After a good overnight journey we arrived in Santa Marta, we grabbed a cab and headed to Taganga we found a hostel for a good price threw our stuff in and decided to have a walk along the cliff to find different coves the weather was fantastic very sunny and hot we had a nice swim with the locals as well, we was starting to get hungry at this point so we headed back and grabbed some food.

We bumped into Kieran which was cool the boys had decided that they would do there open water PADI course and Dave was going to do his diver rescue so I thought why not I decided to join them and do my advanced open water.

So we all met later that evening and filled out the paperwork ETC we had an eight o'clock start in the morning so I had an early night.I was up early and had breakfast then met the guy's we headed to the dive school we decided to go with Octopus dive school they had a mix of instructors which was cool, we got all our kit together and of we headed to the boat the guys were extremely excited because it was there first times me and Dave me seasoned vets at this just sat and chilled (that's a joke by the way)

We headed to the national park Tyrona where the diving is awesome. The lads where dropped of first and then me and Dave headed to a different dive site, my instructor was Hosa and Dave's was Nico both cool guys.My first dive was a fun dive I think Hosa wanted to see what I was made of the dive lasted about 25 mins we saw loads of sea life Hosa was an excellent diver. We met up with the guys after then had lunch, after lunch I was to do my deep dive 40 m at first I had difficulty in equalizing but I soon sorted that out and of we went at that depth your air depletes a lot quicker but we saw some cool things Hosa gave me a math's test which I managed to c*** up only my a little LOL it was to test if you suffered from Narcosis.

That evening we all swap stories over dinner we all had a early night as we wanted to be fresh for the dives so no beer LOL. Again we was up early I had moved to the same hostel as the lads so we all walked down together same as before we grabbed our kit and headed to the dive sites the boys went of and me and Dave went to the same dive site.

We kitted up and of we set this was a fun dive for me so it was about getting the breathing right etc, somehow I managed to run out of air but I didn't panic just signaled to Hosa that I need his octopus (reserve) we then ascended and waited at the 3 m mark for 5 min's then surfaced. Had lunch then went down for my second dive this one was a fish recognition exercise it was ok not that great.

The instructors decided they wanted a day of as it was Sunday so this gave us the excuse of getting the Ron in that evening so after dinner we headed to the local and got our supplies vodka and Ron with lots of Coke Jthe evening started reasonable ok but as we got drunker it got messier, one stage I was walking around with just a shirt on and nothing else cant really remember why but I did get the name from the hostel owner Sin pantiloness which roughly translated means no pants, so later on we hit Santa Marta I think we had a good night but I wont swear on that all I know is me and Kieran was extremely drunk and very hung-over the next day good job we wasn't diving.

So as you can imagine we all was very tired but we went out for dinner and met some Colombian girls seemed we had met them the night before so we chilled with them on the beach and went swimming with them very fit bodies I have to say.

We headed the down to the dive school in the morning to do our dives seems my hostel never told me that I was meant to be there for 6am to do a wreck dive so I just went out with the guys and did some snorkeling I was a bit pissed of with this but hey never mind I was told I had to do my navigational dive and night dive later that evening so that made up for that.

So later that evening we headed to one of the coves Has described what we was going to do on the beach first he showed us the compass and how to use it underwater we would have to perform 3 tasks the first being a square so you go out 20m then 90 degrees 20 m again then 180 then 20m then 270 20m again till you reach the start we had to do a triangle and a straight line I passed ok.

After we headed out to do our night dive this was weird getting ready in the dark so we all got in the water it was imperative that we stayed with our buddies I wanted to be with Dave unfortunately I ended up with this American Dude he was cool but a pain as a buddy we descended I can only describe it as being locked in a coffin with no light you cannot see without a torch, Hosa lead me and my buddy was second but he kept swimming of luckily I could recognize his fins so I managed to get him back each time, once we was all together again we sat on the bottom and turned the torches of this is very bizarre all you can see is the phosphorus live forms swimming before you we had to come up early as someone had ran out of air.

It was a fantastic experience I had one dive to go and that was a wreck dive the next morning.Later we met up with the girls again for dinner Adrian and Kieran had a little crush on 2 of the girls I don't blame them they was fantastic looking, so we sat around chilling and chatting. I decided to call it a night as I had to be up early 05.30am.

The wreck dive went really well it was an old Cole barge that had sunk near the light house I think it was sunk deliberately for diving purposes. The dive was cool me and Hosa had a good dive and after we shock hands and I was done.

Later that day we checked out and headed to Palomina a beach some 2 hours north of Taganga it was solely ours for 3 days it is owned by a local farmer who does far to much Coke and prying to the mountains LOL.

We was taken my our guide and cook raffele he would cook up some pretty cool food over the next three days our living accommodation would be Hammocks some 20 m from the beach Life's grand sometimes.