Saturday morning Tara and I woke up to finish our scuba certification right in Manuel Antonio. We left from the Quepos dock and set out to finish. This experience couldn’t have been any more different. There were 20 of us crammed into a tiny boat. The leader of the entire expedition was a 19 year old from boulder named Genevive. We were hooking up and putting on all our stuff etc. No fancy lunch or snacks. And the water and experience was interesting. The conditions were ROUGH. We could barely see in front our face on the second dive. My mask kept leaking again on the first dive. Before I go again I want to get a real fitted mask. I need a big padded single pane of glass on my face. I can envision it – kind of like the rental ones that I wore on the second dive. Finally on the second dive I got the hang of things. But we went down deep again, almost 60 ft! It was cold. And we got separated from our group. It was just wild being down that far. Tara did amazing. The hardest part was we had to be down like 60 ft and take our mask completely off our head!!! Wasn’t ready for that one but okay. The current was so strong as well. Made things interesting. So, it was an experience but we did it. And, on the second dive we saw an octopus! It made the whole thing worth it. The divemaster said now we’ve dived in the worst of conditions, so we are fully prepared 🙂 We are fully scuba certified for the rest of our lives. Tara asked where a great place for lunch was and we stopped in Quepos at a little Soda where we got more chicken and rice and traditional lunches and chicken and mushroom sauce, at the advice from Danny, our guide from ADR Zipline who we saw again. Who also happened to be staying with his fiancee from NYC at the house right across from us. We ate our lunch at home and then it was time for surf lessons. 

Blake’s turn to take over: We had the morning to are selves because mom and dad went scuba diving to get certified. At home I played lots of iPad and Josh and Halle were on their phones. We ate breakfast which was Froot Loops and at noon mom and dad brought lunch. It was rice and beans and chicken and pork and mushroom stuff. We then got ready to go surfing and went to the stand which had a very cute puppy. I fell in love with it but it was time to surf.

While surfing dad cut his nose on the board and Halle hit her head on the board. Dad’s cut happened on the first run of the day and so he was bleeding the whole time we were surfing. He got a black eye a few days later. Me and Josh and mom didn’t get beat up. Me and Josh had a really fun time and caught some cool waves.

The puppy was so cute and after surfing we went pack to the stand to return surfboards. I played with the puppy who tried to eat my towel. It was cute. I had a great time. Then we went home and what dad said “licked our wounds”. We went to Ronnie’s place for dinner. It was up a windy, steep dirt road near our house, which was called Casa Luna. Me and dad got virgin piña coladas which came in a pineapple and had a cherry and umbrella. For dinner I got a super burger which was delicious. The sunset was so cool tonight, but the camera lens must have been smudged or something. None of the pics turned out great. Then we went home and slept.