So obviously, if I was going to an island, I needed to go scuba diving!
[Sadly, Alex is not certified (though I hope to convince him one of these days).]
I looked around for scuba places, and luckily, I found a great one!
Oh my gosh! Also, this is the part I found super cool!!!
So, I got my Open Water and Advanced certs done by a woman (Chrissy). And I thought it would be super cool if all my certifications from here on out are done by women!
Women are the minority when it comes to scuba divers, and it would be cool to sort of swim on the shoulders of women in the field.
So, I thought it would be cool, but it wasn’t an absolute requirement. And when I was calling around to dive shops most of them had male instructors.
And even this one I thought I might! I wasn’t sure exactly who my instructor would be, but when I got to Barbados Blue Watersports… it was Aimee!!!
And then began the two-day journey of getting my scuba certification!
Wednesday and Thursday morning, I headed out early to dive.
I chose to get a shipwreck specialty, because if I’m going to be diving anyway, I really want to rack up some more certifications!
So, when I was looking up the best/most interesting certifications to do in Barbados, shipwrecks was the thing! Every book/website/etc. said so!
And they were right. We started in this bay full of shipwrecks, looked around, and did the basic shipwreck stuff (mapping it and that kind of stuff you have to do to get your certification).
When we left the first day, we were told that if conditions were right(!), we’d get to check out the Stavronikita, and the conditions were right!!!
I was so happy the stars aligned. We got to dive down to this deep ship, and even go inside! It was a little scary, but in a fun way.
Boom. Certification done.
So, Wednesday, after the first day of diving, I headed over to the Catamaran Cruise to meet up with Alex!
I did have a little time in between, so I walked about Bridgetown a bit, stopped and walked around a mall, and asked a cab driver what’s a good truly local place for food (since I didn’t plan on doing much eating outside of the hotel, but there wasn’t quite enough time to get all the way to the hotel and back to the Catamaran Cruise, plus the expense of getting there would’ve been more than stopping for food).
But while I was out, he took me to a little hole in the wall place, that didn’t even have a sign/name, or I’d drop it here. My favorite local Barbados cuisine was macaroni pie (which is probably the most American thing of the local Barbados cuisine, but what can I say, I have the simplest palette of all time).
So, after the quick stop off, it was time to meet up with Alex, and that’s where I’ll pick up tomorrow!