Month: September 2018

For as long as I can remember, I have loved turtles. They were always amongst my top candidates for the “What’s your favorite animal?” questions in elementary school (along with sea otters and snow leopards).

Beginning roughly from age five through our early high school years, my sister, myself, and our two very-close-in-age cousins spent a week camping with our grandparents at a beloved family campground. Every summer I looked forward to this week more than almost anything else because there was an abundance of turtles in the campground pond. Turtle-catching, and subsequently carving out small basins stretching from the top of the beach to the water’s edge in order to hold “turtle races,” was our favorite activity.

As I grew older, and Planet Earth became a thing, I became even more enamored with a different type of turtle––sea turtles. To this day, I could sit and watch footage of them swimming around underwater for hours. I made a vow to myself that one day I would see these beautiful, majestic creatures in real life.

We saw baby sea turtles voyaging from the beach to the ocean during one of our trips back in February and I thought I was going to die of excitement and joy. But still, my gluttony for wildlife viewing left me wanting more; I wanted to see the big mommas laying the eggs.

So when I heard about Tortuguero National Park (aka turtle central), an incredibly remote area lodged up in the northeast corner of Costa Rica, I knew I needed to go. Turtles from all over the Central America region flock to the town’s 18 kilometer stretch of beach to lay their eggs. Not to mention, the national park itself is referred to as “the Amazon of Central America,” home to thousands of unique species not found anywhere else in Costa Rica. Tortuguero is one of the only places in Costa Rica to see the rare Great Green Macaw, something I found particularly enticing considering that Scarlet macaws are my favorite bird.

Between the macaws, the turtles, and the Amazon-esque nature of the area, I already felt a strong desire to venture out there. But when I read that September is actually the best month to see turtles laying their eggs, I knew I needed to go.

The conclusion of Landyn’s first class meant we had a few extra days to travel last weekend, so we went with my pick: Tortuguero.

Getting There

The trek up to Tortuguero is an experience in itself. You can either take a private shuttle from San Jose to a small town called La Pavona, or if you’re balling on a budget (i.e. the category Landyn and I fall into), you can take a public bus from San Jose to Cariari, and then another public bus, the size of a short school bus in the States, from Cariari to La Pavona.

The thing about taking shuttles down here, as convenient and air-conditioned as they may be, is you’re typically only riding with other tourists. There’s no space to interact with locals. The best part of our travel day to Tortuguero was a woman on the bus who pulled me aside and said with abundant enthusiasm, “Me encanta las gringas,” as she gazed at my blonde locks and fair skin. These are the small encounters, quick, yet endearing, conversations I would miss if we traveled the bougie route.

No matter which route you go, all roads lead to La Pavona, from which there is only one path to Tortuguero: a 1.5-hour boat ride through the winding river canals. As someone who gets motion sickness fairly easily, the idea of a small boat winding through the channels made me a tad nervous. But it actually turned out to be a wonderful, supremely relaxing experience.

The village of Tortuguero consists of zero cars and zero streets. The sole sidewalk stretches the town’s 2-kilometer length, and small dirt paths branch off for its 600-meter width.

Our hotel was right on the beach (with such a small town, almost all of them are), and that first day Landyn and I napped in the hammocks, had a few cervezas, and made relaxation our number one priority. After a travel day that began at 5am, we needed this chill afternoon. Especially since we needed to meet our tour guide at the office, ready to roll, at 5:30am the following morning.

The National Park

We were so excited for our day of adventure, we forced ourselves to go to sleep at 8pm. We felt exhausted and wanted to wake feeling fully rested. We utilized every single outlet in the room to charge our phones, my camera, and the GoPro. We picked out our clothes the night before. We were completely prepared and ready to roll when it came time to leave the next morning.

So imagine our surprise when we couldn’t open our door.

It was stuck. We were stuck. Trapped inside our room as the minutes ticked away, our tour group meeting time creeping evermore close.

Landyn was panicked. And pissed. I called the front desk and desperately tried to explain what was happening. My knowledge of Spanish never really prepared me for “Please help us, our door won’t open and we’re stuck in our room and we have a tour leaving without us in five minutes!”

