Cayos Cochinos

At 8:25 the next morning, and almost an hour after he had said we would board, we were on a rickety old touring boat holes home-patched with fiberglass.  On the bright side, the thing did float, made good time with its motor, and had a canvas cover to shield us from the light drizzle that had been falling all morning.  Welcome to the rainy season.

We moved from the beach of our hotel down a ways where a scruffy looking guy wearing camo pants and a multi-braid-and-bead beard boarded with a big grin.  I liked Dante right away.  He had an amiable smile, deep laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and the kind of voice that feels like silk.  Not only that, he shared bits of quite an interesting (and what my intuition felt was true) up-to-date life story. 

We all watched the coast as we headed out to sea.  The landscape was beautiful.  Tall mountains shrouded in misty clouds came down and immediately met the surf of blue waters.  It reminded me of New Zealand in a way.  Dante, who had lived here for six years, still exclaimed in wonderment:  “C’mon, where else in the world can you get mountains that meet the ocean?”  And he was right.  It is a rare and beautiful backdrop to lay eyes on.

About forty five minutes later we were drifting in to Cayos Cochinos, a quaint chain of islands.  The one we stayed on is about an acre of land, with a main house and a guesthouse skirting the boat dock.  Leading off the west side of the island is a sand belt. It remains submerged under about three feet of water most of the time, but ultimately acts as a wet bridge between our island and a community island of about 200 inhabitants, also nearly an acre in surface area.  Talk about being packed in like sardines.  This is where we awkwardly picked up a young helper for the day, picked up and dropped off beer bottles, were awkwardly stared at, and where I was offered hawksbill turtle shell jewelry, a commodity that is very illegal to possess.  Let’s also point out that you should never offer illegal wildlife parts to a retired animal rights activist.

After a fair bit of running around to drop off Dante at his friends’ island, pick up oxygen tanks from another resort in the area, and our little helper from the community island, we were finally able to get in the water.  Right off the bat my emergency regulator was leaking air.  Tony didn’t seem to care much and advised me to use that one on the dives.  If I ran out of oxygen, at least it would be obvious why.  Right before we got in Barrett also asked an essential question: “Are we using weights?,” at which point Tony admitted he hadn’t dived in quite some time and was a little rusty.  What professional admits those sorts of things?  Yes, we needed weights and his captain and helper would hand them to us once we were in the water since we already had our BCD’s on.  Great.

And then we were finally in the water.  The diving in Cayos Cochinos is really quality diving.  Despite all of the bullshit Tony put us through, of which I might rant more about shortly, the diving was spectacular.  There was a great level of biodiversity, it would be a sponge-lovers paradise, with all different types and numerous species that phosfluoresce, I saw some new species of fish I had never seen before, and we did spot some exciting specimens:  there were a great number drummer fish, angel fish couples, and my favorite, flamingo tongue.  We even saw a pair of massive tarpin, a few spotted eagle rays (of which Barrett spotted two, Go Barrett!), and I got the wits scared out of me by a barracuda named “Fat Bastard” who must’ve weighed as much as I did.  We dove down to a plane that had crashed and was quickly being claimed by coral, dove some great walls, swim-throughs, and coral pillars.  Ultimately, it was a great experience to add to my list of dives, and for Barrett to check off his bucket list.  As I expected, he found it a bit slow and thus a bit boring, but now he knows, and it’s one more certification under his belt, and maybe something he’ll never want to spend money on again; we will see.

Speaking of certifications, let me rant about good ‘ole Tony some more.  As of yet, we have no idea if Barrett will ever get his PADI card.  To be honest, we’d be surprised if the man is truly a PADI instructor.  Apparently (and not surprisingly to me), during Barrett’s final open water testing, Tony wasn’t communicating properly and forgot to test Barrett on a few things.  Not only that, his equipment was out of date and had no certificate stickers on them.  To add to the random list of Tonyisms from the couple of days we endured him:  we woke our last day early only to find that he had broken the key off to the boat in the lock, something that apparently “happens every six months or so due to (his) own carelessness.”  Again, prime example of what not to admit as a professional.  We passed the time waiting for them to cut through the rusted chain with a rusted saw while conversing with the very sweet Alejandra and her husband, who were the caretakers on the island.

More for Tony’s list:  he never provided us with a packing list, a hotel confirmation, an itinerary, or any quality communication on the events of our time with him.  He underpaid the owner of ‘Helen’s’ on our last day for lunch so we had to give them more money to cover our meal.  As of now, that’s fine since we still owe him $100 over PayPal and certainly did not give him a tip.  On our return boat ride back to the mainland, it was pouring rain, the waters were very choppy, and they almost flipped the boat in the breaking waves waiting for some young hooligans to show up that he was paying to help beach the craft.  I’ve never been hit so hard by water in any boat that wasn’t in an amusement park.  The whole last hours of our time with him, I was silently begging him to be brash enough to ask for a tip so that I could snidely take a deep breath, lean towards him, squint my eyes a bit hoping to mimic the size of his soul, and in a chastising tone, say:  “Tony, tell me for what reasons you think you deserve a tip.” 

Ugh, I need to stop.

On the bright side, the diving really was spectacular despite the chill, the rain, and lowered visibility.  I was glad to have been there and I highly recommend going.  Barrett is now diving certified, and got certified in one of the top diving spots in the world.  Though Tony was a nightmare on fat legs, his hosting staff at the hotel, the island, and his captain, were all very nice.  

And Barrett and I survived it all.  All we can do is laugh, and laugh we did.  That experience made me realize that it takes a special person to keep a positive attitude about so many things going wrong, and I was just so glad that Barrett is one of that rare species that can still enjoy himself no matter what.  Life is not about what you do, but who you do it with.