Monday, March 23, 2009

Tourists and Scuba Diving!

Hi Guys!
So this past weekend I took a little break from Hikkaduwa and the beach scene. I was all breached out for a bit and needed a new environment to relax in. So a couple of my volunteer friends and I went to lay by the pool at the Blue Water Hotel in Waduwa which is the next town down. It was nice to lay poolside without dealing with the sand and bugs! It was wicked nice to relax without the hussle and bussle of the beach, it was very quiet and a nice change. Its also loads of fun to people watch at the resort because its all white westerners on vacation. Its interesting to guess and see where people are from just by the bathing suits they wear! There were loads of speedos, which leave NOTHING to the imagination! And thongs were also popular, especially among the women that you never want to see in a thong! HAHA! To add to the sites around the pool, a huge elephant was brought in that day to attract the tourists for poses and photos for a small fee. Poor thing, there were three men with it who I'm sure were not very nice to the animal behind closed doors. Though it was neat to see the elephant just hanging out among the palm trees and beach chairs, you couldn't help but feel bad for it. It was a great day though, hanging out at a 5 star hotel and resort for a mear 700 rupees ($7!).

On sunday, we gave in and made our way down to Hikka, not for the beach or the company at Sunny's but for the SCUBA DIVING!Baracuda Diving Center, 2400 rupees ($24) for a whole lot of fun! We started off watching a 15 minute video on the basics of scuba diving. Then we got fitted for our gear; wetsuit, flippers, goggles, weights, and tank-pack. The tank-pack with air tank and the hoses was wicked heavy, carrying it to the pool I had to walk leaning way over so I wouldnt topple over backwards! What a site!! We had a short training session at a pool down the beach. In the pool we practiced things like taking our breathing mouthpeices out and in underwater, getting water out of our masks underwater, boiency inflatability and we also just got use to swimming around with all our stuff on! After about 30 minutes we got out, took some tea to rest for a bit, then hit the wide open sea for some real fun! We rode a small motor boat out to the dive site, geared up and jumped in, diving 10 meters to the ocean floor. I couldnt find the right balance of boiency with my life vest. So I was struggling to stay where I wanted and flaring my arms around all over the place under water! haha! The next thing I know one of the diving instructors was taking my hand to help guide me. There was one very cute (but scrawny) instructor that I was hoping I was holding hands with, but soon figured out it wasn't him! :( Anyhoo... we swam around the coral, looking at all the fish and stuff. It was very cool to be in another world under the water! Though we didnt see any see turtles, it was still loads of fun! My instructor/guide tried to lead me into this small cave in the coal, and I stopped that real quick! No way in hell was he getting me to swim into a creepy, pitch black, underwater cave!! I almost pissed myself! Before I knew it he was checking my air gauge to see how much air I had left, and it was only then that I noticed I couldnt really get a good breath of air, so we ascended and our underwater voyage was over before we knew it! SO MUCH FUN! Maybe I'll go back before I leave to try my luck with the turtles again. For less then $25 bucks why not?

Hope the spring is coming and the snow is melting at home! The sun seems to be getting hotter and hotter here during the day. But its raining almost every night cooling things off, the monsoon season is coming really fast!

Peace, love and rock n' roll from Sri Lanka!!

xoxo
Lauren

Me and the heavy ass scuba tank!



Rianne, me, Eefje, and Emma ready to go!


The crew with our two favorite diving instructors! Good times!

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