Friday, September 9, 2011

I Was Scuba Doving!

During my last quarter at UC Davis, I had the brilliant idea of taking a class on Scuba Diving.  Best. Idea. Ever.  Of all the classes I ever took at Davis, that one was probably the most fun.  My "grand sis" in my sorority, Stephanie, was in the class with me, which made it even more fun because she's awesome and we got to be buddies and to this day, we still occasionally bust out our Scuba hand signals :)  By taking a 10-week long class, I learned a LOT about diving, logged tons of pool time, and took two unforgettable weekend trips to Monterey for our practice dives.  My scuba classmates were amazing and we had SO much fun.  Whenever I go to Monterey/Carmel for a weekend trip, I can't help but remember all the good times I had diving there, despite the freezing cold water and 7mil full body suits.  Despite my wonderful diving experiences, I somehow managed not to dive again...until now.  

On my first day trip to Coco beach with Cesar in July, I saw a good-looking diving company called Summer Salt and grabbed one of their brochures and the price list.  Over a month later, I finally had the time to make a reservation to go diving!  When they asked me how long it had been since my last dive, I was shocked when I had to say it's been SIX years!  Where did the time go?!?  It feels like just yesterday that I took my last diving trip to Monterey!  Anyway, it was clear that I was going to need to do a little "refresher" course to make sure I remember everything I need to know about diving, so I decided to head down to Coco on Saturday morning, take the test/pool refresher, and then do a couple dives on Sunday morning.  

When I was booking with Summer Salt, they also recommended a nearby B&B for me to stay at for like $35 which was great since the cheapest hotel I could find online was like $70! (One of the many perks of talking to locals is finding good deals!)  They also asked if I knew this girl named Rebecca who had been diving with them a few times and was also a volunteer teacher in Liberia.  They gave me her contact info, and while she wasn't going diving the same weekend as me, we did decide to meet up for coffee later in the week to meet each other and hang out (as I've mentioned before, it's always fun to meet new people!).

Off to Coco
On Saturday morning, I decided I was going to try to catch the 11 a.m. bus to Coco, but in typical Emily fashion, I was running a little bit late.  (While "tico time" can sometimes be annoying, and other times really handy, it's generally not good for me, as I have a natural predisposition for lateness...).  At like 10:53 I got Luis to drive me to the bus station, where I immediately made a bee-line for the bus that was pulling out of the station.  When I was running after it, I wasn't sure it was the right bus, but I figured that if it was the right bus, I definitely didn't want to miss it!  I got the driver to stop for me, confirmed that it was in fact the bus to Coco and hopped aboard.  Yay!  (I noticed on my other bus trips that you don't necessarily have to be at a bus stop to get a bus to pick you up.  People frequently flag them down.  That was good for me!  And way nicer than in the city.  Muni drivers usually just pretend they don't see you).

Once I arrived in Coco around noon, I swung by Summer Salt, introduced myself, confirmed that I had a place to stay and Will, one of the instructors, took me over to Laura's Casa so I could get settled into my room.  We decided that I would meet back at the shop at 1:30, so I headed out to grab some lunch.  I ended up eating at "Soda de Papagayo" which boasted "typical food" so I was surprised when this older white guy introduced himself as Roy, the owner.  Turns out his parents had moved to Costa Rica when he was ten and he had more or less been around ever since.  He was a generally nice guy, but also a little odd.  He kept like sort of inviting me to hang out sometime/over the course of the weekend and he came across as being a little bit creepy, but I think he was genuinely just trying to be nice.  Still, the food was good and the conversation was interesting, so I guess that's good.  In case you were wondering, he has two sons quite a few years apart in age, by different baby-mamas and they are both named Roy.  Fun fact for ya.

