12/05/2019 – Scuba dive, Taganga, Colombia

Alarms went off at 06:00, and we were outside the dive centre (called Poseidon dive centre, a recommendation from the Lonely planet) before 07:00, as planned. It was only a block away from our hostel so it was pretty convenient. Josh had dreamt he was run over by a bus in his angst of the dive today and was the most nervous I have ever known him about anything, I would say it was only 50/50 that he was going to actually go through with the dive until he got in the pool with the gear on! I definitely had butterflies in my stomach too. We got shown in to the centre and introduced to our instructor. We were signed up to the discovery course, which gives you a practice dive in the pool followed by two open water dives. It ended up just Josh and I in our group so we basically had a private course, absolute result! We got handed some PADI dive brochures to read through and shown our kit before hopping in the pool and getting started! Apparently this is the only dive centre in the village with their own practice pool. Nervous would be an understatement but the pool practice definitely helped and it was so much fun! We had about an hour at the centre in total, in the pool, going through some theory, the kit etc, before we put our wetsuits on and were walking down to the beach.

Practice pool area.

We climbed onto the catamaran speed boat and whizzed out of the bay to a reef on the coast of the Tayrona National Park.

On our way to the drop off point!

We jumped off the boat and went down with our instructor to about 8 metres. Joshy struggled to get a good seal on his mask so ended up swapping and getting the instructors own mask! It was absolutely amazing (I would say breathtaking but you aren’t allowed to stop breathing because of the water pressure on the lungs!) The colours of the reef and also of the fish were completely otherworldly, it is mad to think these iridescent colours occur naturally on this earth. We saw absolutely loads of coral and fish and a crab and eels and a seahorse even, it was completely magical! The fish have such funny different characteristics like the pouted lips, they almost look like they are from a cartoon. After 40 minutes we ascended and got back onto the dive boat. We had some juice and a snack and moved to another area in the park for our second dive. We hopped in and descended and reached a sheer drop in the coral, which we followed down to the sea floor. It was such a surreal moment seeing and following that drop! We went down to 12metres on this dive. After a few minutes Josh was a good 6 metres above the instructor and I and it seemed like something was wrong so we ended up ascending together. Josh had had a load of sea water up his mask again and so he got himself sorted out and then we all descended down the sheer drop again. At the bottom of the drop is an angel statue, which we later learned is in memory of one of the scuba instructors’ son who passed away. Seeing all that life under the ocean that is usually so invisible to us is such an eye opener and such a reminder that we need to do more to help the planet! As Josh said, it really is a world that we only usually access through t.v. documentaries, it is so different when you see it with your own two eyes! Josh and I absolutely loved the whole experience, I wish we were staying longer so we could do the open water PADI course! Also the rumours are true, it really is so cheap here. I don’t know what it would usually cost to do the session we did but I do know that £75 each seems an absolute steal! We came back ashore, showered and got our certificates from the instructor. Apparently the dive centre will put a load of pictures up from today on their facebook page for us to download, so we will be keeping track of that to put on the blog!

OMG, Suber diving!

The only decent photo of the wildlife we saw.

Then we went back to our trusty beachfront café and had a rice/lentil/chicken lunch before going back to our hostel to chill for half an hour. We went for a nice iced latte and I even fell asleep in the cafes hammock for a little while before we strolled up and down the beach. It was such a nice atmosphere, blue skies (finally!) lots of people swimming in the sea, lots of music and dancing. It feels weirdly vibey for a Sunday night, there were even some fireworks this evening, for a reason unknown to us! We went back to the hostel showered and changed then went down to the beach to catch the sunset. It was very pretty but nothing like a couple of nights ago (didn’t have the camera on us for that one.)

This evenings sunset.

Then we went to a hostel restaurant called Divanga, no. 2 on trip advisor. We had an absolutely delicious Thai style chicken curry followed by a homemade brownie. The hostel felt very young and we even heard some English people there, the total opposite of our quiet family casa style hostel we are staying in! We walked back through the streets that seem to still be hyped for some reason, and went to our room to sort our things and get ready for travel day tomorrow!