Bocas the Toro with arrival

27.3. At breakfast and coffee, we wait for the next shuttle to Bocas. This one is definitely 40 minutes late, but it's not a big deal. The 4-hour journey to Almirante, where we board the water taxi, passes relatively quickly, including a bathroom break. After arriving on Colon, the main island, we check in at the dive shop to confirm tomorrow's dives. Then we walk for about 20 minutes to our hostel at the other end of the city. The owner wants to charge us for an extra night, but it's his own fault for not seeing our booking change on Booking.com. Colon has a Caribbean vibe and puts a smile on our faces as we toast to the upcoming days with beer and dinner. 28.3. Today my PADI Advanced course starts! It begins with carrying gas tanks and assembling all the equipment on my own. It feels good, as dive centers often take over these tasks, leading to a loss of important knowledge. Doing it myself is the best way! After that, we go for the first dive: underwater navigation. Marie, a young woman from France, and I do the certification together. Once we reach the bottom, we have to swim a precise line using the compass (counting kicks) and then swim a square. I really enjoy doing this. The second dive is fish identification. We get a card with local fish and a notebook. We have to write down the fish we see and estimate their quantity using a pencil. I've never written underwater before... it's also a nice task. In the afternoon, we go home and rest for a bit. In the evening, we go for the third dive: night diving. I love it! The underwater world illuminated by a flashlight is something else. Some fish are "sleeping" and just "lying" around ;) others, which are hardly visible during the day, are very active. We even dive under a sunken catamaran - very exciting! Overall, I find diving at night even more meditative than during the day, it's just special and beautiful. Roman is waiting for me at the dock. I happily tell him about my experiences. Feeling happy, excited, and tired at the same time, I fall into bed. 29.3. This morning, we do the fourth dive: deep dive - which means diving deeper than 30 meters. Roman joins me for this one too. Deep diving is not inherently more difficult than "regular deep diving." However, one must be aware that you can experience nitrogen narcosis: feeling dizzy or braver than you should - similar to being drunk! And that's when it becomes clear that it could be very dangerous. Ivan, our dive instructor, shows us how the pressure changes at this depth using a chicken egg. Once cracked open, the egg white remains as a compact mass around the yolk, and you can "play" with it like a ball. Even if it falls to the bottom, the egg remains stable, it's fascinating to see. After that, Marie and I have to solve written tasks at depth: calculations and answering questions - things that we wouldn't be able to do if we were experiencing nitrogen narcosis. Once we successfully complete this, we do the last dive: wreck diving. We visit the sunken catamaran once again. It has many large schools of fish and is beautifully overgrown with corals. We swim through the window openings, always careful not to touch anything. And so, the physical part of my Advanced course comes to an end. In the afternoon, I read the final chapter and answer the questionnaires. Done! In the evening, we meet up with Marie, some of the dive master trainees, and Marie's friends at the brewery to celebrate the course. I'm excited to be allowed to dive deeper now and to have gained more insights into various diving specializations through the course. 30.3. Some exercise feels good, so we decide to explore Colon Island by bike and on foot. We rent two bikes at the hostel and ride through the jungle to the other side of the island, where there is supposed to be a beautiful surf beach. The ride is wonderfully adventurous, and we get a close-up look at rural life. The beach itself is nice but nothing extraordinary. After having an Agua de Pina, we start the return journey, but my right pedal breaks and I have to ride the remaining 17 km on the bare pedal shaft. We realize too late that we should have put on sunscreen, and we both end up with pretty bad sunburns. At the only intersection, we turn right towards Playa Bluff and treat ourselves to a lunch right on the beach, in the sand. Playa Bluff is an absolutely dreamy beach as one would imagine. No hotels, just palm trees and sun. The waiter recommends that we hike to a bathing bay at the end of the beach, which we do. The cooling off feels good and refreshes us for the nearly 8 km ride back. Back at the hostel, we buy pure Aloe Vera gel and apply it generously to our shoulders and legs to soothe the sunburn.