round three costa rica blog

Tuesday 6/14





We woke up and got our sheeyit together and went to aquacenter to dive (sorry no pictures). The shop was at the back of a hotel on a black sand beach. We jumped in a small outboard (jaime, darren, vic, and I and two other people). Headed out about 150 yards to the dive boat where all our tanks, and bcd vests were waiting. It took us about 1/2 hour to get to the spot at Las Catalinas islands. Go figure not the california catalina island but nice. We didn't get any pics of it, why I dunno. I think vic was concentrating on the horizon. The rock formations of these islands was fantastic, they were large rocks, the biggest about 75-80 feet out of the water and maybe as big as a football field. This was the spot of our first dive. We hit the water, I don't remember if this is where vic barfed a good portion or before the 2nd dive but it was plenty of chum for the fish. Water was about 86 degrees but visibility was pretty low (30 ft) because of the passing storm. The decent was good hitting 72 feet with about 3000psi of air. Jaimes bcd didn't work as well but we figured it out and she was able to go down. I was fine with a rash guard and shorts minus a few cuts from hitting rocks and coral at the bottom. Saw a ton of tropical fish, a bunch from Finding nemo, except clown fish. Tuna, star fish, angel fish, puffer fish, eels, something like a tuna but alot longer and in apretty big school. We saw 4 white tipped sharks, probably anywhere between 4-5 ft. They just chilled at the bottom and one paced then they both left. Alot of coral, but not nearly enough. I was checking out a bunch of fish at the bottom that were blending in but need a fish guide to tell you what they were. Safe to say a lot of fish, cool underwater canyons and fall offs. There were thermal clines that the water temp changes drastically and you swim aggressively and don't move and then all of a sudden you take off when the cline pushes the other way and you go about 3 times as fast as you're used to. I was still hampered by a bit of a cold and had a hard time equalizing the pressure in my head. Normally the pressure on the outside of your head is greater at depth, but with my cold the pressure inside my head was greater and i was still trying to equalize in a conventional manner and that swelled my sinuses badly and when I ascended my sinuses popped and the pain was pretty bad and I couldn't see for about a minute. I got to the surface and vic let me know that my mask was full of blood. I took it off and blew and alot more came out. Couldn't hear well, but could hear. Dive instructors checked me quickly and I rested on the boat before the next dive. The pain subsided enough for me to make another dive which was fantastic until the ascent which didn't hurt as bad as the first but equal amounts of blood so I was done. We went ashore and geared down and went and grabbed sandwiches from Victorias and headed home, I was pretty beat and went back and relaxed at the house. Didn't do much the rest of the day. I had alot of water in my ears and I swam a little. I took a swim at night by myself tonight and the furthur out I got the more lights in the water i saw. It was weird but as I swam I saw thousands of little green lights and if i splashed my hand into the water it was like a little firework. I made it out pretty far and started splashing pretty wildly as the more I did this the more the bio-luminescence would shine. It was crazy. Little light up plankton gave me a pretty good show. I was excited but the travel mates were not. Go figure. Never did get anyone to night swim with me, even with bad ears and blowing blood out of my nose the rest of the trip. Booooooo on them.