Day 49

Yesterday, Tuesday July 28th, was my second day of scuba diving here in Taganga. We did a deep dive and then just a regular fun dive afterward. Félix was, once again, my diving buddy. The deep dive was to 35 meters, so around 112 feet deep. Although my depth gauge said 90, so I'm pretty sure that I only actually reached 90 feet. Before that, my deepest dive had been to 60 feet. Sebastián led us, once again. He had a little plastic sheet that had different colors on it that we were suppsoed to identify when we got to the deep depth. ..although he never showed us the colors afterward though, so I didn't see the effect quite so much, although I've seen the colors change from being in a submarine and from what I learned in the book from my open water course.

Here are some good graphs that show the change in the perception of colors, since there is not adequate light to produce the full spectrum. I could tell that the red that I was looking at was a red, but was just distorted, but that could've been due in part to the fact that I saw a little bit of the red before we got into the water and I'm also pretty sure that the colors were in color order.

He also brought a fruit which we were supposed to identify at the deep depth, but he ended up dropping it when he was trying to adjust my weight belt. I had a really hard time going down into the water cause I wasn't breathing and relaxing properly so I was more bouyant. As a result, he had to take of one of the kilo weights from his belt and put it on mine, which is not an easy task. He also brought down my water bottle, filled with water so that we could see how the pressure was afffecting it as we got deeper and deeper. As we got deeper, the bottle became disfigured. Our lungs also receive just as much pressure and for this reason, it is really dangerous to go up quickly because your lungs can rupture.

For lunch, we stopped at one of the mini beaches. This time the sandwhich was queso campesino with egg. Sometimes they cook egg here in a way that's really weird. It's super flavorful, but it really doesn't look like egg, so I have no idea how they got it that way. Perhaps its like an omelet, but super thin and with not much of the yolk? I talked with the French guys a bit, when they weren't speaking French (which didn't happen too often). Félix started learnign English at the age of 10. He then had the option in school to learn German or Spanish and he chose German, so he really knows no Spanish. I've tried to listed to them speaking, and I really can't understand a thing they're saying. I feel like it would be easier to decifer the language if it were written out so that I could see the latin roots better and connect it to Spanish. They all smoked, which seems to be pretty common in France.

On our second dive, we saw a dead fish. It was really weird. It was like the size of my head and just laying sideways on the ground, and it didn't have a tail. I also saw another eel. I tried to point it out the Sebastián and Félix, but I couldn't grab their attention in time. I've noticed several times things that look like underwater hairy caterpillars. I believe I may have seen a cucumber as well. I've seen a good amount of trumpet fish, smooth trunk fish (which are pretty funny looking) lizardfish. I've also seen lots of these things (the little Chinese fan-like thing in between the coral) attached to the coral, and whenever you go near it, they completely close up, making it appear as if they were never even there.

In the afternoon, I decided to go lay out on the beach. I decided to go ahead and take my laptop with me so that I could at least get some pictures. (I'll have pictures from scuba diving soon as well) So yeah, I probably looked pretty stupid with my laptop at the beach and it was probably pretty obvious that I was taking pictures. It's pretty awkward to try to take pictures of the area without yourself in the photo with a webcam, but I did try it a couple of times, but I'm sure it looked like I was just trying to take pictures of the people laying out next to me. Haha, desperate times call for desperate measures. I also noticed that, after diving, my hands had gotten tan up until where the wet suit met my wrists. So I have tan lines on my wrists, which is just great haha.

When I came back to the hostel, there was a nother girl in my room, Lindsey, who is from Australia. We talked a bit and ended up deciding to go someplace together for dinner. We ended up going to another hostel that offers a 24/7 restaurant. That hostel is so nice. There are security cameras everywhere, a pool, a pool table, lots of hammocks, and a giant menu! It was actually the hostel that I was planning on staying at until I read the reviews that said that because there's a 24/7 bar, it's not uncommon for roommates to be drunk and throwing up. It took a while for us to get our food, but we used the time to talk. I ordered mushroom alfredo and a side of fries, haha, and Lindsey ordered a tuna salad. Even that hotel was not free from guests smoking pot out in the open. One thing that I thought was really interesting about our conversation was that in Australia, hardly anyone smokes. The price for cigarettes is extremely expensive. Furthermore, all of the cigarette packets are covered in a puke green color with a picture of someone suffering from lung cancer and the number to quite smoking. So there's no way to tell the difference between the brands really, until you take the little cover off. Also, the place where the cigarette are stored has a blind that goes over it with the same puke green designs that are on the smaller boxes, so it's a bit embarrassing and complicated to buy cigarettes. There aren't really any cigarrette ads, just ads for quitting. The drinking age is also 18, but the alcohol is pretty expensive as well. She was an au pair in San Francisco for the last year, so she's somewhat familiar with America.

I was still in a lot of pay from dancing, and my knee, and just exherting myself a lot in general, so I was trying to find a place to get a massage. It sounds like she wants to come with me and get one herself, considering it's only $17,000 for an hour (although that plan fell through cause she got really sick the next day and I started to not feel the greatest as well..but soon!)