Little Corn is a small Caribbean island located about 70 km off the coast of Nicaragua. The population is only about 700 and the atmosphere is very laid back. It is not as inexpensive as many of the other places we have traveled so far but it was well worth the expense. There is little to do on this small island besides lay on the beach or go diving. Amy and Turgay had come here for the diving as it had come highly recommended by instructors at their last diving school, they weren’t disappointed. There are two dive shops on Little Corn and they choose the one recommended,
Dolphin Dive. After speaking with the instructors there,
Karl and Adam, they decided to go ahead and do their advanced open water certification, which consists of five dives; three required a deep dive (30m), an underwater navigation dive, a night dive, and two of your choice, they chose an underwater naturalist dive and a performance buoyancy dive. During the peak performance buoyancy dive they had to accomplish different tasks underwater suck as knocking over weights set up on the bottom in a sandy spot. But they had to knock over the weights with their chins (not as easy as it sounds with all that diving gear on). After passing the buoyancy dive they had time left over on the dive and went through a series of coral tunnels where they saw some glassy sweepers, a school of which seemed to have one mind and turn in unison.
On the night dive they saw an octopus, a giant barracuda (2.5m though Amy swears it was 3m) and spiny lobsters. Amy loved those dives too but her ultimate favorite was the underwater naturalist where they took identification cards with them on the dive and identified different fish and coral while diving. She liked the time they took looking closely at the coral and trying to determine which fish was which. Finally on their underwater navigation dive Amy finally saw her first sharks, four nurse sharks. We spent our evenings just hanging out and studying for our diving tests. Although the diving was the highlight of the trip the food at the Cuban restaurant Habana Libre, came in a close second.
The choices were few but the food was delicious; either beef in special sauce or catch of the day and sometimes lobster in either garlic sauce or Cuban sauce. This small restaurant is run by a Cuban national who immigrated to Nicaragua about 8 years ago and his partner is a Nicaraguan native. Together they make an incredible team and some memorable meals. After 4days on the island they decided to return to the mainland, repeating the previous process but with a much drier panga ride. After arriving in Managua we took a taxi to the bus depot to catch a mini bus to Granada. The hawks for the buses were very aggressive each trying to take the luggage and put it into their vehicle. This was a bit overwhelming after the peace and quiet of the islands but Amy and Turgay got control of their own luggage and chose the minibus that looked the nicest. After a 45 minute ride along the Interamericana Highway and we arrived in Granada.