I basically just kept frantically saying “Ahora, ahora por favor!” along with our room number, hoping that if nothing else, the employee’s curiosity would send him adrift in our direction.

Thankfully, just a couple of minutes later my employee friend wandered up to our room, popped his head in our window to confirm we were the stuck folks, and promptly kicked our door in. What an efficient solution. We were saved.

With 2 minutes to spare, Landyn and I hastened off to begin our day, with a hearty adrenaline rush boosting our pace.

Although it does have a small land component, Tortuguero National Park is comprised primarily of canals which take you through its protected areas surrounded by water. Some of these canals are closer to large channels, and some are small, narrow offshoots that take you directly through the heart of Tortuguero’s pristine jungle. Because of this, the only way to truly see the best parts of the park is via boat.

So that morning we met our guide, walked to the park entrance, hopped into our canoe, and set off on our wildlife-spotting expedition.

And let me tell ya, the early morning wakeup call was so, SO worth it to see all of the wildlife we did.

Dozens and I mean dozens of various species of neotropical birds including Herons, Parrots, Blackbirds, Ibis, Ducks, Rails, Jacanas, and Toucans. Howler monkeys, Spider monkeys, lizards that can walk on water (dubbed the “Jesus Christ” lizard by the local guides), and Tortuguero’s famous Caimans also joined us on our morning boat ride.

Landyn and I were geeking out, ecstatic over all of the cool things we were seeing. We were seated directly in front of the guide, and with every exciting encounter we had, he got more hyped, too. So instead of heading back towards the park’s docks when it came time for the tour’s end, he eagerly asked us if we wanted to see some river turtles. Um, hell yeah we want to see some river turtles!

So we paddled against the grain, passing all the other boats heading the opposite way to shore, and immersed ourselves deeper and deeper into the canals.

We stopped to look at a bird, one we had already seen, off to the right of the boat, when I inexplicably looked left. Over the tops of the trees, about 200 meters ahead of us, I saw two huge, beautiful birds flying gracefully across the sky. When you’ve seen one bird of this species, their distinct shape is impossible to confuse; I immediately knew I had just seen the Great Green Macaw. The rare bird I was so, so excited to potentially see here.

“Oh my god, Landyn, I swear I just saw the Green Macaw!”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I saw it! I looked over there while you guys were looking at the Tiger Heron and I SAW them, I swear!”

Much to my annoyance, Landyn was doubtful. He turned around to the guide, “She thinks she might have just seen the Green Macaw.”

The guide laughed and said, “Well, it’s pretty rare to see them, but it if you saw two together that could have been it…”

Don’t throw me a bone to make me feel validated, sir, I know what I saw. #mansplaining

“Yeah, that was it. I saw them, I know I did.”

We paddled onward.

Not two minutes later, we heard a sound. Much like a Macaw’s shape, once you’ve heard their loud, screeching call it is also unmistakable. Our guide, shocked, said, “Well now that’s a Macaw!” We whipped our heads towards their distinct sound and gazed in wonder as three pairs of exquisite Great Green Macaws flew over our heads.

When they faded from view and the mystifying charm of their presence faded, I erupted. “I TOLD YOU. I TOLD YOU. I TOLD YOU. I KNEW I SAW THEM AND YOU DIDN’T BELIEVE ME. NONE OF YOU BELIEVED ME.”

Landyn laughed and flushed as I shoved him playfully while I yelled.  “I’m sorry, I thought maybe you just wanted to see them so bad that you thought you mistook something else for them.”

*Staring at him incredulously, expectantly*

“You’re right, you’re totally right, I fucked up, you’re an excellent birder, better than me, I’m sorry for doubting you!”

Yeah, that’s right, GROVEL.

We saw another two pairs before heading back towards the docks, over an hour after everyone else.

With each new sighting, I obnoxiously, quite sassily, asked Landyn “Hey, do you think those were Green Macaws?! I mean I think so, but I can’t be too sure…” As he laughed and said, “Alright, I got it, message received loud and clear.”

