Well I know I said I'd keep my blog more up to date, but I guess I'm just getting a little bit lazy with it at the moment. So I'm just going to say from now on how often I'll update my blog, it will just be when I get round to it.
So I'm now on the island of Utila in Honduras and I arrived here two weeks ago. I've signed up to do my divemaster course here so the plan is to be here for at least 5 weeks. To do the divemaster course I had to first take the rescue diver course which I did last week. So now I'm a qualified rescue diver so you can all feel very safe now if you ever go diving with me now as I know how to save you if anything goes wrong! The course mainly involved trying to rescue people who were trying their best to drown and make it very difficult for us to save them. The bonus is that now I'm doing my divemaster training I can volunteer to help out on a rescue diver course and deal out the same problems to other people.
So I'm now doing my divemaster, I started it on Monday. The first thing we did was to get given a ton of books and a staff t-shirt. One of the big roles of being a DMT (divemaster in training) is to be a dogsbody for instructors, carry tanks back and forth to the boats, and setting up the boats. So apart from that I've been reading books and learning teaching skills. I have the first of two exams tomorrow.
Well that's the diving part of my time on Utila over, I'll go onto what I've been doing while not diving. I met 2 Danish guys and 2 English girls on the bus from Guatemala to Honduras who were also going to Utila, so we all went together. Oh yes, the bus ride over the border was interesting. I was queueing up at passport control and looked round to see my bus driving off! As I pointed thud out another bus driver kindly said that he would take me to the Honduras border control to catch up with my bus. 5 minutes into this ride to the other border we still hadn't got there yet, and dropped various people off at their houses, I was starting to get worried. I've never known of people living between borders before, but apparently they do here as we did eventually get to the Honduras border post and to my relief my bus was there. I went and complained at the driver but he didn't seem too bothered!
Right so back to the story. So the five of us stayed on the mainland for the evening before we took the ferry to Utila in the morning. Not much to say about where we stayed really, the only places we could find to eat was Pizza Hut, Wendy's, etc. Happily I don't have that problem on Utila, not a chain in site! For the first week on the island I got 7 days free accomodation at a hostel, with a pool. So if I wasn't diving we were in the pool. The evenings usually consist of eating nice food and one or too drinks! The 10 Limperas (30p) a shot of tequila nights have been a bit messy!
I moved into a house a couple of days ago as it much cheaper than a hostel. I'm sharing with a Guatemallan woman who is also on the divemaster course. We have ourselves a 2 bed house, with a bathroom each for $400 USD a month, I dread to think what you would get in London for that price. It's nice to be staying in a house for a while where I have my own room and I can un pack. One slight problem is my shower gives me a electric shock if I try to turn it off. In fact it also does through the water if I touch the shower head!
Oh yes, one more thing, I was doing an 800m snorkel in the sea as part of my course when I felt someone touch me on the leg. Only I turned round and it was a dog! He nudged me a few times, I think he was trying to save me! Once I managed to convince him I was fine he let me Cary on with my swimming.
