150 kabillion animals!

We arrived in Santa Catalina after 7 hours and four different buses. It was grey, it had rained the whole way.

We headed for Oasis Surf Camp but as we neared the end of the 2km walk to it, the owner pulled up and told us he only had space in his dorm, with no WiFi. Normally not a biggie but we really wanted to try and plan Panama City and the time when Sal is over.

It was getting dark, so we retraced our steps and ended up at Santa Catalina Surfside Inn. What a dive. We had a private room but what a dump. So dirty, and even having mozzie screens on the window, the room was teeming with them. It gets better. No water in the room, either! None in the toilet, shower or tap. Exactly what you want after 7 hours in minivans.

After a hellish night sweating away in the mozzie pit we paid $20 instead of $33 (they were lucky to get that! In Guatemala that would get you a top notch privado!) and got the hell out of there, upgrading to Sherlley's Cabanas, which are a million times nicer. Sherlley is a doll too.

By the time we'd gotten out of the mozzie pit it was too late to do anything, so we chilled out, did a bit of planning for Peru and had a mooch about town. The restaurant we wanted to go to was closed, so we made tuna mayo sarnies for dinner. Do you know, they tasted SO GOOD and healthy! Even on the not-so-tasty sweet bread they have here. You know, the kind like the 'Bimbo' bread you get in Spain.

The amazing pen knife comes in handy once more!

So, today we went scuba diving with Coiba Dive Centre. Oh em geeeeee, we saw like, 150 kabillion animals! We did three dives and on each one we saw a number of white tip reef sharks, lots of moray eels, puffer fish, frog fish and large schools of fish. It was incredible.

Drying off with the birds

Break for lunch on Coiba island

I was expecting to be scared when I saw the sharks and  instinctively grabbed Ciaran's hand, though I then let go of it without even realising. Obviously it helped that I knew that reef sharks don't attack humans, but they were just so graceful in the water, I was distracted by them gliding effortlessly through it. They are beauts. After the first time I just wanted to see more and more of them! The second dive had really strong currents, so it was a bit of hard work and quite tiring. Ciaran had some problems with his mask and regulator on the third dive, but it was still good, with lots of sharks and two turtles!

I'm loving diving. It feels like each time I go diving I learn something new about how it works. Each time is different in terms of buoyancy. Sometimes I feel perfectly buoyant and I glide through the water. Other times, like today, I sink to the bottom and worry about unseen moray eels biting my fingers off, so I have to add air to my BCD, and then when we lose depth I start shooting upwards because that air expands the higher we go. It's different every time and I love it!

Today ended perfectly. It was about an hour's boat ride back from Coiba to Santa Catalina and the sun had come out. On the way back there were 2 pods of dolphins and a green sea turtle and the captain circled the boat so we could have a closer look. Even after swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura, it was so exciting to see them swimming near the boat.

Well worth the off-the-beaten-track trip!