Starfleet Adventures Pt. 1

We woke up early to make sure that we would have enough time to grab some breakfast before heading to the school. We stopped at the Golden Grill (not to be confused with the Golden Griddle back home, but very similar), and had a decent, though truly American breakfast – not much of a local flare by any means. We showed up at Starfleet and we met Eddie, who would be our instructor and dive master for the next few days. We assembled in the small classroom, but we had to wait for another girl to show up, to complete our class of four. Since she was running late, we started the intro without her, but she showed up a few minutes later, to a scalding by Eddie about respecting each other’s time while taking the course. And that was how we met Sara, who would be my diving buddy throughout our open water certification. I have been calling everyone ‘buddy’ for a while, bad expression since it does not help me remember people’s names, but in this case the buddy was completely justified, it is an official term in diving.

water dives in a pool, but Starfleet is different since it is right on the waterfront. So, after lunch, we returned to the school and started the practical aspect of the course – in order to continue on,We spent the morning watching the first two modules on DVD, then reviewing the information with Eddie, and completing our quizzes. We learned the basics behind equalization, the equipment that we will be using, and basic aqua laws. Most diving courses do the first confined we had to pass a swim test and a treading water test. I think I am making it sound easier than it actually was, since it took us a while to swim to the water slide and back, twice, then spend 10 minutes just treading water, but luckily we all passed, so we got back onto the dock and went to collect our equipment. Eddie took his time explaining to us every piece of equipment that we would be using, and all the rules that came along with it (for example, never leave your tank standing with the BCD attached to it, since if it falls over it can damage it), and any infraction would be punished by having to buy him a drink. He tried to fool us into getting a few free drinks, but we didn’t fall for it. So, on our first day of the course, we found ourselves decked out in wetsuits and looking like professionals with all of our gear, though we were just learning how to use it. After one last final check, we flipped over backwards from the boat and found ourselves underwater.

Words cannot explain the first few minutes of sitting at the bottom, getting used to the regulator and breathing normally while watching fish swim by and the boats overhead. It is overwhelming to feel almost suspended in water, as if the laws of gravity seem to be bent. Once we got used to our new surroundings, Eddie gathered all of us in a semi circle, and we started to do our exercises; though hopefully we would never have to be in a position to use them, we learned what to do if the regulator comes out of your mouth, how to clear water from the goggles, and we slowly started to learn the various signals we needed to use to communicate under water, since talking is impossible. After the confined dives, we returned to the surface, cleaned our equipment with fresh water, and put everything away for the following day. The rest of our evening was pretty quiet again, since we still had a lot of reading to do, and it is never a good idea to go out and drink before a dive (which I learned later firsthand).

The following morning, as we arrived at Starfleet, we had to grab our equipment right away, and we suited up for our first two open water dives. The four of us and Eddie hopped into a boat, and we took an short 15 minute boat ride to our first site: The Wreck. This is a ship than was sunk on purpose off the coast of the island for diving purposes. We got really excited that we would be seeing a wreck on our first dive, and couldn’t wait to get into the water. We got to the site, anchored the boat, and put on all of our gear. For the first dive, there were no exercises to do, just simply get used to the open water environment and have fun with it. With a backwards flip, we found ourselves floating in the water, thanks to the air in the BCD (buoyancy control device) vest. We teamed up with our buddy, did a cross check, and if a final okay, we let the air out of the vest and started descending. We were only a few meters under the water, but it was perfect as it gave us time to equalize the pressure and get used to being under water. We swam around the wreck and then continued on, hovering about a meter about the corals at the bottom. Everything under water seems to happen in slow motion, with no rush to get anywhere; we would often stop to admire a coral or a school of fish. As we became more comfortable with the 360 degrees of possibilities, I started doing tumbles and flipping from side to side, which was another way of experiencing the freedom and weightlessness of the underwater environment. Almost an hour had gone by in no time, and I was the first one to run low on air, so Eddie gave us all the thumbs up sign, which in diving means ‘let’s go up’ versus okay (never make that mistake or your dive will be over before you know it!). We reached the surface and headed towards the boat, where apparently I still have so work to do learning how to hop into it from the water, though after a few tries and a less than graceful entrance I made it on board.

