One sweet weekend

It has been one of my goals while I am out here in Bulgaria to go SCUBA diving sometime in the Black Sea, and I finally set my mind to it last week. I did some searching online and after a bit of comparing prices, locations and companies, I booked a reservation for this last weekend through a place out of Sozopol, just 30 minutes south of Burgas. For 60 Euro I would get 2 boat dives in the Black Sea, a guide (since I don't have a dive buddy here) and all my equipment. It's a huge chunk of my living allowance, and I will be eating nothing but sandwiches and pasta for the next month, but its still a pretty good deal.

Friday night I stayed in Burgas with Tye and had a chill night, shooting pool and hanging out with friends. Saturday morning though, I got up super early and caught a bus down to Sozopol and met up with the other divers. Besides me, there was the dive master, a Bulgarian that seemed to be a friend of the dive master, a Bulgarian lawyer from Sofia, and an Irish guy from Moscow. Everyone was nice, and after I got sized for gear, we all started loading up the boat to head out to sea. Our plan was to do two dives to a shipwreck not too far off the coast called Mopang. Mopang was an old American cargo steamship from 1920 that sank when it was either torpedoed, or rammed a sea mine, I'm not sure which. It now sits in 66 to 96 feet of water, and is flipped over on one of its sides.

The weather was great as headed out to the dive spot, which ended up being just a random spot out on the sea, impossible to locate with out the help of a GPS unit or something similar. We suited up and got ready to hop in. The water temp at the surface was nice and warm, perfect for a day at the beach, but the dive master said that once you hit the thermo cline there is a pretty sharp drop in temperature so I was suited up pretty good, including a full wetsuit with a hooded shorty over top and gloves.

We dropped in the water over the side of the boat doing the half back flip move (not sure what it's really called) and it was actually the first time I have entered the water like that. I have always done the giant stride entry, where you just take a big step off the boat. This way makes you feel cooler though, for reasons I haven't figured out yet.

Anyway, once we got in we began to descend along our anchor line to the wreck. Visibility was pretty good, about 30 feet or so and the water had an interesting green tint to it. We hit the thermo cline about half way down, and I couldn't believe how severe it was. The water temperature dropped about 20 degrees Fahrenheit within five feet! You could even see the heat transfer in the water, it had the same look as when you look down a street when its super hot outside and you can see the heat radiating off the cement. The water had this appearance and made everything blurry as we transferred down to the colder water.

Once we were through though it cleared up instantly and we descended even deeper, entering a giant school of jellyfish. I was now very glad that I was covered head to foot in 6mm of neoprene, since I was (relatively) warm and safe from jellyfish attacks. They looked really cool though, and the water was full of the semi luminescent - transparent jellyfish sediment that just hung in the water like it was in suspended animation. The jellyfish stretched out as far as I could see in every direction, and we didn't leave them until we passed the thermo cline again on our way back up.

We reached the sea floor and headed out to the right a few meters before, out of no where, a huge dark walled loomed in front of me, filling my entire field of view. The wall was the bottom of the ship hull, and I couldn't believe its size. We swam up and over it to the other side (top of the ship). All the cargo holds were open, and we were able to swim inside it. It was actually very eerie looking, with most of the interior super dark with faint green light filtering down from holes in the ship above us, illuminating beams and support structures all around. We explored a bit in the ship and around the side before we had to go back to the anchor line and head up.

After a short break on shore to get new tanks and let our nitrogen levels drop, we headed back out to the ship to do a second dive. We got to see a bit more of the main hull and mechanical rooms, and I set my new record of deepest dive at 96 feet!

Back up on the boat after the dive (and all the time between dives), I was talking with the Bulgarian lawyer about all sorts of stuff, ranging from politics (Bulgaria was recently declared the most corrupt country in the EU), the environment, my work in the Peace Corps and diving. He was a super cool guy and seemed excited about me working with the environment. Anyway, to make a long story short, he asked me if I was planning on diving again the next day and I said I couldn't, since the two dives I had just done had tapped out my bank account. He told me there was another wreck that he had come out three different times to dive, and every time he couldn't do it, either due to rough water, or lack of an experienced group. The dive master wouldn't take him alone, and since the wreck was technically an advanced deep dive (I 'm an advanced open water diver), there wasn't a group that would go with him. He said that he was planning on paying a group rate for himself just so he could go, and told me that he wanted me to come too. I politely declined, not wanting someone else to pay my way for a dive, but he insisted and when the dive master came over to ask if I would be diving on Sunday, he told him I would, and pretty much settled the matter right there. I would now be diving for free on Sunday so that he could see his wreck. Sweet!

