had some more of my leftover maracuyá juice, but then decided to water it down a bit more since it was still pretty sour and also add some more sugar. However, the sugar and the salt here are so hard to tell the difference between. Like the salt here really does look like sugar and you can't smell them! Well anyway, I mixed the two up and ended up duping about a half tablespoon worth of salt into the juice, making it taste absolutely awful. Thankfully, I didn't put the sugar on my sandwhich, but rather next to it, which I used to eat with my blackberries and strawberries. I don't know what it is, but those blackberries were just not very good and the strawberries aren't the best either. They've been pretty hard, so far and not too flavorful. But hey, at least they're not all bruised and covered in mold like I see oftentimes at walmart!

After a while, I decided to try to get in a nap before my night dive. I think I did get some sleep in, but it was hard when I could hear people in the common area talking and there were people that came into the room every once in a while. Also, I was afraid the alarm on my crappy phone had gotten set to the wrong time or wouldn't go off and that I would be late/miss the late dive. I probably looked pretty funny cause I've been sleeping with a headband type thing over my eyes just in case, cause I figured that people are going to be getting up and going to bed at different times, and I don't know when light will come into the room. Also, I've been sleeping with earplugs (which is probably one of the best decisions that I made concerning what to bring to a Hispanic country!).

This girl is ready for her first ever night dive! (although still fairly tired. The light's off cause someone else was taking a nap)

Since it was going to be dark out, we had to assemble our gear at the shop and put it all on, and walk to the shore with all of the gear on (minus the mask and fins). Carrying a scuba tank is certainly a lot harder above water than inside water! This time, my air gauge was measured in BAR instead of PSI, which was a little annoying casue I've been getting used to PSI and now I have to recognize what's normal with BAR (although it's probably a good idea to be familiar with both - although I think that PSI, nowadays, is much more common). Apparently in my first dive I was using a little too much air. Most people ended up with around 1,500 starting from 3,000, and I had around 800 left. So, in the second dive I really tried to focus on my breathing - to not breathe too quickly, yet not hold my breath. We had flashlights, and since it was dark, that meant a new set of signals utilizing the flashlights. However, we were pretty much able to sea eachothers' hands for signals the entire time, unless we weren't super close. We found a sand dollar, which the dive master took. So, I guess it's cool to collect things that you find? I mean there's nothing living in a sand dollar, but I didn't know if that was frowned upon or anyhting. In all of the dives today, we saw some fish that were super long and super skinny. Those were pretty cool. In the night dive we came across a lobster. It seems that lobsters and crabs aren't as in the open during the day, and sometimes aren't even super common at night time. I saw something that looked like a very colorful sea cucumber. It was intermingled in corral and Félix and Sebastián were continuing on, so I didn't get a good look at it. Several times, we turned off our flashlights altogether. It's cool, cause your eyes adjust and you can see pretty well. You can't quite see all the colors of everything but you see the shapes and forms of the things in your vision. When our lights are off, it's much easier to see the plankton. The more you move, the more the plankton around you begins to glow. It was really cool. The three of us were propped with our knees in the sand, waving our hands around ferociously, summoning the plankton to glow. Several times we went through the water without our lights. Normally, you're not supposed to move your hands. You're supposed to move yourself with just your fins. However, I was definitely doing some doggy paddling with my hands as we moved past the reef to make the plankton appear, haha. At one point when we had our lights off, we could see about 8 other divers waving around their flashlights. They were fairly far away from us (although it's really hard to tell underwater. When you look up, it looks like the surface is really close even if you're 60 feet down.) It was funny cause afterwards, when the three of us were talking (in English, since though Félix knows French, English, and German, he doesn't really know Spanish), I was wanting to say how the silhouettes of the other dives were cool. I knew that Sebastián wouldn't know that word in English and I only knew the equivalent of shadow in Spanish, so I turned to Félix, assuming that he would know what I was talking about cause silhouette is most likely a French word. However, he wasn't too sure of the word. After spelling it, he recognized it though (though I swear he didn't say it any differently than I did!). They had beers while I had water, haha, as we filled out our log book.

Once I was heading back, I made a quick stop at the store cause I had seen some tres leches ice cream earlier and was really craving something sweet. It was pretty good. I've never had anything like it before! It was basically ice cream with some frozen sweetened condensed milk and little cake-like pieces. For dinner, I decided to stray away from my grilled cheese and ham sandwhich and utilize the food I had bought earlier. I swore I had ordered ground beef, but in hindsight, I guess I said "carne de res," (meaning specifically meat of a cow/ beef) instead of "carne molida." I made pasta with bolognesa sauce, garlic bread, and steak since I didn't have ground beef haha. It was pretty good but took a while since the meat was so darn hard to cut!!

(non-chalantly taking a selfie of me and ma dinner in the living area while a bunch of people were watching Life of Pi on the tv)

OH MY GOSH THERE IS A KITTEN AND A DOG THAT ARE ALWAYS CHILLING AT THE HOSTEL AND THE KITTEN IT CURRENTLY MEOWING THE HECK OFF AND IT'S SOO LOUD AND IT SOUNDS LIKE A CYING BABY, AND I KNOW I'M NOT SLEEPING YET BUT IT'S 12:20AM AND I WILL BE SLEEPING SOON AND IT NEEDS TO STOP, LIKE NOW. Okay, end rant, haha.

Also, one of my "roommates" came in shortly after reaking of pot, so that was fun. At least it's not the skunk smelling kind, but it's still certainly not pleasant. I have a icy/hot type thing since my muscles have been very sore. I may have put some of that on my nose to try to cover the pot smell. It's funny, casue as a kid, I always hated the icy hot smell, but there are some things that just smell worse than it!

#scuba #taganga #cartagena #santamarta #colombia #underpressure #diving #scubadive #scubadiving #naui #padi #advancedopenwater #openwater