reminder: my photos for this journal are not stored here, i'm storing them on twango
The requests have been coming in for an update, and i admit its been a little while.
I spent most of the last week in my rescue diver course; which was amazing. The course is referred by most of the more advanced divers down here as both the hardest and one of the most rewarding diving courses they've ever taken. I couldn't agree more. My course was taught by Jimmy, one of UDC's more senior instructors. Jimmy spent fifteen years as a cop in Tennessee, before becoming a professional rescue diver for the local law enforcement. On top of these Jimmy is a genuinely nice guy with a good sense of humor.
The rescue course is essentially the course that takes you from a beginner diver to a more experienced one. We spent the first few days of the class in the classroom almost the entire day. We had a few hundred pages of reading to do in a pretty short amount of time, and our class included an EFR course (think CPR, etc...), and the last few days of class partially or entirely in the water. The water parts of our training included acting out emergency diver scenes until we knew them instinctively. Jimmy teaches his class with a sort of "Anything (safe) goes" attitude. His goal is to have all of graduates be competent enough to save him in the case of an emergency, and through out the week, anyone of our 4 instructors would just jump in the water and start "drowning" or acting as a "panicked" or "unresponsive" diver. Our class would have to save them and would get feedback on our methods, effectiveness, etc.
Friday morning i was certified as a PADI rescue diver, and by Friday afternoon i was doing my first Fun Dive in a week. The best part about it was that now that i'm a rescue diver (and my friends who i'm diving with the most were in that course as well) we are aloud to lead our own dives. This basically means that if we feel like it, we can plan our own routes and dive plans and not always follow a divemaster or instructor. Of course we still always dive in groups of two or more, but now i am trained well enough to lead one of those groups.
Also, as of Friday morning, i'm technically a Dive Master Trainee (DMT) which means two things:
1) I can start my dive master courses, which include readings, homework and tests, water skills, and an internship with the dive shop.
2) Technically my internship started, which means that i am fair game for some of the tasks around the shop, such as moving tanks on/off the boat, renting gear, and helping out on dives and classes.
I'll be doing my DMTraining (also DMT) with a French Canadian couple (Benoit and Genvieve) who were in my rescue course and who i really enjoy diving with. I've been diving with them the last two days.
In the mean time, I've hung out a bit (my team performed pretty well in a pub quiz night last night) and enjoyed myself on the island. I moved last week into a more permanent residence than the hostel i was at when i first arrived. I'm sharing a small two bedroom with a Master Instructor student. Leon is a good roommate, and i think it's gonna be a good time to live with him. The place i'm living is much closer to my dive shop, and is on the water which is nice. I have my own room with a lock, so i feel much more secure about the safety of my stuff as well. If i can work out how to get Internet there, ill truly be set.
I'm gonna take a Nitrox course tomorrow. Nitrox is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen that is richer in oxygen than normal air. This gives it a few advantages in terms of diving (breathing compressed nitrogen at depth is a little hard on the system), and a few risks as well if not handled properly. This one day course teaches how to handle oxygen properly so that i can dive with nitrox if i wish.
Every Thursday night our dive center has an all you can drink BBQ (about 7$ for all you drink rum and beer, with food). I haven't figured out why yet (humidity?) but my system seems to be able to drink more easily here than at home. The last two Thursday nights have been good fun. After the BBQ ends, pretty much the entire dive center heads to Coco's (Coco Loco) a bar built on a dock over the bay. Coco's plays a mish mash of dance music, not always good but almost always easily dance able. This week i danced hard for a good two hours or so, which was excellent.
I'm starting to find my niche in the social system here, which is excellent. A couple of people have started to feel like pretty good friends, and i can tell who i'm going to be hanging out with a lot, which is nice. There are a couple of people who I'd give a hug to, and a bunch of others that i'm always happy to see when i see them. I think a little longer to solidify relationships and some of them will be pretty close.
That pretty much wraps it up for me recently. I haven't worked very much on the programming project i'm doing, but i think i am likely to have more time to do that coming up. Moving makes a big difference because now i have a work space. The majority of my time is taken up in or around the dive center, or diving. I've logged about 20 dives since I've been here, and i'm trying to continue clocking em in at about two a day. Two dives takes have the day, and leaves you somewhat tired, so theres not too much else going on other than socializing and studying thus far.
I haven't really figured out how all this is going to fit into my life, after this Utila stage is over. Just being here seems to turn you into a more experienced diver through osmosis. The whole island is devoted to diving and divers pretty much. 11 dive shops in this one tiny town, and that is honestly why 98% of the people come here. The bar talk, the social talk and the work talk all tends to revolve around it. That is kind of an experience in itself.
This morning i had one of the overall dive best experiences I've had since i got here. We went for a dive on a staff only boat this morning to a site called "Duppy Waters." Duppy is a local euphemism for ghost-like, haunted, or spiritual, depending on your interpretations, and the site is so named because of an eerie glow in the water, and a strong spiritual energy that many people feel there. Benoit, Genvieve, Ellie and I took a dive down the side of this wall to 100ft. We swam along the wall for a while, slowly increasing in depth until we eventually came over the wall where there is a nice sand patch mixed into the coral. As we came over the wall Benoit noticed a large Manta Ray swimming across the sand. It must have been about 5 feet head to tail. It was pretty far away, but we still got a long and good view of it. A few minutes later Ellie spotted a large Morey Eel. Moreys aren't dangerous, and look like large green snakes. They often snap their jaws a lot, i think trying to feed. All the eels i've seen slither around through the coral, not too differently as would a snake, but they are able to easily move in three dimensions as they are under water. Gorgeous. Then just as we were coming to the boat, somebody spotted a Sea Turtle. The turtle was right in front of me, about 60 feet deep. S/he was about 2-3 feet long, not a huge Turtle, but still an amazing sight anywhere, and especially under the water.
After the dive we went on a whale shark search and i got really lucky. Whale sharks are the worlds largest fish, who can get to about 45-50 feet long when they get older. Today we found one that was about 15 feet, so she was probably a little younger. They are beautiful creatures (go find a good whale shark picture on http://images.google.com, its the only way to explain how pretty these things are). Honduran law does not allow you to intentionally be in the water wearing SCUBA equipment with a whale shark. I think this is partly to protect the sharks from people just following them around all the time. However, you are aloud in the water with snorkel equipment as long as you don't touch the shark, and as long as only one boat at a time is near the shark. Today i had the shark (15 foot fish!!!) pass me within less than five feet. She swam right towards me and steered just out of the way so that i got a great look at her front, side and rear. This was the second time i managed to follow her (the first time i was about 10 feet behind her swimming hard until i was out of breath) and i spent a couple of quick minutes in the water with the shark. This is a once in a lifetime experience that i'll probably get a few times while here... and it's an amazing one.
Alright, this entry is getting really long. I'm gonna call it a night. Thanks for getting this far! I still have a fair amount of reading to do before tomorrow! I miss you all, write me, i'm pretty good about returning emails.
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