Gone for diving weekend without diving

Almost to months ago Sara and I planned this trip to Ventotene, to go diving in the belief that I would be a certified diver at this time. But after lots of phone calls to my diving instructor, we finally understood that he was not able to give me the last two dives which is required for him to issue my certificate.

VERY FRUSTRATING, since these last two dives is mostly done as relaxing dives where you go with your instructor to see some nice views, without doing any actual exercises. We thought we solved the problem, by arranging the two last dives with another instructor in Civitavecchia ( a town a bit north of Rome) Friday morning, before we had to leave for Ventotene. Going there would enable me to have the two dives, make them sign a certificate that I went, rush back to Rome, to show it to my instructor who would then give me my temporary certificate allowing me to go for the dives at Ventotene. So Friday morning arrived, Sara and I had packed everything and I took the car to go towards Civitavecchia. After 20 minutes in the car with "magtens korridorer" screaming about shitty relationships and bad Saturday mornings ( well if you are Dane, you know the group), the traffic went into a complete standstill. Thinking that it was just normal Rome traffic I turned of the engine, and tried to read a bit of the newspaper.

I didn't manage. The most frustrating about being stuck in traffic, actually isn't the fact that you are stuck, but the fact that you cant just stop the car and read or something, cause the traffic moves kinda half a meter every few minutes and the poor people that doesn't move immediately is encouraged to do some, by shouts, hand gestures and long honks from the cars behind.

After 20 minutes, where I didn't move more then 30 meters, I began to stress a bit, so I called Sara to ask for alternative roads. She (the walking roadmap - as her friends call her) gave me one, where I had to turn left only 50 meters further on. Which I did half an hour later. With Sara's capable directions on the phone, I aced the shortcut and got back on the right track fast and on the other side of the traffic problem. I hung up with Sara and called the diving to tell them that I would be a bit late.

They told me that they had tried to call me for a long time (probably all the time I was on the phone with Sara), to tell me that we couldn't go, cause the sea was "mossy", but they would be happy doing it Saturday morning instead.

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I was stupefied, not by some spell from Harry Potter, but from the impossibility of the situation. After trying to finish this certificate for two months (All I missed those two moths ago, was four dives) it seemed that our diving weekend would be without diving. I called Sara, which like me had run out of ideas ( "like me" is maybe to much to say, course I have mostly been doing the frustrated part, and Sara the problem solving part), anyway we went to Ventotene, and tried, with no luck, to convince the divers there to take me for the last two dives. Didn't succeed.

After a lot of sulking, we decided that it was stupid not to stay on Ventotene and enjoy the long weekend after all. It was a very good choice, cause we had a wonderfull time, doing close to nothing. We took some nice pictures of the island, but I don't have them here, but I got these ones, which I took on the way over there with my pocket camera



Could have been our ferry, but wasn't, neither was this one:



We were on the one with wings (aliscafo which roughly means "hull with wings"), which looks like this:



Now we are hoping that both my diving instructor and the weather will be accommodating on Sunday, so I can go and finish the last two dives.