Scuba Diving

Ten meters under, and chasing after yellow schools of fish, I wondered what everyone else I knew was doing. We went scuba diving on Tuesday, and explored a coral reef. There was huge school of bright yellow fish, other tiny electric blue fish, fish that were nearly translucent with huge black eyes, two stingrays, lobster, a flounder, a sea turtle, an eel, and a shark that refused to come out from under some coral. The day before, we learned how to use the equipment, and waded out on the shore to practice breathing and cleaning our masks in the water on the beach. The next day we took our instructor’s boat and went maybe ten minutes offshore to dive. We got suited up and jumped in the water, and with surprisingly little preamble, descended. Here, I feel like I have to confess: diving makes me nervous. I am generally a relatively calm and controlled person, and have participated in other somewhat risky sports without getting seriously worried. But the idea of being under thirty feet of water and running out of air freaks me out, so as we started to follow the anchor rope to the bottom, I definitely experienced several panicky moments. I came very close to just sucking up my pride and saying I couldn’t do it, but I just kept signaling to the instructor that I was okay and eventually I was. Once we were on the bottom, things got easier, and swimming around a coral reef with flippers and an oxygen tank is just really kind of awesome and otherworldly. The water is so clear that you can see fairly far even that far down, the variety of life is overwhelming, and for once I was on equal linguistic footing with the people around me. So all in all, for about an hour this past Tuesday morning, it was a reasonable bet that I was the coolest person I knew.

A few days before we went diving, we took our scooter (named Elvis, but you have to say it with a Colombian accent) around the island to check out some stores on the other side. It was our first full circuit under our own power, and it was fantastic. Aguamansa, the other side of the island, is less populated and has fewer beaches, but the water there is mesmerizing. The way to travel: coasting along at unknown speeds (our speedometer is broken, as is one brake and one rearview mirror), bounded by the scorched blue of the ocean and the sunset through the mountains, windblown but cool and exhilarated. You also feel like you’re going faster when you don’t have a windshield. We met a woman, very friendly (like most people here), who showed us around her house and the collages and artwork she had for sale, and regaled us at length with stories about the island. And she turns out to know someone in Silvia’s family. Small world.

The conversation proceeded in a mixture of Spanish and English, and I could follow the English (whew!) but as usual, only partially the Spanish. My studies have been proceeding intermittently, and at the moment I can still understand far more than I can say. I’m trying to practice speaking with Silvia, but the differences between French and Spanish keep tripping me up. One thing that I’m just not used to at all is that where the accent goes changes the meaning of the word. Consequently, there are a large number of words that sound extremely similar to me but mean entirely different things. My favorite so far has been when I tried to say “They listened” and ended up saying “Is big spoon.” These two things may seem wildly different in English, but they are a mere slip of the tongue away in Spanish. A demonstration:

“Escucharon.” = “They listened.”

“Es cucharón.” = “Is big spoon.”

and the last one

“Escucha, Ron!” = “Listen, Ron!”

That last one is admittedly not one often encountered, but to me they all sound very similar. Thankfully I think I now have that one under my belt, but there’s still a whole language to master.

Pictures to come soon, if it ever stops raining here.