After sharing a pint with the dive group, I headed back to Burgas for a big burger cookout with a few other volunteers from out of town, and then went out to our local pub to celebrate the birthday of the pub owner. Good times were shared by all, but I had to leave a bit early (2am) so that I could get some sleep and be 100% for my dive the next day.

The ship we were diving was called the Rodina, and was a Bulgarian cargo ship that actually has a pretty funny story of why it sunk. During WWII there used to be a training mine field in the bay of Sozopol, filled with dummy mines they used to train their navy. The captain of the Rodina, not wanting to waste time navigating a dummy mine field, decided instead to plow straight through it. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian navy decided to replace the dummy mines with live ones with out letting all its ships know about the change, and Rodina ended up plowing right through a live mine field and promptly sank to the sea floor.

I was nervous about this dive though, because it sits considerably deeper and in more exposed water than the Mopang does. Recreational diving is limited to 120 feet, and recommended to only 100 feet. Anything deeper requires either long decompression stops with separate tanks, or tri-mix (an advanced blend of air comprised of mostly helium requiring special gear and training). My dive to the Rodina went to 111 feet, a record I most likely will not break any time soon. I felt confident though, and knew that I would be able to handle the dive, and it turned out great. The Rodina is huge (300 feet long!) and it made for an amazing dive. The light had the same strange green tint, and combined with the sheer size of the wreck made it an interesting experience. Unfortunately, we only got 7 minutes to explore before we had to head back up to the surface, but I loved it.

Back at shore after the dive, caught another break when the Bulgarian guy that just covered my day of diving offered to drop me off in Burgas on his way through to Sofia, so I ended the day cruising along the coast in his convertible BMW. Turned out to be a great end to a great weekend, and I have now accomplished my goal of diving in Bulgaria.

http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge/20080720DiveTrip

a busy few weeks

Well, its already been about a month since my last post and I have to admit, that this is really the first time in a while that I have had the time to just sit down and write about all the things that I have been up to lately. Things are going really good for me now and I have been keeping super busy. The weather has been really nice lately, warm days but still getting nice and cool at night. I have a feeling next month will start to get super hot, but I just recently bought a fan in preparation for the hot temps (it so far has proved to be a totally worthwhile investment).

Anyway, after getting back from my grand European tour I spent some time catching up with stuff at the office. Now that summer is here there are a lot more tourist groups coming down to the park and I have been helping leading trips on some of the trails and that sort of stuff. I spent just over a week back in Malko Turnovo before I had to pack up some stuff and head out to Plovdiv to help another volunteer with a minority youth camp that she was running.

I headed out there a few days early so that I could spend the weekend hanging out in town with Kristen, who was also helping with the camp. It was a good time, chilling, hanging out at the pool and watching the final game of the Euro Cup (a game equal in stature to the super bowl, but much cooler since it pits countries against each other and not states).

The trip was mostly uneventful except for one nasty run-in with some bugs. We were planning on staying with one of the volunteers that lived in Plovdiv that had just gotten back from a week of Peace Corps conferences, but as soon as we all stepped in to her apartment I discovered that while she was gone it had become infested with fleas. And when I say infested, I mean like in the most horrible way that you have only seen out of a Hollywood movie. I was wearing sandals and as soon as I stepped on the carpet my foot slowly started to turn black from all the fleas that started to cover it. Needless to say that my eyes got wide and I started to hop around the room like a crazy guy (I have a slight allergic reaction to flea bites) and had to run out of the apartment. Worst fleas I have ever seen in my life. We all had to get our stuff and grab a cab across town to stay with a different volunteer (fortunately for us Plovdiv has two volunteers).

The youth camp started on Tuesday and ended up being quite the experience for me. I don't work with youth at all here, and I never really worked with youth before in the states so it was a learning experience for me, but I will tell you right now that working with Bulgarian youth and American youth are two completely different things. The idea of the camp was to take around 20 minority youth (mostly Turkish Roma, or Gypsies) from a local school and head up in the mountains for three days and conduct seminars on stereotypes, teamwork, and cultural differences. There were a few teacher and then four PC volunteers, and we had a remote mountain lodge pretty much to ourselves.

