Last day of diving in Bocas

Sunday morning I got up all excited and ready for the dives. I said goodbye to Phil, though unknowingly, as I only found out he left upon my return. I showed up at Starfleet at 8:30 as scheduled, after a quick breakfast. Just like always, it was well after 10 that we got moving and motivated in the boat. I did my last two dives with the previous divemaster, Ozzie, who this time, brought her serious underwater camera. I made her promise that she would be sharing some of the pictures with me, so I can post them on the blog, and she did follow through on her promise. We got in the boat and headed towards the shipwreck, the first dive site that I experienced, except that this time we were doing a drift dive. This is a dive that is done against the current, thus being dropped off and picked up at different points. Though the visibility was not that great, the number of fish and marine life was astounding. Ozzie took lots of great shots, and unfortunately I was again the first one out of air; as I got back to the surface I was too exhausted to even try to jump in the boat, so I actually had to use the ladder for the first and last time.

We returned to Starfleet for a quick break, about 45 minutes, just enough to record our dive details and have a few smokes. Afterwards we switched air tanks, though Ozzie was proud of the fact she still had more than 2 thirds of the air from the first dive. Apparently, the more dives you do, the more you get used to the environment and the less air you end up using. We returned to the Coral Garden for the last dive, and this time we were lucky to have better weather, more sun and clearer visibility. The number of fish we saw was even greater than any other dive. It was a great finish to my experiences in Bocas, both above and under water. It finally came time to say goodbye to Starfleet, all the friends I have made there, Ozzie and especially Eddie, though I did promise him that I will return to visit him and Bocas within a few months at most. I picked up not only my PADI card, but also those of Kellie and Eric, as I had a feeling I was going to see them before their departure to the US in Alajuela.

I returned to the hostel by mid afternoon; I felt exhausted after the dives, though it was quite an accomplishment. The sun was out now, so I had the brilliant idea to head to a beach – I grabbed my towel and sunscreen and a book, and made my way back to the boat docks to catch a water taxi. On the way there I ran into Renaldo, who was a friend of Rohman’s, sleeping in the office of the hostel or in a hammock in the back. I spent some time with him over Semana Santa, and we had lengthy conversations considering his lack of English and my lack of Spanish. When he heard that I was planning on going to the beach, he said a single word to change my mind: Chitras! The dreaded sand fleas that had already chewed my lower legs – I had forgotten about them and that they come out in the late afternoon! So Renaldo managed to get my to change my mind, so I stayed with him while he was trying to sell jewelry and hats from his stand. For me this amounted to nothing more than people watching, but he was pretty dedicated to what he was doing, since he needed enough money to make his way back home to the mainland.

***Stevie story***

Eventually I made my way back to the hostel, where some decisions needed to be made. My original plan was to return to the east coast of Costa Rica, since I had breezed through Puerto Viejo and didn’t see Cahuita at all, before making my way back to the Central Valley. However, a much more enticing offer was presenting itself: Dana, Paula, Danne and Aaron were heading to Almirante the following morning, to meet up with Brendan and Audrey, not forgetting Suzie, to embark on a road trip with the van. The concept of not having to travel by bus was so exciting, not to mention the great time that I was having within the group, that I just had to alter my plans, and join in on the road trip. Once the decision was made, we headed out for some Caribbean burgers and then we wanted to have one last night in the bars in Bocas. We arrived at the Iguana bar to find it absolutely deserted… we must have doubled the number of patrons when we walked in. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the place was dead, so we headed to Barco Hundido, the place where there was always something happening. To our complete shock, this was empty, too – we were starting to realize that the weekend was coming to an end, and that many people had already left the town, in order to resume their regular lives. Apparently the boats to Chinguaola and Almirante were booked solid, and now we got to see the way things were after a long weekend. We didn’t spend that much time there, so we just returned to the hostel, where we packed and did some last minute preparations. It was already starting to feel weird knowing that I would leave the following morning, since I had spent the last two weeks in the same place and around the same people. I had grown accustomed to the reality of Bocas, and a part of me was sad to leave that behind.