So after lunch, I headed back to Summer Salt where Will handed me a booklet test and said "do your best."  I was like, oh crap, I haven't even thought about Scuba stuff in ages!  Specifically planning a dive and using the dive charts!  Eek!  But surprisingly, I did pretty damn well on the test.  I can only thank Ken and UCD for providing me with 10 weeks of hardcore Scuba training.  I guess more stuck than I thought.  After passing the test (pfewf!) Will and I headed out to the pool with our gear for some pool refresher action.  Again, I was surprised at how much I remembered about putting all the gear together, using it, etc.  I guess it's like riding a bike.  Still, it was nice to have that 45 minutes or so of pool time to practice and get re-oriented with everything.  It's also always good because in the pool you go over all the technical/emergency stuff, like running out of air, readjusting your equipment, buoyancy, etc.  Going over all the scary/technical stuff the day before makes the actual dive seem like a cakewalk since the bad stuff usually (knock on wood) doesn't happen.

After the refresher course, I spent some time on the beach reading and swimming in the delightful water.  I was hoping to get a tan, but sadly it was like 3:30 and overcast when I got there so I'm still white.  Tear.  (Actually, I'm no longer that white as I frequently make use of "Playa del Casa" and read in the sun in the frontyard.  The other day Nieves told me that when my parents come they won't recognize me because I'm darker.  Boo ya.  What now white skin?!?!).  When I got back to the room to shower and head out for dinner I realized that the short amount of time in the pool turned my hair green.  That was unfortunate.  Damn you light hair and chlorine.  I'm relatively sure the green is all washed out now though :)  I spent the rest of the evening roaming around Coco, hanging out, grabbed some dinner, etc.  I decided to make it a semi-early night as I did have to get up early to dive the next morning!!

Day of the Dive
I could barely sleep the night before the dive because I was soooo excited!  I have been wanting to dive again forever, and so I could barely contain myself on Saturday night.  I kept waking up thinking it was time to get ready to dive, only to realize it was like 5 in the morning and a little too early to get up.  Finally morning came and I made it down to Summer Salt by 8 a.m.  Since it's the slower season now, I was the only one diving that day, which was kind of cool.  Will felt like he was starting to get a little bit of a cold, so Juan, another diver master, would be my guide/buddy for the day.  He and I headed down to the beach where Raffi, our captain, came and picked us up in the mini boat to take us to the "big boat."  Then we were off, headed to this rock, which was only like a 10 minute boat ride out:

Here you can see that we're not that far from the beach:
And here's a pic of our captain, Raffi, and my dive guide, Juan.  Juan has been diving with Summer Salt for about six months and he's originally from Argentina.  Because it's heading into the slow season, he can't work for Summer Salt anymore and is heading back to Argentina in mid-September unless he can find employment elsewhere, which I guess has been tough.  He doesn't want to go back to Argentina b/c I guess there's not good diving around there, and the diving that is nearby is all really cold water.  Bummer :(  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll find another job so he can stay nearby.
As we were driving out to our first dive spot, we were getting all our gear on, so within a few minutes of getting to our first spot, we were good to go.  When I did my training through UCD, we had always done "beach dives" which means that you literally put on all your gear and then walk from the beach into the water and dive from there.  When you're done, you swim back to the beach and walk out.  At first I was a little nervous about my first boat dive where you just take one "giant step" off the side of the boat, until I remembered that we had practiced that technique in class.  I also realized it's WAY freaking easier.  All that equipment is heavy when you aren't in the water, so throwing it on and jumping in is way better than trekking back and forth from the beach to the ocean.  I'm a fan.  Also, the other perk of paying to dive is that they really do everything for you.  They plan your dives, get your equipment ready, etc.  It's really all very easy.
The first dive was amazing!  We dropped down by the rock and while visibility wasn't amazing there was sooo much to see.  Pretty quickly we saw a real live sea turtle swimming by (AWESOME!), I saw a whitetip reef shark following around a little orange pilot fish, lots of rays-big and small, some eels, a small glimpse of an octopus which was hiding behind some rocks, spindly looking long-legged craps, clown fish, and tons and tons of other beautiful fish.  There were also lots of schooling fish, which were really cool to see.  We typically stayed down toward the bottom (between 60-75 feet down) and the schooling fish were usually a little above us, which was a really cool view.  It's like a swimming wall in a backdrop of ocean blue.  So cool.  Diving here was literally like swimming in an aquarium tank.  When we first went under, I felt like I was going through my air crazy fast, which is pretty normal on a first dive, because you are getting used to breathing under water and because you're usually nervous and/or excited.  I had to make a concerted effort to control my breathing so my dive would last longer.  A tank of air is usually about 3000 psi, and when you get down to 1000 psi you have to start heading back up to the surface.  My first dive was like 43 minutes, which wasn't super long, but wasn't bad either.  We had completed the loop and everything so that was good :)