Nothing ended up working like planned however. Turns out that all but one of the teachers had just signed up to get a free trip to a mountain lodge and spent most of the time sleeping and hanging out playing sports. The kids also felt like this was the reason why they had signed up, and we spent most of the time cajoling them to quit their games of football (thats soccer for you Americans) and join the group discussions, activities and team building games. If they didn't like an activity that we were working on, they would just leave and go do whatever else it was that they felt like. If we got at least one discussion and a team building game done in a whole day, then it was considered a success. It drove me crazy with frustration.

I always remembered when I did youth camps, or summer camps or whatever, that when there was an activity, you did it. Didn't matter if you didn't want to, or that you would rather play football, or sleep or whatever. The discussions and activities were always intrinsic to the camp and you did them with out asking, and leaving halfway through because your bored was never an option. Now, I want to point out that I think the kids are all good kids, but their whole cultural and education environment is completely different than I am used to. The fault is not so much with them as with the whole attitude toward these kinds of events. If the teachers got bored they would just quit, and go grab a beer or a nap, or worse, convince the kids to quit to so they would have someone else to play football with. The kids emulate this behaviour and are never corrected, so that when a youth camp such as ours is conducted, it falls apart into chaos.
The whole thing was a mess, but business as usual according to everyone that had worked a youth camp before. (aside: I think I am done working with Bulgarian youth camps unless the kids are younger than middle school)

After the camp finished up, Kristen and I headed out to Burgas to attend a small 4th of July party with a few other volunteers, some Bulgarians and a Dutch guy. We spent the day hanging out at the beach before going back to the apartment to cook a huge Mexican feast (there were hot dogs also for the more traditional, but who can say no to a huge plate of green chili enchiladas?). We even got a hold of some bottle rockets and artillery shells. We then proceeded to 'spread American culture' that night by launching a few artillery shells off of the roof of the apartment in downtown Burgas and chanting 'GO USA!'. The neighbors loved us, no doubt. It was a good time and actually ended up being pretty chill.

Kristen still had a few unused vacation days left over and the week after our 4th of July party she headed down to Malko Turnovo with me. I started off as a great week, hanging out, cooking good food and enjoying life until we both got sick. I'm still not sure why, but I suspect we ate some bad chicken (meat here is very questionable, and I now eat it on average of only once a week). Fortunately we were only sick for about a day, but it wasn't fun. The day after that I headed in to work and my office told me that it was a slow day, and that I should just go on a bike ride with Kristen down to the river and have fun. So we borrowed two old bikes from work and set off.

Turns out though, that the river is over ten miles away through mountainous terrain and one of the bikes doesn't have fully functioning breaks. plus, after we finally got to the river the chain on the other bike twisted, and I had to twist it back with two rusty nails before it would work again. By the time we got back we were completely exhausted, but it was still a good time. The weather was real nice for us and the forest was all green and pretty.

The next day was one of my coworkers birthdays (who happened to be the mayors wife) so everyone took the day off and we went out for a relaxing day at the river (we drove this time, thankfully). We went to a site that already had a table, outdoor sink and everything else that we would need, right along the river bank and began preparing for a huge feast. We had more food than we could possibly eat and sat around for about 2 hours just eating, talking and relaxing. Then we christened the new boat that the park just got for one of its projects, and spent the rest of the day paddling around in the river and swimming. Not a bad day at work.

This last weekend we headed back up to Burgas because Kristen had to head back to her site. On Sunday though, I got to spend another day hanging out at the beach before coming back to Malko Turnovo. Work this week has been real busy, I have been going out in the forest almost every day scouting out spots to put in a new hiking trail between two of the towns in the park. Its fun work, but I think that my idea of an established trail and the Bulgarian idea are a bit different. I'm not sure if i don't understand what they are doing sometimes, or if i understand and it just doesn't make sense. When I envision a tourist hiking trail, it should be easy to navigate, have clear markers, a sign indicating the start and end, and follow some sort of natural terrain past areas of interest. This trail that we have been scouting out seems to not follow any particular path, is marked only by axe marks in trees at random intervals, has no start/end signs, and meanders randomly through the forest, at times leading up steep banks and through thorn thickets. Its strange. If its just a start and we need to go out and widen, mark and clean up the trail then I understand, but I have a feeling that its finished how it is. I guess I will find out. (Also, while out on the trail trying to find out where we parked the jeep, me and my counterpart narrowly avoided getting mauled by a huge wild boar. Those things are big!)

Well, that's about it so far. I will try to post the next one sooner. Peace