Landyn hardly ever undermines me, hardly ever doubts me at all, really, so when he does I need to take full advantage of my ability to humorously guilt-trip him over it. So that’s exactly what I did.

Back on land, we spent our entire breakfast identifying the birds we had seen, marking them off in Landyn’s book and gushing over how incredible our morning was.

We contemplated taking a nap before exploring the rest of the park, but ultimately we were way too jacked, way too hyped, to sit still now. So we headed out to explore the park’s lone hiking trail.

And it was a horrible time. There were these huge, red flies, psychotic, terrifying, kamikaze red flies, that were attacking us from the moment we entered the park until we left. I have learned to accept bugs since moving down here, and I really do feel I have tripled my insect tolerance. But these things were relentless and flying directly into my face, repeatedly. I couldn’t deal. I took off, sprinting down the trail, seeking the shelter of open air.

We had made it just over halfway through the trail, and that was enough for us. The best part of the park was the section over the water, anyways. I was D-O-N-E done. So we wandered around the town for a bit before ultimately finding our way back to the hotel hammocks, enjoying a beer and a snooze with the sound of the ocean as our background music.

Tortugas

Nighttime turtle-watching is heavily regulated in Tortuguero. It works like this: you tell a guide you’d like to go turtle-watching no later than 4pm the day of. The employees of the National Park then get a final headcount of how many people will be on the beach from all of the town’s tour companies combined. Then, they divide them up into two shifts: one half goes out to the beach from 8-10pm, the other half from 10pm-midnight. Furthermore, they divide those halves into even smaller groups, designating each one their own small “sector.” The sectors are pre-determined boundary lines drawn to ensure that there are never too many people in one area of the beach at once so the turtles have a higher chance of laying their eggs unperturbed. The National Park releases the time/sector information promptly at 6pm each evening.

We were placed in the 10pm-midnight slot.

So, between finding out this information at 6:05pm and when our tour began, we took another nap, met up with some friends for a beer, and feebly tried to contain our excitement.

Dressed entirely in black, per the request of the park so that we may blend in with the vegetation if need be, hiking shoes laced, caked in bug spray, I felt like a turtle-hunting warrior goddess. What is it about an all-black outfit that makes you feel so badass and powerful?

At 9 we met outside the tour office, had a quick debriefing about the do’s-and-don’ts of turtle-watching (don’t scare them, under no circumstances should you touch them, and absolutely NO photography, even without the flash), and walked to our designated sector––a stretch of beach on the north side of the peninsula Landyn and I had yet to explore.

We reached our spot, shut off all personal light sources, and were lead onto the sand, the guide’s small red flashlight serving as her shepherd’s crook. Certified local spotters assist guides in finding nesting turtles that may be hidden underneath vegetation on the beach’s treeline in order to speed up the process for tourists like us. We were hauling ass our entire trek because they already had a turtle in their sights.

Landyn and I were first in line, right on the guide’s heels despite the brisk pace. When she turned around to warn us we were within arm’s length, and therefore gently shush the group, my stomach dropped. I was suddenly, inexplicably, strangely nervous.

It felt like I had been waiting my whole life to see this.

The guide moved back a few branches on a small shrub, and I had to forcibly hold in a gasp while Landyn grabbed my arm, echoing my own shock and awe.

This thing was huge. 

Quick background: there are generally four steps to the egg-laying process: first, they find a suitable spot on the sand and dig their hole. The turtles are extremely paranoid during this phase, interpreting every small sound and shadow as a potential threat. They often turn back around and seek the shelter of the waves when even remotely spooked. Second, if the spot looks good and they’ve dug their hole, they begin laying eggs. It’s during this phase that they enter a trance-like state, where nothing will deter them from laying the eggs. Even if they are pounced on by a jaguar, or touched by a human, they will not stop. Third, they cover their eggs with sand so they are well-cushioned against beach traffic and predators. Fourth, they return to the ocean.

