Advanced diving course in Taganga

I went back to Taganga to do the advanced diving course, this time I reserved a bed at the Casa de Filipe to make sure I had a place, but then I went to look for a couple of my friends, Dave from New Zealand and Graham from England at the Casa Blanca, and I just did not want to leave the place, it is right next to the beach with a view of the sea, hammocks, and a nice cool breath during the night, keeping mosquitoes away, setting down on a hammock watching the beautiful sun set, you just don't want to leave the place , for anything other than necessities like getting food, anyway I decided to move there the next day and reserved a room. I met Dave and Graham, first time in Bariloche, Argentina, Dave is an ex bank manager, and is probably the most famous traveler in Colombia, in Barranquilla I was trying to find them, and when I asked other travelers about Graham, I got the answer "Graham who", and when I said that he was hanging out with Dave the Kiwi, "Dave the kiwi, big bold guy with glasses, of course we know him", anyway Graham might be very famous soon, for stealing the girlfriend of the owner of one of the most famous hostels in Colombia.


I started the diving course the next morning, and had 6 dives scheduled for two days, I am pressed for time so the hectic schedule was fine by me, the PADI advanced diving course consisted of six dives, four required, a deep dive, a dive in current, a night dive, a navigation dive, and two optional, I chose a wreck dive and a photography dive, usually it is one optional but I got a bonus one, there is some studying required but no final exam. The deep dive, consisted of diving to 32 metres and then performing two tasks, the first is to open an egg under water, and to see how under pressure the egg preserves its shape, you can play with it and push it around and it will still retain its spherical shape, and does not go all over the place, the second is to do a mental exercise to demonstrate that the mind works slower and is less sharp at such depth , the first was a difficult multiplication exercise which actually I did correctly, the second was to write the name of the Colombian president backward, but I did not know the name of the Colombian president, so I could not do the exercise, anyway my mind seamed to still work fine at that depth, they would have to take me deeper to make me stupid.


The current dive involved diving in a strong current, but the current was not that strong in the site when we dived, but I did see a huge one meter long lobster. The third dive was the night dive, the night dive offers the opportunity to see some see animals and plants that only come out in the night, I saw some tiny sea horses, some big fish, and other exotic animals and plants which I don't remember their names, and a lot of plankton, which emits light during the night, we turned the flash lights out, and enjoyed the light show around, this time though I went with another instructor, who was filling in for my usual instructors, a young local guy, who was not bothered by the recommended safety rules, he skipped the safety check on the surface, and touched almost every animal we seen in the water, even tried to grab one fish by the tail, his behaviour was quite different from the other instructors at the school, Gerd, Mex and Marta, who are very professional and do it by the book.


Next was a wreck dive at 6 in the morning, which I did after only a couple of hours of sleep, I just could not sleep, so in the end I gave up, got up and studied the theory part and did the theoretical exercises, it was two nights in a row with insomnia. The wreck dive was to a ship sunk 15 years ago, at 28 meters max depth, the rumor is that it was a drug boat, anyway the fish and corals don't care and they already inhabited the ship, the tour involved looked around the ship, and even diving through wan of the passage ways. The next dive was the photography dive, they gave me a digital camera which also can take movies, I got better at it the more I was doing it, and I took some nice pictures, at the end the instructor took pictures and videos of me under the water before going up, the lack sleep combined with effort, the cold water, and not having any breakfast, finally go to me, and I was feeling nauseous, getting on the boat after the dive did not help either, since the sea was turbulent in that area, and it is worse when the boat is setting still waiting for the other divers, I ended up throwing up. The last dive was the navigation dive, the only dive I did not like, but it is necessary to complete the course and acquire experience with navigating using a compass, the excesses included diving in some pattern, straight line, square, triangle, and returning to the starting point, using the compass and counting kicks to navigate, there was a strong current, so I never managed to go back to the starting point, conclusion ? the theoretical navigation techniques don't really work in currents, somebody should come up with a better way to navigate underwater, GPS would be the first thing that springs to mind, maybe when the Galileo project is finished, we will see more GPS devices for diving navigation. Anyway after the dive, I had the choice of going with the boat to pick up the other divers, in a turbulent area, or stay in the water and wait for the boat to come back, I chose the later.


However I am going to get my advanced certificate today, after I hand out the remaining exercises, I am also invited to a party the diving school, but between doing the remaining exercises, updating my blog, and partying the night, when will I have time to make up for all the lost sleep, or just enjoy the sunset in Taganga.