Thanksgiving Day, Thursday November 27, 2025
Today we took the party bus to West Punt. I didn’t know it was a party bus, but a party bus it became.
We woke at 6:45, and slowly got up, made coffee, and had our remaining HARD boiled eggs. I normally make something akin to medium-hardish steamed eggs at home. These were HARD, hard boiled eggs that Google helped us make here with our induction cook top. Google needs to revisit and revise those instructions.
By 8:30, we were packed up and walking across the street to the dive shop. Our boxes were mostly put together, so we finished getting them ready, and then waited upstairs.
There are a lot of divers on this trip! Once we all made our way upstairs, the dive shop gave us a small briefing, introduced all of the divemasters, and told us about the day.
Briefing done, we all shuffled onboard the bus, and settled in for the hour drive to Playa Kalki. Ditte is once again driving, and once we’re close, she speaks through the PA system and tells us about the ‘mountain’ and national park we’re driving through.
We get to the dive site, and we’re paired up with Romy and two other divers. I had warned Romy on the bus that I’d been having trouble equalizing here, and wouldn’t you know it, I had no trouble at the first dive site.
We saw squid, porcupine fish, cow fish, small trunk fish, file fish, scorpion fish, cleaner shrimp, brittle star, two large drum fish, and trumpet fish.
We ended the dive after an hour, exited the water, and got back on board the bus. We drove to Playa Forti, and the dive staff handed everyone sandwiches. We ate our sandwiches, had some pineapple, and watched a daredevil jump off the 45 ft cliff into the water. Ditte had told us in the briefing in the dive shop that we, too, could jump off the cliff as long as we’d signed the liability waiver…
We watched two guys from our group do the jump, and Nathan said he was too chicken to do it. I thought I could do it, but I wasn’t going to do it alone. Then, two ladies with our group, both older than me, Fraukje (Dutch) and Frauke (German) said they were gonna do it, so I joined them. First Frauke jumped, then Fraukje, and then me.
I had asked one of the divemasters, Ron, to give me pointers, and he said to look at the horizon, take a big step off the cliff, and keep your legs together, like a pencil. So that is what I did.
Nathan got the whole thing on camera, but then he felt like he needed to jump too. Another diver told him that one of two things would happen. You either end up with bruised knees or a bruised ego. I guess he chose bruised knees. Nathan gave his phone to Ditte to video his jump, and he, too jumped into the water.
Nathan and I swam back to the shore together, and then everyone boarded the bus for the short bus ride to the second dive site.
The second dive site was Playa Piscado, and we entered the water with our gear, and saw much of the same. Turtles, squid, seahorses, eels, lionfish, fireworms, and trumpet and needle fish.
We got out of the water, put our gear in the boxes, and hopped on board the party bus. Beers and cokes were passed around, and if you wanted another beer, or coke, you needed to put the first can on your head, upside down, to prove you needed it. I had only 1 coke, but the guy in front of me had beer after beer, and so I too was wearing beer by the end of the trip.
Once back to the shop, we cleaned up our gear, and headed to the hotel for a shower. This rowdy group meets back up at 5 for happy hour!