Cartegena, Columbia and Islas del Rosarios: Scuba Diving, etc
Cartagena, Columbia: Tuesday Chill Out Day:
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Islas del Rosarios, Cartagena, Colombia: Blue Dolphin Dive Trip:
Did a trip with Blue Dolphin Dive School. They were recommended as the best by the staff at the Bantu Hotel (for what it’s worth) and are located right on they corner of Parque de Fernander de Madrid (Blue Building can´t miss it). The staff was generally very nice. One of the guys spoke good english and another spoke some, the rest none at all (typical in Colombia…good for learning!).
The dives were pretty good, not incredible, but def fun. The boat ride out to the islands took about an hour on a 30′-35′ center console with twin Yamaha 200HP engines. The ride was fun, a bit scenic and fairly uneventful.
You arrive at a beautiful Island owned by to Blue Dolphin Dive School. There´s nice open air type accomodations there and I’d recommend staying one night if you have the time. The island has a large population of beatiful frigar birds (i think that’s the name, check pics) that hover over one area. Only issue with that is that it kinda smells like bird shit depending on where you are and which way the wind is blowing.
Dives were pretty good! First was a drift dive around the Wreck of San Andres. Not tons of fish and visibility was good until the very end when it got really mucky. 2nd dive was on the other side of the island and was a bit better…more fish. J joined me on that one after completing his mini course while I did the wreck dive.
In general, it was really fun. Only criticism I might have is that it would be nice if they gave better introductions as to where you’re going, what you’ll see, etc. Information always improves the experience! They didn’t even introduce us to all the people we were diving with, you kinda just get there and go. No books or info on the fish and coral were readily available, though I’m sure if you asked… Hopefully, they read this and improve in the future!
My pics:
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Under Water Part I: (scroll down for Part II!)
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Under Water Part II:
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December 10th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
wow… the ocean looks so clear and beauty. did you see a lot of fishes?
i wanna go there to.. swimming with fishes too.
it seems you had a better trip then i do.. :p
December 11th, 2009 at 12:58 am
ha, it’s been very busy that’s for sure! …been too tired to do much at night lol I’m sure you’re killin’ it in SE Asia though. See ya soon!
December 11th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
ya… my friend just upload some crazy bangkok pics on flickr..lol can’t wait to show you
see ya in a week… miss you!!
December 14th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
omg… who took these under water pics… they looked amazing!!
December 15th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
The Scuba dive instructors took ‘em and I had to buy ‘em! …talked him down a bit