My second dive was not too far from the first dive spot, and I saw a lot of the same things. (Of course, between dives we had to stay on the surface for an hour.  When you dive, you build up nitrogen in your bloodstream, so you have to wait on the surface before diving again to let the nitrogen dissipate).  On this dive there were way more whitetip reef sharks which was crazy cool.  They aren't so much big big sharks, but it was a little disconcerting at first because I mean, they are still sharks and we were like right next to them.  About eight were just chillin in a little clearing at the bottom of the ocean between rocks with some sleeping and some swimming about.  One was pregnant, and another mom shark was in a rock cove with two baby sharks with her.  They were hard to see but that was pretty cool too.  We also saw a really big eel, a shipwreck, and a spotted eagle ray, which was super pretty.  I lasted a lot longer on this dive, so once we completed our loop, we went back and hung out with the sharks again, which was amazing.  That dive I think was like 57 minutes, which was a good chunk of time.

Here is a link to the Summer-Salt website's photo gallery: http://www.summer-salt.com/photos.  They actually have pictures of a lot of the things I saw while swimming around under the ocean.

Pics while putzing around on the surface for the hour between dives.
The water here is warm, but you also get some "thermal climb" where the super cold water comes up and mingles with the warm water.  You can obviously feel the thermal climb, but you can also see it, which is kind of cool (it looks gooey or shimery.  Sort of like when you can see heat rising from asphalt when it's hot outside).  When we were swimming around the ship wreck, the water was freezing cold, and then when we went back toward the rock, it got nice and warm like bathwater again.  That's why they don't recommend wearing a shorty but at least this suit was only 3mil.  Way better than 7 mil!!
When the dive trip was over, I helped the guys unload the equipment from the boat and then headed back to my hotel for a quick shower and to check out.  Then I hung around in Coco for awhile for lunch and to sit on the beach and read for a bit.  While it was really cloudy and overcast in the morning, it ended up clearing up and being a beautiful bright day.  Here's a pic from the beach to the rock where I dove the day before, and just another pic of the beach.

While I was sitting on the beach, I noticed that something was oozing from my suitcase, only to realize that my shampoo was leaking.  Blah!  I dragged my bag over to the dive shop and the guys were nice enough to let me use their bathroom to clean it up a little bit, and to stop the leaking.  This was unfortunate because I really like my shampoo and I'm pretty sure it would have lasted most of my time here.  Oh well, no biggie.  On the plus side, when I was done cleaning out my bag, the bus arrived and so I hopped on and headed back to Liberia.  It was such a fun weekend and I was exhausted when I finally made it back to the house!

A New Friend
Later in the week, Rebecca and I did end up meeting for coffee.  She is from Holland and has also been in Liberia for two months.  She has a degree in art therapy so she is doing that at a local school here in Liberia.  Her contract is for three months total so she will only be here for one more month, and then she is headed up to Nicaragua where her sister will meet up with her, and she'll probably work there for a bit.  We had a great time chatting and talking about our respective experiences while here.  Rebecca speaks Spanish WAY better than me, but then, she also has to speak Spanish with her students so I guess that's a good thing.  I am glad Summer Salt gave me her contact info and hopefully we'll get to hang out more for the next month or so!

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