Tusa Dive Tour: April 26, 2003

Today was our last, but best, dive tour. It was with Tusa Dive Tours. We were picked up from our hotel at 7:30am and brought over to Marlin Bay (could have walked but it was easier with all our scuba bags to get a ride). Most of the passengers were Japanese so they had their own guides fluent in Japanese. We had a guide named Andrew. And the captain's name was Andy. The boat ride out to the dive location was a lot smoother than the previous boats we had been on - we sat up top most of the time to be out in the open (and what little sunshine there was).

We dove at the outer reef again (which is about 1 1/2 hours from Marlin Bay). The first dive was at a location called the Horseshoe because the reef was sort of the shape of a horseshoe. We were to just swim around the outside of the horseshoe and back to our starting location... and miraculously we stayed on course and came up pretty close to where we started. It was a really nice dive. The second dive was not very far from the first location - it was a really shallow but good dive and again we somehow managed to stay on course.

We got back to shore around 4:30pm - got cleaned up - and planned to go over to the Casino to check it out. The Casino turned out to be really small and only had a couple black jack tables and a bunch of slots machines that we had no idea how to play. They weren't anything like the slot machines we have here in the US.

So we decided to leave the Casino and try the mall again (it was closed for a holiday the day before when we walked to it). And once again we were out of luck - we got there right as it was closing. We walked back through the town towards our hotel stopping at a couple of the local bars. The first one we went into had a group of people playing music. It seemed like it was an informal group because a few people left and a few more joined in. They had a variety of instruments (flutes, violins, guitars, drums, harmonica, etc) - they sounded really good.

The next stop was at a sports bar although it was dead (especially for a Friday night). We went to the bar and the bartender asked if we wanted a pot, a schooner, or a jug. We had to ask what each was before answering. A pot is the smallest (285ml), a schooner is slightly smaller than a pint (425ml), and a jug is a pitcher (1140ml). Our last stop was a the Chapel Bar on the Esplanade near our hotel where we split a pizza for a small dinner.