We caught this turtle just after she finished laying her eggs. They looked like perfect, white ping-pong balls––a stark contrast to their black sand surroundings. We then witnessed her covering her eggs, and painstakingly untangling herself from the shrub’s roots before finally being able to spin herself around and orient herself towards the waves.

And it was as if I was six years old again, pushing my wild blonde curls out of my face to concentrate on watching my turtle race down the beach. The same overpowering desire to see my new friend reach her destination consumed my thoughts, quickening my heart rate and making me feel like I needed to jump up and down. But I didn’t need to cheer loudly this time, I didn’t need to build a track with walls to help guide the way. This momma knew what she was doing.

After quite a few breaks (she looked SO tired…I guess childbirth is grueling for any species), she finally made it into the waves. Our entire group breathed a sigh of relief as we watched her disappear into the surf.

It was really just one epic, high-stakes turtle race.

We were incredibly lucky to have spotted a second turtle immediately after the first, and this one was absolutely enormous. It was legitimately the size of a kitchen table.

Whereas we saw the second half of the process with the first turtle, we were able to witness the first half of the process with the second. We watched in awe as this magnificent lady plopped one, two, even three slimy, glistening eggs at a time into the meter-deep hole.

It was unbelievable how large they were and how quickly they filled up the sandy crater.

We departed the beach when she began to cover the eggs, though I personally could have stayed out there until dawn. I was wholly captivated.

The final exclamation point to what felt like a damn-near perfect evening was our spotting of the iconic red-eyed tree frog which I have been dying to see since our arrival in January.

Despite it being nearly 1am when we got back to our room, I was wide awake. It was one of those times where I couldn’t even articulate how overjoyed I was. Landyn and I both kept repeating “What. A. Day.” too overloaded with stimuli to delve into it any further.

We saved our gushing for the bus ride home the following day. As we recounted the events of our weekend and tried to pick a favorite activity, favorite animal we saw, a fresh wave of giddiness washed over me, transporting me back to my childhood days once again.

Heading into the weekend, I knew I was excited, but I could never have anticipated how truly ecstatic I would feel. As I stared out the bus window, I tried to figure out why.

I think there’s something so uniquely special about staying interested in something that enraptured you in childhood. Nearly everything about a person changes from childhood to adulthood, free time interests in particular, so it’s comforting, grounding, in a way, to partake in something you loved to do as a kid and still find it mesmerizing as an adult.

As much as things change, some things remain the same.

Until next time, friends.

Friends, we made it to Central America.

WE BACK

Our journey home was done in typical Lari fashion: the realization of a lost boarding pass as we neared the front of the long TSA screening line (If looks could kill, Landyn would be dead), stopped for additional screening and questioning because a baggie of Costa Rican coins scanned as something much more threatening (Oops, my bad), and a customs agent who did not believe our story and almost didn’t let Lari in the country (Plz don’t deport us).

My inner Tica rejoiced when we exited the airport and I had my first solid view of the mountains. I got a lump in my throat as I sat in the back of the Uber, finally headed home after a long travel day and a long travel drought.

We pulled in the driveway around 9:30pm, and as soon as I got out of the car Sofía and Lupe were at my ankles. Our landlord and his whole family greeted us with a touchingly warm welcome and helped us bring all our suitcases up to our apartment. We chatted for a bit and said goodnight, the click of the closing door an audible signal to the end of the journey, the end of the waiting. We made it.

Landyn and I looked at each other and sighed in unison. A release and a preparation for what came next: a week in Honduras. Our first trip of the semester started in just four hours when our scheduled 2am-taxi-pickup would bring us right back to the airport.

We unpacked a little, prepped our Honduras bags, and napped.

We Gone

When we got back to the freezing San José airport, to say we were on the struggle bus would be a vast understatement. There comes a point where you can no longer pretend to have your life together, you just openly wear your disheveledness for the world to see. This was mine.

Our brief layover in El Salvador began as nothing special. I was quite pleased to see a normal 737 waiting for us at our gate. I had been worried that they would put us on some little puddle-jumper plane since we were flying directly into the island of Roatan.

