Diving on Bocas

Saturday 17th

So today I got to do my first dives! First place we went to was a place called mangrove point. The visibility wasn't so good and it was very green. The coral seemed healthy though although they have a problem with Lion Fish as they aren't native to those parts, nothing eats them and they eat the coral damaging it. We only saw one though amongst a pretty coral stack.

I got some great pictures of Neptune (Alfred's new beanie boo) on the bottom of the ocean and then emailed them to him pretending I'd found him and he was coming Travelling round Central America with me. Apparently Alfred was confused because I'd written them from Neptune, but he did take it in and told his Dad (Owen) I'd found one on the bottom of the ocean. His first concern was whether the toy was for him, because of course he'd like a new beanie boo!

In the evening we did an awesome night dive! I did it with Frank and Cahwill and then our Dive master JC and another girl. Unlike with my first night dive in Koh Tao , where there were loads of schools (there's 55 on one small island the size of Colon in Bocas) it was just us 5 in the pitch black darkness swimming around the reef and a shipwreck! Cahwill told me the last time he did this a nurse shark just appeared suddenly Infront of his torch and then turned. Sadly nothing so interesting happened this time! It was beautiful seeing the real colours of the reef with our torch lights and the phosphorescence in the darkness...I made some videos of it im going to put on a Vimeo account.

I moved into Cahwill's after diving cause I didn't wanna have to stay in a dorm in hostel, cause other than the expense of it (you can't get anywhere less than $15) its such a hassle when you have to creep around people, and get stuff out of your locker quietly in the morning, trying not to rustle any plastic bags too much (they're the worse for disturbing people!) and then you drop or loose shit because it's dark and you couldn't see what you were doing. And also what you want from your locker is always in the bottom of some bag so you gotta get everything out and go through it, while trying to be really really quiet! And then if your me, you'll need to go back in your locker about 15 times cause you keep remembering something you should have got! Yeah so shared dorms in hostels aren't for me! Also I prefer the couch surfing experience anyways as I like meeting locals.

After we went to this Reggae party Cahwill was doing his fire show at. It was really good but I didn't like the party cause It was full of Americans, and it was too macho straight, bullshit Reggae...

For all the reasons I didn't like the Reggae party I decided almost immediately I wasn't gonna stop in Bocas for long, as Bocas was too expensive and too touristy for me. I mean the Island has an airport that brings in hoards of Americans everyday...it's a beautiful place but not a backpackers paradise.