PADI Certified

I´d finally figured out the secret to Scuba diving, which it turns out is the same as the secret to life. Just keep breathing. But things were getting a little more nuanced under the water and I was feeling like maybe these guys should be teaching me a thing or two about Scuba diving since I was taking a scuba diving course through them.

Taganga is a little fishing village about 1/2 bus ride from Santa Marta, set inside a beautiful bay. It has about 1000 people, 1 paved street and 5 of the cheapest Scuba Diving schools in the world. I picked Oceano because they had the most expensive boat and the cheapest tractor. The first two course days had gone great. Moments after showing up the first day I was falling off of a boat backwards and marvelling at the wonderful world of Jacque Cousteau that lay before me.

The 6th dive was a little different. We descended to 70 feet inside the boundries of Parque Nacional Tayarona, the premier diving spot in mainland Colombia. It started out fine as we cruised along admiring the colorful reefs and fish all around us. Then the Spanish guy and I bumped into each other. I think it was his fault, but since he´s a certified dive master and I don´t know what the heck I´m doing, I´m probably wrong.

He was fine but I started to ascend. I never had managed to figure out how to stay nuetrally buoyant. As I fumbled with my gear I tried to release some of the air out of my BCD but mistakenly pumped it up instead, which speeded my ascent. I watched helplessly as the coral reef we had just been enjoying disappeared below me. I felt the current almost immediately. It was strong, too strong to swim against.

Faced with this situation I tried to think back to all the instruction I had recieved. But as I tried to form a mental picture of those 3 seperate 1/2 hour DVD sections which constituted the sum total of my training all I could see in my mind´s eye was Roberto, the proprietor of Oceano, saying ¨it´s all just a lot of blah, blah, blah. Let´s go diving!¨

I knew panicking wouldn´t help. I couldn´t see any evidence of my fellow divers below me. I´d finally managed to duck down below the current sweaping me away but had no clue where I was. The ocean can be a dark and lonely place when you´re alone. I knew I should never have rented that stupid move ¨Open Water.¨

The next section of the DVD was supposed to cover decompression. Up until now I had just followed the instructors and assumed they knew what they were doing. So I waited an agonizingly long time, which I assumed to be 5 minutes about 10 feet under water before surfacing. The current had pulled me out past the cove we were exploring and I was heading to open sea. I could see our boat in the distance skimming around. I knew I should have learned to whistle louder, but instead I just shouted ¨hey!¨ a couple of times. I had plenty of oxygen left so I wasn´t too worried, but I really didn´t want to swim all the way over there.

But soon enough they were over to pick me up. It turned out that when we seperated the other 3 divers had surfaced and started hunting for me. ¨Was it scary¨ asked José? ¨Yeah it actually was¨ I replied honestly. ¨Well at least now you´ll have a story to tell you´re kids¨ said the Yalel. ¨It´s ok¨ I told him ¨I´ve got better.¨

Just about ready

When I was in Quito and e-mailing back and forth with Bill trying to make plans to stay in Medellin he asked me how long I was going to be here for. I told him just two weeks, but if I´m having a good time I might extend it to three. Well one month after I got to town I´m finally ready to leave. The same thing happened to me when I started this trip 8 months ago. Two weeks turned into 35 days. Medellin is a great city, as addicting as it´s most famous export.

Marta and I continued our tradition of saying our goodbyes over a media botella de Ron Medellin. It certainly was a roller-coaster ride with her this time throught, but thankfully we managed to end on a high note. And seeing Bill again went swimmingly. I´ve got a feeling we´ll meet again soon, perhaps in Medellin again if one of these business ideas takes off, if not maybe in South Carolina once his new condo is done and the fish are biting again.

I spent the last two months hanging out with family and friends. And now I´m going to head to another city where I´ve never been before and don´t know anyone. Obstensibly I´m going to Santa Marta to take a scuba diving course. I was planning on doing that 8 months ago but I never left Medellin the first time and I realized I should probably learn how to swim before going scuba diving. So now that that´s taken care of there´s nothing to keep me out of the water. There´s also a rather famous archeological ruin 3 days away, which sounds tempting.

After that plans get thrown up in the air again. I´m actually basically ready to head back to the US and put the pieces of my life back together. I´m tempted to just be done with it and book a flight from Cartegena all the way back home. But actually I think I´ll try to find a boat heading to Colon, Panama and continue the rest of the journey by busses and trains eventually crossing the border from Tijuana to San Diego.

That also lets me hedge my bets just in case I´m wrong and that Cuban salsa band I´ve been dying to see does eventually get their visa situation straightened out and make it off the island for their Mexican tour. Actually most of them are there already, they´re just missing one of the singers. But I´m trying not to get my hopes up.

Either way this has been by far the best thing I´ve ever done in my life. When I reflect back on all the ridiculous experiences I´ve had and the hodgepodge band of hooligans I´ve met I can´t help but think how my life would be the same as it was before had I just stayed in Seattle working for Microsoft. My biggest concern now is that when I get back and try to acclimate myself to a ¨regular¨ lifestyle I´m just going to want to take off on another trip.

I hear Thailand and Vietnam are really fascinating, jungles, beaches and great food. But I never did get to the northern coast of Brazil and Portuguese is similar enough to Spanish I think I could pick it up pretty easily. Of course parts of Eastern Europe are still pretty cheap and it´s very accessible. And maybe I could just go work on my Hindi in India. Addicting indeed.