Dodged a bullet, thank god.

So you can imagine my surprise and confusion when the airline attendants scanned in our boarding passes and then directed us to go downstairs and outside. Like on the tarmac.

Alright. Kind of weird, but I guess we’ll just board from outside. 

But when we got outside, instead of climbing the detachable staircase affixed to the 737 that I thought was ours, we got into a shuttle van. They drove us down the tarmac, past a wide array of big, beautiful jets until we reached the very last plane parking spot.

It was a propeller plane. Literal. Propellers.

You could’ve flown all the other jumbo jets through the gaping hole my jaw made as it hit the floor. There was no way I was getting on that shit. Hell. No. I hate flying on a jet, I think airbuses are too small, I was absolutely not getting on that dinky oversized child’s toy.

But I did. Because sometimes to have the awesome adventures you have to do some shit you don’t want to do and overcome some serious, deeply-rooted fears. Looking back, it set the stage for how our entire week would go.

So I bawled for ten minutes after we took our seats, before even taking off. And then I put my big girl pants on, pulled my seatbelt as tight as it could possibly go, and reminded myself that this is all part of the adventure. Trust the process, and all that.

After an hour-long flight that probably shaved seven years off my life, we finally landed in the Bay Islands.

 

We ferried from Roatan, the more touristy island we flew into, to Utila––a smaller island comprised mostly of locals and scuba diving centers.

 

How did we get here? How did we decide on the Bay Islands for our first trip?

Excellent question.

One of Landyn’s “bucket list” activities was to become a certified scuba diver. Utila is one of the cheapest places in the world to do this, and its shores boast an incredible reef, part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which is the second largest in the world, coming in right behind the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Between the huge, healthy reef and the hundreds of aquatic animals native to the area, it was clear to see why divers from all over the world flock to Utila. After we booked our tickets, Landyn was like a seven-year-old waiting for Christmas. Pure excitement.

As for myself…I have an interesting relationship with water. I love it, but I’m also petrified of it in a way. I have these recurring dreams where I’m in water, typically some sort of lake, and the seaweed is pulling me under, I’m stuck and can’t get free, or I’m drowning, slowly getting dragged under the dark water by some invisible, malevolent force. It’s just occurring to me that the dreams are always about freshwater, never the ocean…maybe from a near-drowning incident I had at a lake when I was young? Maybe years of my sister tubing with me, yelling to me over the roar of the boat that the muskies would get me if I fell off the tube?

At any rate, between Landyn and I, I was the one with much more trepidation. I had some massive, longstanding fears I would need to overcome: open water, seaweed, marine animals. But I was all for trying it. Yolo.

We’re Really Doing This

First and foremost, we immediately loved the dive center we chose to go through––Alton’s Dive Center. The property was everything we wanted and more out of our island vacay, and our instructor, Hannah, seemed great.

 

On our first day of scuba school, we watched a lot of required videos, took quizzes on important information, and discussed the overall key aspects of diving. Beyond the classroom work, the diving certification process is comprised of five training dives done in “contained water,” i.e. a pool, or in this case, the shallow waters just off the dock, and four dives in open water. Right away, that afternoon, we began our contained water dives. And I was nervous.

Knowing that I could quit at any point if I truly hated it helped me find the courage to try, but even still, I thought I was going to pass out as I stood at the end of the dock, suited up in all of my heavy scuba gear, waiting to step off into the water. When it was my turn I looked at Hannah waiting in the water and said, “Ah shit. Hannah, you got me?”

“I got you.”

Kerplunk. In I was. Big girl pants: on.

And honestly, I only panicked a couple of times. What really got to me was the sensation of breathing underwater; it’s the wildest, trippiest act because it goes against everything you’ve always known about swimming––plug your nose, don’t breathe. It also took me a little bit to get used to relying solely on breathing through my mouth. Given I had a pretty gnarly chest cold settle in THE DAY BEFORE we left, I was rather nervous about the mouth-breathing. Loads of cold medicine and an inhaler carried me through, though.

