A Scuba Review

Bocas del Toro, Panama (Late October/Early Nov.)

It's Chinese to Me.

我是美国人。我不是英国人。 我喝啤酒还是喝茶。请给我啤酒！
我要日国车。我没有车，太贵了。我不常学习汉语。汉语太难。
我也要写十个书。不，我不写书， 我太忙。

I have one last Chinese class, so I'm catching up after erasing everything I learned from my memory banks and doing my final assignment above...hence I'm neglecting to update this space. 你们挨？

Getting High Under the Ocean (Ja Mon, Jah Rules the Deep)

It's Independence Day in Panamá, and there are flags festooning the streets of Bocas del Toro. It's a curious independence as mentioned in the paper today, because it was dependent on U.S. naval intervention (and the subsequent annexation, "lease" of the canal zone), although there were separatist movements in Panamá dating back 1830. There was a parade earlier with marching bands, and tonight should be interesting, although it's been raining, why I'm trying to stay dry by writing. No fireworks that I've seen yet, just noisemakers for sale, so I'm not sure if that's part of the fiesta.

So, back to the dives, since that's literally all I've done this week besides eat at good restaurants and watch cable. It's taken until today that I've started to do that feeling-relaxed vacation thing.

As part of the Advanced Open Water certification, my first dive was the deep dive, to 29.4 meters, or approximately 96 feet. I scarcely remember the fauna we saw, but part of the dive was an experiment that closely relates to the topic of my "I watch too much teevee."

The dive instructor E. wrote on a slate a multiple-digit multiplication problem and an addition problem, which I was to attempt at that depth. I got the multiplication problem wrong, the addition right, and beat E. at best-of-two tic-tac-toe.

Where I started to notice the effects of nitrogen narcosis, was when E. wrote "Escriba su dirección al reves." I found that hilariously funny for no reason, laughing through my regulator, and proceeded to write the mirror image letters for my address. Yep, folks, I was high on nitro gas.

A Man without a Plan in Panama

I arrived in Panama City around 10:30pm or so on Saturday, a little late because the flight had to go around the hurricane in Nicaragua and there was some passenger manifest issue. Going through customs and passport was pretty painless, and then I got a cab, or rather I let a taxi cab driver convince me to go (after not getting an answer, calling a hotel from a guide). Not a good idea in general, but a strange thing occurs when I go without sleep for very long, I get to be super-talkative and can't shut-up, and revved up in general, and so I took it as an opportunity to blabber on in Spanish for thirty minutes as we went to whatever hotel was giving the taxi driver a cut. Pretty wretched place, but I needed to get to sleep as soon as possible so I could wake up and decide what to do.

The taxi driver, 50-something, said that although Panamanians like Americans, they don't like the U.S. government, although I didn't pay much attention to his elaboration. It's been interesting to see the nationalism on display, as the "independence" day celebrations are tomorrow (102 years ago Panama seperated from Colombia). Also, W. visits on the day that I'm leaving, and I heard a waitress spout off about his visit at breakfast today.

On Sunday, after walking around wherever the taxi winds had taken me, and seeing that it wasn't all that a pedestrian-friendly city (at least in that area, still have no idea where I was) I decided I would go ahead and take a flight to Boca del Toro in a prop plane. I had a good 3 dollar breakfast of Jello, fruit and these chicken empanada pastry things that I so love, at a supermarket cafeteria. I'm going to try to find a more interesting area to stay in when I go back on Friday, even if I have to pay a fair amount. I've decided it's not a good sign when your hair starts to itch after you stay at a junky place. To say the least. Generally, takes more time to find cheap, clean lodgings than I have when it's only a week's trip.

It was cool flying in a prop plane, because it flies lower and you can see more of what you are flying over. I took some airborne pics that will hopefully come out. I was excited to be able to see through the water and see the coral as we were landing in the airport in the town of Boca del Toro on the Isla Colon. My first impressions was that I could kick back here indefinitely. I feel my blood pressure has dropped twenty points just with the ambiance. Which is kind of strange, as it's a party town (nothing else to do) and I don't know the meaning of the word party. I seem to have more people-watched.

Course, always out of synch, I've been studying amidst the carnival. Earlier this week, I had been studying for my advanced open water certification, which I successfully completed today. The dive center has thrown in two free tank dives tomorrow, which means I need to wait 24 hours before flying again, hence leaving on Friday.

I'll relay my diving exploits once I see if the underwater photos I took come out. But, truthfully, diving here was a bit of a let-down, in the quantities and quality of sea-life (although to give them the benefit of the doubt there could be a seasonal quality to it, e.g. sometimes there's turtles). I almost was debating whether I would take the dive center up on the free dive offer, but decided I needed the practice since it may be a few months before I dive again.