After chilling for the afternoon we made our way to the north Terminal in Medellin we was catching the overnight bus to Cartagena, the bus trip was around 10 hours it was ok. We arrived early next morning we headed to the Hostel Vienna which the girls had given us (Lucy and Lou) we dumped our kit in and went to find the girls they was right next to us in the other room.

We popped to the Supermarket to get stuff for breakfast, we cooked up a storm the girls loved the fact that we cooked for them. After breakfast we headed to the beach where we chilled for the day the weather was lovely the beach was ok not that great but it was still cool to chill.

Later that evening we cooked again and bought some vodka to lighten the mood we met some other guys from the hostel, will a cool Aussie dude and some American dudes we all sat around drinking and chatting it was getting later so we decided to head out, we had a walk around the local drinking holes it was pretty quiet out so we had a few more beers then headed home.

We had a bit of a lye in as we was still pretty tired from the journey, we just hung around the hostel watching TV etc we was going to head of later that day to Santa Marta, we got a private van up it took about for hours once we arrived in Santa Marta we grabbed a taxi and head to Casa Familiar hostel its a cool family ran hostel the owner is a cool dude very friendly and the rooms were very cheap as well. We dumped our kit in the room then met the girls down stairs we were pretty hungry by now so we decided to grab some food there was a cafe right opposite the hostel so we popped there.

Myself and ultan had decided to do our Padi open water diving course, There was a dive school right next door to our hostel, so after dinner we popped over and had a chat with them they seemed really good they didn't speak much English but Ultan can speak good Spanish so we got on fine we arranged to do the course the course the following day, we had to watch a video so we did that that evening the video was about an hour long it went through basically what we would be doing the next day. The course cost 500,000 mil Peso which is roughly 130 GBP it was a bargain as the course cost a lot more in England plus its a lot colder there.

So we had a early night so we would be well rested for the dive in the morning, In the morning we headed next door to get our kit ready we got sized up and was given all the equipment we would need.

We headed down to the sea and got the boat we loaded all the kit in and of we went the dive site it was about half hour away, we came to a little secluded cove and anchored there. we bought all the kit onto the shore, then Marco our instructor gave us a brief and told us what we would be doing and the drills that we would have to perform in the water.
We got our equipment on and of we went, we got into the water and went down about 5 meters to the sea bed we watched the instructor perform the tasks we would have to do then me and Ultan took it in turns doing the drills it was cool the feeling of being underwater is very strange but its really tranquil down there. we performed the drills and then went for a swim round the visibility was awsome, once we had finished we headed back to the surface and then back to the shore.

We had lunch and then went out again but this time it was a fun dive so we got into the boat and went to a different dive site this time we got ready in the boat and got in the water by falling backwards, the dive was cool we went down about 10m and swam around for 30 Min's it was cool as we tried different techniques to control our breathing it gave us a chance to practice.

We finished up and headed back to shore where we off loaded all the kit and then headed back to the hostel. We chilled for a bit then headed to get some dinner, afterwards we met up with the girls and headed to our salsa lesson it was such a laugh Ive got to left feet but we still managed to bust some serious moves lol.
Up again early for our second day of the course we grabbed our equipment then headed to the beach, we went out again to roughly the same area but this time we went down 18 m the max you can go on a open water course we also practice some more drills in the afternoon. the diving was getting more fun as we got better.

Third and final day of the course we practiced some more drills the in the afternoon we had a fun dive in the afternoon that was really cool spent some time down below just swimming with the fish the visibility was fantastic such great sights down there.
That evening we had the exam that took around an hour and half but we finally did it and

I'm happy to say we both passed.