By morning’s end on our second day, after completing all of our confined water dives, I was feeling confident and capable. That afternoon, however, we were getting on the boat and beginning our open water dives, and I was absolutely terrified.

Holy F***

The week before we left, my mom kept expressing her concern over me and Landyn diving. “It just makes me so nervous…I don’t know about this diving thing, Cari…Isn’t it dangerous?… I keep having these dreams where you go under the water and the boat leaves you and you’re stuck out there once you come back up…”

(That last one really got to me, as I’ve had similar dreams myself)

So after I popped a non-drowsy Dramamine and the boat took off into what the staff called “really rough” waters, not typical of Utila, these conversations played back in my head. My own water-related nightmares replayed. My deepest fears and anxieties came to the surface. My hands were visibly shaking.

They stopped the boat in the middle of the ocean and said: “Alright, get in the water.”

I slipped into my gear, carefully, as the boat lurched (literally, lurched,) from side to side, nearly kicking us out of the nest before we were ready. Hannah got in the water as other staff members helped us scuba babies in, struggling to stay standing in the turbulent tide themselves. To a panicked Cari, the choppiness called out like a warning, a severe reminder that the ocean is in charge. I was on her turf. You ain’t shit, I imagined her saying.

The staff reached for me, first. I couldn’t have asked for a more anxiety-inducing scenario. Hannah seemed far, too far for my own liking, on the tow line. I was about to plop into the ocean all by myself, a little sitting duck on the surface.

This year abroad has tested me and pushed me in ways hitherto unimaginable. I have let go of so many fears and tried things and conquered things I would’ve thought were for crazier, more adventurous people. I have learned I am much, much braver than I thought I was.

But walking to the edge of the boat, waiting for the boat to rock back down off of a strong wave, and waiting to take one giant stride into the ocean, sealing my fate as there would be no backing out once I was in, takes the cake for the scariest thing I have ever done. I was border-line hyperventilating. I felt the norepinephrine and cortisol flood my bloodstream from my hair follicles to my toes. What the fuck am I doing?

Feet on the edge, staff member holding me steady, “You’re good,” they said. But I wasn’t. And sometimes that’s your gut telling you that you are not cut out for whatever it is you’re about to do, your intuition screaming at you that something is not a good idea. But sometimes it’s just anxiety (which can sound a lot like intuition) trying to hold you back from the cool things life has to offer. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to differentiate between the two. There’s only one way to find out.

“Holy fuck.”

*steps off the boat*

I inflated my BCD, the device that inflates and deflates depending on whether you’re trying to ascend or descend during a dive, also the thing that helps you float on the surface when the weight of the air tank threatens to sink you, and painstakingly made my way over to the tow line attached to the boat so as not to end up truly in the middle of nowhere. As I waited for my classmates to enter the surf, I bobbed up and down, the menacing water getting alarmingly close to flooding the top of my snorkel.

Once everyone was in, we laboriously swam over to our descent line, switched from our snorkels to our regulators (the device connected to our air tank which allows us to breathe underwater), went through the checklist of necessary steps to take before beginning the dive, and finally began to descend.

I made it about 14 inches down the line before I panicked and kicked back up to the surface.

I just needed a second, a quick pep-talk. The whole process felt incredibly stressful and rushed and I wasn’t quite ready. Deep breath. Get your shit together. Life is for living.

I re-deflated my BCD and slowly began to drop below the surface.

And it was like I stepped into an alien world. It looked so different it scared me for a second. I kept descending, equalizing the building pressure in my ears along the way, slowly adjusting to the perpetually increasing weight on my chest until I made it down to Hannah. She reached out for my hand, helping me move away from the reef and towards the sand patch we were going to kneel on, and I grabbed for her eagerly, tensely. I took a moment to squeeze her hand, a physical shedding of my stress and apprehension.

She guided me towards the sand, and then let me go. I pinned my elbows to my body, removing the rest of the air from my BCD, enabling me to drop the rest of the way to the ocean floor.

