Arrived in Santa Catalina (on the Pacific coast this time) which seems to be over-run by Germans and German-speakers. Not really sure why but every foreigner I spoke to was either German or Austrian! Our hotel (run by Germans!) turned out to be in the middle of nowhere - 2km from the main road and about 10km from the village of Santa Catalina. They had a beat-up van called the 'Flying Sausage' which acted as a shuttle, drive by Christian who seemed to think that every time he drove, he had to drink at least 2 cans of beer which I personally found a wee bit disconcerting. The ironic thing was that he made anyone in the front seat hold their seat belt across them (you couldn't fasten it as it was broken!) as we passed the police station but he was comfortable going past with a beer in his hand. Go figure!

We explored the metropolis of Santa Catalina (all of one street with nothing on it), had a great fresh fish lunch in a pokey corner of a 'restaurant' and then decided to walk to the beach which was supposedly 1km away (to the best beach. Rick and I followed behind as we needed to check in at the dive shop and we ended up hitching a ride 2/3 of the way to the beach as it was miles away! Got there at the same time as the others to find the tide had come in which meant wading through some dirty water to the beach which wasn't even sandy. Duped! It was basically a surfing beach which I have no interest in so Kat and I decided to head back into 'town' and sit in a bar watching the world go by there. We hitched a lift back most of the way!

On Friday, Rick and I headed out to Coiba to do some diving with, yep, you've guessed it a whole load of Austrians! Thank goodness the divemasters were Brits otherwise I was feeling very outnumbered! Coiba National Park has been compared to the Galapagos in term of marine biodiversity and it has been claimed as an unparalleled destination for discovering new species. We had to get onto a tiny little boat (the tanks wouldn't even fit on the same boat!) and off we went for a 90 minute bumpy ride (thank goodness I had the foresight to take some precautionary pills, just in case!). The visibility on all 3 dives was very poor but in terms of quantity of stuff we saw, it was great! On the first dive, I counted 15 white tip reef sharks - 10 of them were lazing on the sea bed and the other were circling around and in-between us. Fabulous! The number of fish was great and on the other dives we saw a huge school (is it a school?) of spotted eagle rays flying above our heads and about 4 gigantic rays that were at least 10 feet from tip to toe so pretty cool! Saw lots of sharks on all dives. Apparently they sometimes see tiger and bull sharks in this area. I was glad we didn't as I'm not sure I'm ready for those yet!

After the first dive the weather set in, it started getting quite stormy and was freezing cold. I was blue and there was nowhere to shelter and we were obviously wet which didn't help matters! Was much warmer in the water. The journey home was a nightmare! We were slamming down on the sea and with each bounce, I felt every bone in m body rattle. I was battered and bruised by the end of it. Sadly halfway back, the other boat suddenly left a huge circle of blood in its wake and when we went back to see what had happened they had run over a dolphin. Poor thing but nobody's fault.

A quiet night except for the fact that I got eaten alive by bedbugs. Ugh! I suppose I'm lucky in that this is the first time in 9 months of travel but even so, ugh! My arms are covered and I have clusters on my back and shoulders. Nice!

Ah, almost forgot to tell you the latest in my plans. For various reasons, I have decided to postpone my Africa trip, mainly because I think I need a bit of a break from the group travel to avoid fatigue and I want to hit that trip with all of the enthusiasm I've got! So, I have 2 months to kill - I'll be back in the UK for a hop, will definitely be over in Honkers, somewhere else for a few weeks (am currently thinking Syria and Jordan but inspiration very welcome) and then, wait for it…the piece de la resistance…..I have booked a place on the ARC, a yacht race from the Canary Islands to St Lucia. It's 2,600 miles and takes around 3 weeks to complete (give or take!). When I got into sailing back in the UK, I looked at it a few years running but could obviously never take the time off work. So, what better time than now? Anyway, it should be brilliant, albeit probably a bit scary but what a thing to do (I think!). Apart from that, I need to figure out where to spend Christmas and what to do/where to go next year, in addition to Africa! Aaah, the life of the unemployed eh?!!!

Anyway, latest pics, as usual, are at www.picasaweb.google.com/lindylou73