Scuba Groupie

My last week in Bocas was amazing! Extremely sad to be leaving but I'll give some final thoughts on that later.

I have spent more time and money than I care to admit at La Buga Dive, but every time I went there I was welcomed with open arms and a great place to hang out. My initial plan was to only get my Open Water Certification, but because I was there so much Tony and Leandro suggested to me one day that I should consider doing my Advanced Open Water. They were extremely good salesmen and the only con I could think of was that it would cost me more money, so after twisting my arm (very gently) I agreed to do it. Such a great decision! To complete this certification I needed to complete 5 adventure dives and although they were challenging, they were also tons of fun! The 5 I chose/were chosen for me were: Deep Diving, Navigational Diving, Night Diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, and AWARE Fish ID. Don't worry, for you non-scuba types I'll explain.

Deep Dive: This one's somewhat self-explanatory, we went deeper than I had ever gone before. As an Open Water diver the deepest I could go was 18m, but on this dive we went down to about 30m. The coolest part about this dive was noticing when the laws of physics started to take over. By the time we reached the bottom I could no longer see the colours red and orange, I may or may not have thought a tomato was a pepper. At this depth you could really feel the water pressure change as well. I had read this would happen but until you actually feel it for yourself, there is no way to describe it. Normally I have no issues breathing through the respirator, but at this depth it felt like I had to really work to be able to breathe. That initial sensation was a bit scary but that feeling went away after a short period of time. The last thing we did down here was crack open a couple of eggs, which seems very simple but at this pressure the yolk stays somewhat solid. Watching an egg spin underwater was more entertaining than I care to admit.

Navigational Diving: So much harder than you think it would be. I needed to swim in a square and then swim straight along one heading then straight back. The first time I attempted both of these skills I failed, horribly, Leandro needed to come find me to do them again. I've needed to use a compass before but with very little points of reference underwater it was so much more difficult. Although I will probably never lead a dive myself, I now have huge amounts of respect for the dive masters at La Buga, because 9 times out of 10 we would finish the dive right beside the boat and I would have no idea where I was.

Night Diving: The only skill I needed to perform of this dive was swim away from the group in one direction and then swim back to the group. Farily simple and once this was complete it was diving like normal. This dive was fairly boring to begin with but then all of a sudden we saw tons of marine life. We saw tons of fish I'd seen before (big pufferfish, trumpetfish, drummerfish, lobster, crabs), when we happened across a sea turtle! I was so excited to see it, I didn't even think our lights would disturb it until Leon turned off my flashlight, we had woken up the little guy from his sleep. We followed it (I'm fairly certain it was a hawks-bill) for a little bit using a red light and there were more than a few envious people back at the shop when we got there. Highlight of my diving in Bocas, quite possibly.

Peak Performance Bouyancy: The goal of this dive was to only use your breath to control your position in the water. Any use of hands and you had to start the skill over. Some of them were quite easy for me, hovering in place and swimming through a hoop, but others were extremely difficult. Trying to touch your mask to a stick on the bottom of the ocean or look at a piece of coral close up, while not using your hands for balance, was the most difficult skill I had to do throughout both dive courses. I was glad I had somewhat mastered this skill though, as during this dive, Leandro found the tiniest little seahorse hidden among the coral. If I would have had a pocket to put it in, I would have...

Fish ID: This dive was fun because I got to learn all the names of the common fish that I had seen everytime I went out diving or snorkeling. On this dive I learned that male parrotfish will change their sex if there is a shortage of females, Mother Nature does some crazy things. I discovered that I would personally rather look at the fish and watch what they are doing for curiosity's sake rather than to gain information, way more entertaining that way. The last new creature we found on this dive was a spotted eel, was kind of gross looking, but still neat to find.

Sometimes the best things in life aren't planned. It didn't even cross my mind to do my Advanced Open Water but I am so glad I did. I got to see a couple animals I have loved since I was a child and living in a land-locked province, it has always been on my bucket list to see these animals in the wild. Diving has definitely become my new addiction!

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