As soon as my knees touched the white sand, I let out a laugh, an influx of bubbles floating from my regulator up towards the surface. I watched them, taking in the visual distance 12 meters was from the light of the outside air. I was on the ocean floor. The true bottom of the ocean. As I looked around at the reef, slightly more accustomed to the new world I entered, it no longer scared me; rather, it intrigued me and left me feeling awestruck.

Landyn dropped down on the sand next to me and made the “okay” symbol with his hand, the diving world’s official hand signal for both the question and the answer: okay? okay. And when I signaled “okay” back to him, I really was. The lines around his eyes crinkled, magnified through his mask, and I knew he was smiling. I smiled back as we pounded fists, Team Lari doing the damn thing.

Our first two open water dives that afternoon primarily consisted of us getting used to the dive process and reiterating skills we had learned in our confined water dives. Skills like intentionally filling our mask with water and subsequently clearing it using nasal exhalation to force the water out (y’all, this really had me struggling at first…damn near dropped out of scuba school over it), practicing proper emergency ascensions if you run out of air, and adjusting your BCD so that you have neutral buoyancy in the water––the thing that allows you to hover over the reef, using only breath control to adjust your height over its hills and valleys.

As the boat headed back for shore that evening, I felt simultaneously accomplished and slightly in shock at what we had done.

The next morning we took our final exam and prepared for our remaining two open water dives that afternoon, which, upon completion, would conclude our certification process. We would be official by the end of the day.

Those dives were significantly less scary. We had fewer skills to complete, thereby leaving us with more time to actually swim around and examine the reef. On our first dive, Landyn and I saw a stingray within the first five minutes of being on the bottom, which set the stage for the intensely cool exploratory journey we were going to have that day.

Our second dive, in particular, made me feel like I was in Finding Nemo. After dipping below the surface, I saw that we were dropping down into a school of big, purple and blue fish on one side, and a field of jellyfish on the other. Check “get stung by a jellyfish” off the bucket list, too.

Seeing hundreds of various fish species, coral, sponges, and other types of life on the reef was truly breathtaking. The best part was that they didn’t even care that we were there––a huge school of Blue Tangs swam right through me, narrowly dodging my gear, splitting around me as if I were a simple median on their path along the current. No big deal.

The following day, the water finally calmed down enough for us to make the 40-minute voyage to the north side of the island––somewhat of a rarity for visitors. The reef was even more alive, even more incredible. We reached our furthest depth, 18 meters, and enjoyed the freedom of being a certified diver––no more skills tests, no more training wheels, diving solely for fun and reef exploration.

 

When all was said and done, I was actually quite sad to be done diving. I had grown accustomed to diving every day, and what started out as a fear-conquering, anxiety-inducing activity morphed into something I found extremely enjoyable with just the right amount of challenge.

There was a large part of me that didn’t want our trip to end. But the other part of me, the Tica part of me, was so excited to get home and stay home for more than four hours. The mountains (and the dogs) were calling and I needed to go.

On the planes, I thought about this insane life we’re living, and I decided that everyone has varying thresholds of acceptable “crazy,” and what might be too much for some is just the right amount for others.

This life is just the right amount of crazy for me. 4 countries in 23 hours, crazy. Plopping into the middle of the ocean, crazy. Moving to a place I had never been, crazy. But it’s just my kind of crazy, my brand if you will. Maybe that’s how you live a life that never leaves you bored––identify your brand of crazy, how much you want, how much you need, and keep a consistent flow.

Diving is the craziest, coolest, scariest thing I’ve ever done. There’s something so freeing, so liberating about doing the things that scare me, and I love re-writing my story, re-wiring my brain to delete past anxieties and just roll with the adventures.

Maybe someday this lifestyle, these excursions, will be too much for me. Maybe one day we’ll pack it up and decide we’ve had our fill. Maybe I’ll never get enough––an 87-year-old jumping off of waterfalls and hanging out on the ocean floor.

All I know right now is that I have never felt better about our crazy, and I want to keep it coming for as long as I can.

Until next time, friends.