Saturday, July 17th: On The Road To Certification

Breakfast of champions
Pancakes for breakfast, pancakes with sugar and lemon juice. And the usual two cups of coffee to properly wake me up. It's the best eco-resort breakfast to date, and a welcome change after the toast-and-jam-heavy month in South America. I eat three, then Garth tells me he's had five, then burps to his own delight. The idea of a pancake-eating contest flashes up in my mind, but I decide I'm too old for that. And I'm on a diving course, no need to feel sick to my stomach at the bottom of the ocean. I haven't passed the what-to-do-when you-puke-in-your-mask test, and have no need to find out any time soon. With caffeine properly running through my veins, I axe the last two chapters in the PADI course book.

Grouper Gutter greatness
We have a quick lunch, you guessed it - steak sandwiches again -then I hop on the Congoola, and head to "Grouper Gutter" in the company of some day-tripper divers and Garth. Pitter patter pitter patter. Always up for a bit of comedy, Garth jumps off the boat sideways in a quirky, nonchalant, completely unorthodox way. I could have guessed. He's a boy stuck in a man's body in my opinion, but he calms my nerves about diving. If he can do it, so can I.   

This time things go so smooth I forget what I was worried about the first time around. I spend 32 minutes under water, mainly at 12 meter. Sure, I perform skills toward my Open Water certification, but we're done with them in record time and I spend most of my bottom time looking at all the treasures  this open-air aquarium called Grouper Gutter has to offer. Surrounded by virgin reef and tons of fish I feel like a kid in a candy store. What a rush!

Diving for overland treasure
Steve is playing with a shiny coin over dinner. He tells us he's got from a geo-caching adventure, a sort of treasure hunt that involves locating hidden items with a GPS, then logging your experience online. Some treasure boxes contain a cool item that you can take with you if you leave something else for the next geo-cacher that completes this treasure hunt. Can you believe it, there are loads of geo-caches placed all over the world. Glad we uncovered that, I'm never going to go hiking aimlessly again! This kind of discovery really boggles my mind and makes me wish I was a teenager again, so I could go hunt for treasure with friends. Once I get back to Belgium I'm so going to try this out.

Fire it up
It's Garth and Kim's last night, so after dinner we invite them over for a goodbye camp fire by our bungalow. Garth's got half a forest worth of firewood pulled out of the surrounding jungle in a matter of minutes and a huge fire is blazing shortly after. It's a chilly, somewhat breezy night once again (we're just feet away from the water), yet the fire keeps us all real warm. We chat about all kinds of things until our eyelids get heavy, then say our goodbyes. Chances are that we won't see them before they leave tomorrow morning. It was great meeting them.