The surprise dive location, France

A very strange eel. One I have never seen before.

We got in to Paris early in the morning after an overnight flight that included a 6 hour stopover in Bahrain and a huge time change. This was the biggest time change we had, due to skipping Oman, and we had a bad case of jet lag for the first time on the trip. Still, we managed to make it to the Gare Lyon train station from the airport and bought a ticket to Marseille, a beach city on the Mediterranean Sea.

After a three hour train ride, we arrived and immediately called a dive shop. They had a boat going out but told us we needed to get a medical certificate to dive in France. Ok, so we had a problem; how to find a doctor, get an appointment, and get the checkup all by the afternoon. The answer came when I saw a pharmacy in the train station and asked for a recommendation. They gave me a phone number for a general practitioner 100 meters from the station. I called; the doctor answered and had an immediate opening. So vela la, we had our certificate. We then jumped in a cab, headed to the dive shop and got signed up for the next day. They also recommended a hotel near by and gave us their special rate of $77 Euro per night.