But the fun was just beginning. We returned to Starfleet for about a half an hour break, enough time to relax for a bit, have a coffee and a smoke, and most importantly change our airtanks. We loaded the boat again, and this time we went to ‘Grandma’s Garden’ a different site for our second dive. As we were setting up, I turned on the air valve, looked at it and realized that it filled only three quarters of the way, even though it had the cap on to indicate that the tube was full. Lesson learned to always check your gauges before getting in the boat. Once we got to the site and the anchor was set, Eddie took all of our equipment and threw it into the water. We did give him a funny look until he explained that we needed to also practice getting into all of our gear while in the water. This ended up being a much easier way to get suited up, so we all agreed that it we would be using this method from that point on. Once we were ready to go, we got the green light signal and started descending. Once on the ocean floor, we kneeled down and went through some technical exercises. We took turns performing all the tasks that Eddie was demonstrating, and he was very patient with us, watching us and asking us to repeat the exercise until he had it down pat. As we were doing this, a curious fish kept on approaching us, and Eddie scared it away with a few burst of air – later we learned that it was a shark sucker, a small fish that attaches itself onto bigger ones (hence the name) and is similar to a leach, so it was better that it stayed away. With all the technical stuff behind us, we enjoyed the rest of the diving by taking ‘a stroll’ through Grandma’s Garden, admiring more corals and more fish than in the morning at the ship wreck. The underwater world never ceases to amaze me, and the more dives I get under my belt, the more I fall in love with it.

to clean and store our equipment. We took a break for lunch, and all four of us decided to go back to Lily’s Café, home of the ‘Killin Me Man Sauce’. We were already starving from spending the entire morning in the water, and we had to wait for a while for our food to be prepared. Our stomachs were growling by the time we got our sandwiches, but it was well worth the wait. Tasty homemade bread, with lots of fresh veggies and choice of meat, all complete with their famous spicy sauce – a bit pricey but worth every penny. We were lucky that we didn’t have to go back diving again, since I think we wouldWe returned at Starfleet after the second dive, and again had have gone straight to the bottom. In the afternoon, we sped through modules 3, 4 and 5, and we finished the day off, as we were ‘dismissed’ so that we can go home and study for the exam the next morning. Back at the hostel, I ended up staying up a bit later than Eric and Kellie, and once I finished my readings from the manual, I went back to the book I had been enjoying for the last few days. While I was reading in one of the hammocks in the front of the hotel, I heard a group of people arguing loudly on the street. Turns out it was a group of English guys who apparently, lacking a state of soberness, had punched a dent in a local’s car. The police then got involved, and the incident wrapped up with them having their passports recorded in case the guy wanted to press charges. Needless to say, they were less than happy as they entered the hostel, and the onslaught on profanity seemed to know no limits. I left them to their arguments and went to sleep.

The last morning of our course, we finished the last quizzes, and then Eddie took us though the diving tables, so that we can learn how much nitrogen was in our body depending on the length and depth of the dive, in order to determine the safe surface time between dives. At first the tables seemed really foreign, but everything became clear once it was explained to us. We all grasped the concepts behind it, and then we were ready for the final exam – 50 questions, multiple choice, with a mandatory pass rate of 75% - if you don’t pass you don’t get your certification or your money back. But we all passed it without any problems, and we set up our equipment for the afternoon dives. We had two more to do, to finish off the course, including using a compass and the emergency surfacing measures. For the first of the two dives, we went to ‘The Garden’ where we saw even more corals and schools of fish. I had a few buoyancy issues this time, and at one point I overestimated the amount of air I needed in my vest and I found myself rising to the surface in no time – luckily we weren’t that deep so it didn’t really cause any problems, but it taught me to have a bit more patience. Again, after getting the exercises out of the way, we were free to enjoy the world around us. After we surfaced, we returned to Starfleet to change tanks (did check it this time), and we went to Isla Cristobal for our last dive of the day. One the boat we met up with a really nice couple from South Carolina (I think), who lived part of the time in Bocas, and who were working on higher diving specialties. This was the furthest dive we had done from Isla Colon, and it took a while to get there, almost half an hour. We had to do our last few exercises, including how to find our way back to Eddie using an underwater compass. I am sure that the current was fairly strong at this site, since we ended up running out of air before we could return to the boat, so we surfaced a bit further away than anticipated, but luckily the boat driver caught on and came to meet us where we were. The unfortunate part was that we didn’t get to finish the last task, the emergency ascent when oxygen runs out. We took the boat ride back to Bocas, and along the way we were lucky enough to see a group of dolphins swimming right by our boat. We stopped for a while and marveled at them, since they were closer to us than the ones we saw a few days before at dolphin bay. We returned to Starfleet, where we changed our tanks and dove right off the dock to complete the last task. We provided quite the dinner entertainment for all the people at the waterside restaurants. By the time we finished everything, it was almost getting dark, so we put everything away and went to change and have dinner. We made plans with Eddie to get together later on that evening to celebrate our graduation and to thank him for an excellent job.