about life in Bocas. We learned a lot about Eddie as an instructor and as a person. It seems like we really lucked out: Eddie is the most senior instructor at Starfleet, having taught more than 600 certifications. He also teaches all the higher certifications, not just open water, and also trains other instructors as well, from all over the world. He also shared a lot of his personal life, telling us about his 9 year old son (Eddie is only 25) and his 4 year old daughter, and told us in detail about the time when his house burnt down – apparently once the firemen showed up, they realized that their water tank was empty, so by the time they got their act together 3 houses
burnt to the ground. He has recently finished rebuilding his house, and now he is looking for tenants to rent out two separate apartments within it. Aside from beers, we had a few tequila shots (Eddie seems to like those!), and after we each got one round, when it came to Sara’s turn, she asked him to go get the drinks from the bar. She gave him a $20 bill, and he returned a few minutes later with drinks in his hand and still with the $20 bill – it seems that as a local you get certain privileges, including getting free drinks when you are well known within the city. No complaints on either side!We wrapped up the night pretty early, since the next day we were scheduled to do our two free dives. That was going to be Kellie and Eric’s last day in Bocas, so the people at Starfleet had to do some shuffling around to squeeze us in. We showed up on time at the dive centre, and there was no sign of Eddie – this was particularly amusing since he gave Sara a hard time about being late the first day. A good half hour later, one of the other dive masters went to Eddie’s
house to find out what was going on, and returned with Eddie in tow, though looking a bit disheveled. It turns out that he went out and continued partying for long after we went to sleep – he stayed at Barco Hundido until it closed and everyone moved to the party boat. Apparently he didn’t make it home until close to 6am, and even then he couldn’t go to sleep since he had some explaining to do to his wife. So as he walked in to Starfleet, he told us right away that he was in no condition to dive and that we would simply be our boat driver. By this point we were already certified, so we could go in the open water by ourselves, but still it would have been nice to
have him join us. We borrowed the underwater camera from Starfleet and got ready for our dive. We met Ozzie, a nice Turkish girl who now lives in Bocas, who would be our divemaster for the trip. We returned to the ‘Playground’, and spent most of our dive taking pictures underwater of both the corals and the fish, as well as taking pictures and videos of ourselves clowning around for the camera. As usual, I was the first one to go through my tank of oxygen, so I let Ozzie know and she gave me the go-ahead to surface. As I almost completed my ascent I saw lots of droplets of water from overhead and realized that it was raining on the surface. As soon as I was out, I
orientated myself using the reference point, then I saw the boat in the distance. I started swimming towards it, but within a minute, the rain turned into a downpour and the visibility was reduced to almost zero. I lost sight of the boat and the shoreline, and I was doing my best to still swim in a straight line, but without any point of reference I could have been swimming in circles for all I know.Luckily Eddie saw me surfacing and brought the boat to meet me; I got in a waited for the others to come up as well; meanwhile the rain was really coming down and I realized that the protection of
the wet suit only works to control body temperature underwater. In the boat I was starting to shiver and get really cold, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the boat ride back. Once everyone was on board, we started to cross the bay to return to Bocas, with no visibility, and each raindrop feeling like needles piercing the skin. To make things even better, one of the other instructors joined Eddie in the back and started bailing the excess water from the boat, a not-so-encouraging sight, though very normal around here. Back at Starfleet, we all felt miserable, wet and cold; there was talk about returning for a second dive, but both Eric and
Kellie had had enough and were done for the day. At first I wanted to return to the water, but the more I thought about it, the less of a good idea it seemed. Not only that, but I started to get a bad headache, and I wasn’t sure whether it was a hangover from the night before or the effects of too much nitrogen in my system. Since it was only getting worse and not better, I bailed out of the second dive, knowing that I still had a few more days in Bocas and that I would get another chance to complete it.We also skipped breakfast to make sure we got to Starfleet on time, so as soon as we put everything
away, we went to a Euro-Deli place that had amazing fresh sandwiches to grab some lunch. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fight off the headache, which only went away by the time it got dark. We went back into town so that Eric and I could get another taste of the Caribbean burgers, then we returned to the Backpackers place so that they can get ready for their departure the next day. As we were hanging out at the hostel in the evening, I found out that they were sharing their dorm with a guy who was traveling with a dog. Little did I know that the dog was Suzie and her owner Brendan, who would become my travel companion, along with his friends, for the next week or so.
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