After settling into our room and watching a spectacular sunset we wandered across the street to the Dive Stop Bar. We had heard the owner was from Colorado, which clearly meant we had to investigate. It was only 9pm, but closing time is 10pm, so the bar was mostly empty when we arrived. Caroline, a girl from Germany, was behind the bar, with Julie, Ben, and Tal as the only patrons. Meredith and I ordered a couple of local beers and soon joined in on the conversation. We had mentioned that we wanted to surf and Tal offered to give us lessons the following morning.
The conversation then turned to diving. Julie owned and Ben worked at the dive shop next door. I told them how I had gotten my open water certification last summer, but hadn’t been diving since. They responded with stories of amazing dives in Coiba, an UNESCO National Park an hour by boat from Santa Catalina. By this point it was well past 10pm, we said our goodbyes and told Tal we’d see him at 11am for our surf lesson. As we got back to the room I told Meredith I really wanted to dive. In fact I’d be willing to skip going to Santa Fe in the highlands to stay in the small beach town for some quality surfing and diving.
The following morning we hiked up to the Blue Zone to meet Tal who had just come back from the morning surf. We hiked down to Playa Estero to rent boards and try our luck on the smaller waves. Tal promised both of us that we’d be able to stand by the end of the lesson and he followed through. Offering pearls of wisdom such as "The ocean stops for no one" and "No paddle, no surf", and helping Meredith with swimsuit related difficulties Tal proved to be both an entertaining and informational surf instructor. Within the first hour both of us had successfully surfed. We stayed in the water for another hour before we were too tired and beat up from the waves.
That night we headed back the Blue Zone where Tal cooked us and two other backpackers dinner. It was delicious and Tal was hilarious. He’s from Israel, offering the odd mix of a veteran surfer with three years of military training. I was never quite sure what was going to come out of his mouth, but it was guaranteed to make us laugh. For example, the topic of gun control came up. This is always an interesting conversation since opinions usually run the whole spectrum. I mentioned that my climbing partners brought hand guns with us when we went camping, which I through was ridiculous. Tal's response: "Of course you have to bring a gun camping. You never know when an Arab is going to pop up." Probably not what my climbing partners had in mind, but interesting logic nonetheless. Meredith and I had forgotten our head lamps so the boys walked us back to Rolo’s, where we called it an early night so we could get up and dive the next morning.
At 8am the following morning we met Ben and our dive instructor Luis across the street at Coiba Dive Center. We piled into the boat with two stepsisters from Canada and set off for Coiba. The other girls were doing a three tank dive, while we were only doing two. During the first dive Meredith and I went snorkeling off of one of the smaller islands. Even snorkeling the amount of sea life was amazing. In addition to plenty of fish we saw a turtle and reef shark. After about an hour we boarded the ship and left for the second dive spot.
As this was Meredith’s first time diving she spent the second stop with Ben going over the basics. I went with Luis and the two girls. This was my first dive in exactly a year so it took me a while to acclimate to the new surroundings. I spent most of the first dive trying to stay buoyant and avoid bumping into my diving partners. By the second dive I was doing slightly better. During the two dives we saw lots and lots of fish, turtles, reef sharks, eels, lobsters, sea horses, a ray, octopuses, and starfish. There was even a crocodile named Tito where we stopped for lunch, although we didn't test our luck getting in the water with him. Even though it was an expensive dive it was well worth the price. That afternoon we returned to Santa Catalina only to find out that Tal had cut open his foot with his new machete and had been unsuccessfully trying to super glue it back together. Like I said, Tal's a funny guy.
After two days of sea, surf, and scuba Meredith and I boarded our bus back to Panama City. We’re scheduled to set sail from Portobelo on the 28th. We’ll spend three days at the beautiful San Blas islands before the 40+ hour passage to Cartagena. Seeing as I get sea sick it should be a very interesting adventure.
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