It is hard to believe that we have been gone from Reno nearly a month. Come Sunday it will be. Time has just flown by. The days seem shorter than at home, despite our normal routine of getting up at 545. Maybe it is because we are generally in bed by 1030, about the time all the backpacker kids and locals begin to party downtown. We have tried to make it deep into the night twice, and failed both times. All the diving, sun, early mornings and 10-15 years of age difference tend to have us yawning and ready for bed, no matter how much rum there is left to drink. Most of the bars have a nightly drink special. There are about five really popular spots, including Rehab, one of our personal favorites. Can you guess why?
What’s important to know about each of the bars is that if you don’t like the drink special at one, wander down to the next one. You are guaranteed to find tequila, rum, vodka drinks for $1, beer for $1, and sometimes mixed shots for $1 at one, if not all the bars on any given night. Needless to say, $1 drinks + 500 21-25 year-olds + no law enforcement = serious fun and sometimes mayhem. Alas, no matter how many Scandinavian blondes you pack into a bar in the tropics, I am generally too old (and married) to make it past 1030 PM.
As I noted, time is flying by; this past week in particular. We both assisted an instructor teaching brand new divers to learn to scuba dive. Three very fun guys, including the creator of www.wheresgeorge.com, were our students. It was a shake down for next week, when 59 high school students from New England descend upon our little dive shop and all want to be scuba divers in a week’s time. We have been doing 7am-4pm at the shop for the past week, next week it will be 6am-6pm, diving four times a day, at least. We dive five days out of seven, generally twice a day, sometimes three times.
But, at the end of each day, my lovely wife detours from our bike ride through downtown (working on some usable video of that trip) to a dock bar called Tranquila. Personally, one of my favorites, because the rum is always cheap and poured in a very tall bottle glass (they take bottles, cut the tops off them, then roll them around in saltwater and sand for a week to smooth them down). But we really stop for the sunsets.
After a drink or two, we meander home on the bikes, make some dinner, get some “real work” done and generally head to bed.
This place is a little hypnotic. The days pass by quickly, no one really cares what day it is (1/2 the town closes on Saturday, the other half on Sunday), the new faces get off the ferry, folks realize that a break from diving and drinking may be necessary and barter a way off the island to another destination. It is an interesting and charming place. Not sold yet on permanent relocation, but definitely a place to think about 6-8 weeks a year to recharge the batteries and feel young again, or old, depending on the night. LOL
But the real reason everyone comes is the diving. This past week hasn’t been great diving. The students and class are fine, but the easterly tradewinds have been howling at 15-20 knots all day and night. It causes the south side of the island to get 3-6 foot waves and churns up the sand and bottom of the sea floor, killing visibility and reducing the amount of marine life activity. Now, this is all relative, because the water is still 80 degrees, you can generally still see 40-60 feet, and once below 15 feet, the surge/waves are minimal. But it isn’t the optimal diving that everyone expects. Spoiled, even in paradise. Below is a little video of part of a dive from this morning (click on the picture, will open in Youtube). I promised some fish pictures, still working out the kinks on lighting and filters. Should be better each time forward. Enjoy. We are off to yoga.
