Panama – Coiba Island and Diving

We stopped for breakfast and box lunches at the Panaderia and were at Coiba Dive Center at 8:00 AM.

I had not been in the water to dive since March 2009 and I managed to somehow convince myself that I would be scared and forget what to do because it had been too long since I’d been diving. I mean I was really convinced of it.

I got out to the first dive site, was the first one geared up and ready because I HAD NOT forgotten what to do and did a back roll off the side of the boat and dropped down into the water like I had been diving the day before. No fear, no stress. Just relaxed and happy. I surface with 1200-1300 PSI in my tank after all three dives which is proof I wasn’t nervous and breathing fast. The only question that remains is why the heck did I stress about it.

I will post a link to video of the dives when I get them from Scot.

We had a little rain on the way out, but then it became partly sunny for the remainder of the day with calm winds. First dive had a lot of black tips sharks and decent visibility. We saw 3 frog fish on one dive and octopus. I saw 2 starfish that were gorgeous — cream colored with rust and black dot patterns along the arms. We saw one small ray that wasn’t a variety I’m familiar with — it was very rounded and a gray color. These were my first ever dives in the Pacific and that was exciting in itself.

Lunch on Coiba Island was cool. White sand beaches (compared to the black dirty beaches at Santa Catalina) and beautiful shoreline. The island was a prison until Noriega was ousted and still has some prisoners on it who chose to stay.

We were back in Santa Catalina at 5:00. After cleaning the dive gear and myself it was pretty much have a couple beers, get a hamburger and crash for the night. It was a good day.