Under the Sea

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Day 96

Arrive in Taganga at 8am to start our diving course and head to our hostel. A po-faced woman greets us at Casa Unfriendly, and we are slightly peeved to be told to leave our bags outside the office, (where there is access to the street), under a sign which states the hostel do not accept liability for any stolen property... grumpily we haul our bags to the dive school. At the school we sit through 3.5 hours of the world’s most dull video on diving. Em struggles to stay awake and keeps downing shots of free coffee.

With 90 minutes before diving in the real (not virtual) world we head back to the hostel to see if our room is ready. It isn’t but the staff begrudgingly put our bags in their locked storage cupboard. After a quick bite to eat, we arrive at the dive school, meet out instructor Miguel, wet suit up and get a boat to a small beach where we are to do some basic diving exercises. Miguel runs through some basic instructions and then it is into the water to try them out for real. As we descend 4/5 metres I quickly find that breathing under water is not a problem but staying in the same position is. Em keeps floating to the top whilst I sink like a stone. Anyway we spend the next hour kneeling at the bottom of the sea carrying out various exercises (taking the regulator out of the mouth and putting it back in, taking the mask off and putting it back on again).

When we finally ascend and go to shore for a break Em tells me she’s not sure about carrying on, but after some morale boosting words (Em – he tells me to stop being a wuss)she agrees to try again. The next dive involves no exercises, just 12 metres down for 50 minutes looking at all the tropical fish. There are tons of angel fish, a few puffer fish, a lion fish and even a rather aggressive eel.

Back on the boat, feeling exhausted, we are told we have to get out of the boat, swim 200 metres to just offshore and float for 10 minutes! We manage it ok, crawl out of the water, wash down the equipment, shower and head back to Casa Unfriendly... where we are told that there is a problem with our room. Now bear in mind it is 7pm, Easter weekend (so pretty much everywhere is booked up) and we are exhausted. We flop in some chairs and wait for someone to tell us what is happening, but everyone ignores us. This goes on for half an hour (despite me hovering outside the office like a bad smell) before we are told we can’t stay at the hostel. So much for booking ahead to avoid the Easter rush! The owner finds us a room somewhere else in town but it doesn’t meet Em’s (or even my) standards (somewhat lowered during our travels). A quick visit to the tourist information results in a private room with bathroom at the end of the beach, with lovely welcoming hostel owners, at a cheaper price than Casa Unfriendly – result!

Day 97

Wake up in our new hotel to a loud, strange noise of something or someone walking in the ceiling cavity... When I open the window I spot 3 very large lizards (over a metre long) running about. At breakfast we are greeted by lots of smiles from the staff and are sad to be going back to Casa Unfriendly (unfortunately we had to pay upfront when booking). A slightly more friendly person tells us the room will be ready later, however the various tuts and head scratching coming from the Colombian plumbers suggests otherwise... Em presses the point until the manager finally confirms that the room won’t be ready after all!

Back to diving and it’s similar to yesterday (exercises followed by a 12 metre dive). We feel slightly ashamed for not doing our homework (text book reading and questions)but we both seem to be getting the hang of things practically (which is what counts). Our second dive is with a different instructor but unfortunately the visibility is poor so we don’t see much. That night we go a local restaurant with a group from the diving school who are celebrating passing the course. Amazing food and we have a laugh and get a top tip for a surf school about an hour up the road.

Day 98

Spend the morning doing homework for our upcoming exam, a task made harder by the fact that a) the textbook is even more boring than the DVD, b) we have to share a book. Apparently Em finds it annoying when I read out loud...
Back at the diving school we head out for our final day and it is the same routine of exercises followed by 2 dives at 18 and 12 metres. The exercises are the hardest so far:

a) Floating Buddha which you hold for a minute and control through breathing

b) Controlled emergency ascent which is basically getting to the surface safely from 6 metres down with no air. You have to breathe out for about a minute to stop your lungs exploding. Em manages this while I struggle; I think this is because she has a lot more hot air to expel than me (Em – or because Si has lungs the size of peanuts??)

c) Underwater navigation, the idea being one of you uses the compass to navigate while the other provides the leg work. This works fine when I navigate with the compass, but when we swap the result is an underwater argument. Em insists that we go one way, I point another way. She starts to panic (as we were essentially lost underwater) and gestures angrily at me, whilst also hyperventilating... the result of which is that she inflates her lungs and starts to float to the surface, at which point I grab her fins and bring her back to the seabed. Luckily another pair of divers swim past and we follow them... each believing that the direction they are heading is the one we had originally pointed to.

After a quick rest we do our final dive to 12 metres. We are happily swimming along when I notice that I am running low on air. I signal to the instructor and we begin our ascent. There are some annoying divers with us who keep bumping into us (Em – I actually shout under water at one girl to no avail)... and all of a sudden as we are doing our safety stop at 5 metres, someone undoes my weight belt. As I struggle to do it up again, I gasp as I realise that I have no air left at all... luckily Juan our instructor is nearby, and keeping a remarkably cool head I signal, ‘out of air’ and he gives me his spare regulator and we float to the top. Em – I don’t know what is going on, and as we are expected to do the same thing (share air) as a final exercise, I am momentarily peeved underwater that Si does the exercise with Juan and not me!

Near death experience over (Em – perhaps slightly drama queen) we head back to town and plan to head out for a Saturday night party... However a combo of power cut and immense tiredness (and an exam the following day) sees us getting to bed for midnight.

Day 99

Exam time... we have a last minute cram and then head to the dive school. Miguel tells us that if we get 100%!,(MISSING) we get a free t-shirt. I get 96%!((MISSING)2 questions wrong – 1 of which I argue is ambiguous, and that I am right, and the exam is wrong), Em the swot gets 100%!!(MISSING) We head to the beach over the hill for the afternoon, and fall asleep in some deck chairs, before heading back to town, where I eat the best steak ever.

Day 100

Today is fun dive day – really excited as just diving and no exercises! We do an 18 metre and then a 12 metre dive. Visibility is better and we are much more relaxed, and we see lots of cool things including a moray eel, which comes out teeth bared when we hang around looking at it for too long. Then that evening we head out with Jess and Andrew from dive school. They have just finished their advanced course and so we all get a little tipsy on cocktails...

Day 101

Nothing much to report but another chilled day on the beach. We attempt to watch the sunset from a scenic (and remote location) but luckily we are warned that this is also a favourite mugging spot by a local couple, and so we sort of hover near them and then go and meet Jess and Andrew for dinner. Enjoyed Taganga, and sad to be leaving some seriously good restaurants, but happy to be leaving Casa Unfriendly... We have decided to check out the surf beach place to give surfing a whirl.

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