Cloudy Bocas del Toro

We've been in Bocas for a few days now, and it's been so grey! The weather has finally caught up with us after months of glorious sunshine! Well, were were supposed to be in Ecuador now, so it was just a matter of time before the wet season kicked in.

Crossing from Costa Rica was pretty easy. In fact it was pretty cool, crossing an old suspension bridge, to leave Costa Rica and enter Panama. From the border it was an hour in a minibus (we did it the easy, gringo way) to the port at Almirante and then a $4 boat ride over to Isla Colon.

We decided to stay there, in Bocas Town, instead of going to one of the other islands. It just seemed to make sense as Emily leaves before us and most of the dive schools are here. I am doing my Advanced Open Water and we have convinced Javi to do his Open Water!

It is a bit of a gringo town but we've managed to find a great little place called Restaurant Chitre, that serves tasty comida tipica for less than $4 a plate. That's cheap for Bocas!

Luckily, the crappy weather hasn't really affected underwater visibility here. And I don't have to do any exams for my advanced! So far I've done the obligatory Peak Performance Buoyancy and Underwater Navigation dives, as well as a Wreck dive and Underwater Photography dive. One more to go - Deep Dive, where we'll dive to depths of up to 40M. Ciaran is fun diving at the same time, but basically joining me on all the dives for my course, so the instructor has also had him swimming through hoops!

The dives have been good so far, especially the one we did at the Playground. My instructor is somewhat annoying though. He tried to charge me to use his camera for the Underwater Photography dive. He then decided he would let me us it for free, but I have to pay $10 if I want to keep the pictures. Fine. But during the photography dive he snatched the camera off me when we saw some squid, because he wanted to take pictures. Excellent instruction! Not. Luckily Javi's instructor seems really cool. I think Ciaran has it right when he says that my instructor Abner is a bit of a 'rogue element'!

This afternoon we went to Playa Estrella on the north west side of Isla Colon, something different for Emily's last day on the island. We were hoping for sun but it wasn't to be, so we all tucked into some seafood before checking out the star fish. There were so many! It's a shame the weather was rubbish as the beach looked like would have been the classic picture perfect Caribbean beach in the sunshine, with clear , shallow waters. Still, it was nice to get out of Bocas Town for a bit, and Emily had really wanted to come there with us before she left.

Tonight we're off to Aqua Lounge for a boozy send off for Emily. Six becomes four, becomes three!