Start of the Journey Home

Thanksgiving ended up being not quite like any other Thanksgiving that I have ever had. Mike, Steve, Robin, and myself decided since it was our last day on the island to rent a car to check out the places we haven't seen. We ended up down by the airport trying to figure out a way to get a car just for one day. It was also going to help getting to the ferry early the next morning because we really had no way besides taxi which is expensive and all our luggage wouldn't have fit. Anyway it ended up to where they needed a credit card that had 1500 dollars on it and someone over 25 to drive. Steve was the only one that was over 25 and I was the only one with the money. The rental itself wasn't bad, they just needed to have a payment just encase something happened or the car didn't make it back. Anyway, we signed for the car....I was a little nervous giving them my debit card but they seemed very nice and it was a Hertz rental place. We told them we were taking the 7 o'clock ferry the next morning which was a problem because they don't open up until 8. It ended up where we were to leave the car in front of the rental place and give the key to the security guard at the airport across the road. That made me just a little bit more nervous. But oh well, I gave it to the Lord. Anyway, we went around the island taking pictures and stuff. However it was raining hard and the weather really wasn't nice. We also went to the iguana farm which was neat. They had so many iguanas, along with amazon parrots, macaws, monkeys, and turkeys. I was so excited to see the turkeys, especially since it was Thanksgiving. I also made everyone stop at my absolute favorite place on the island. It was this little ice cream parlor called Cream of the Trop. They have the absolute best ice cream with really interesting flavors. My favorite flavor they had was tiraimisu. They also have a flower flavor, banana, coconut, white chocolate, orange, and so much more. I would make Marshall stop there everytime we drove pass and I frequented there so much I made friends with the owner and the ice cream scooper. They would get huge smiles and start laughing every time I came in. All in all, it was a really nice time driving around and stuff, then we ended up going back to the house to pack up. That was really sad and I was sure I was forgetting so much stuff. Afterwards we sat around and waited until it was time to head to Oasis, which is a bar/grill. They were throwing a Thanksgiving feast, and we were wondering whether it could live up to the the real deal. Surprisingly it really did, and I recognized all the dishes. I ate plenty and hardly had room for anything else.

While we were talking over dinner, we learned that a bomb had gone off in downtown La Ceiba, which was the place we were headed to the next day. We thought about not going, but then we might get stuck in Roatan, because it might just get worse after the elections. Robin and Mike backed out and decided that it might be to dangerous to drive through La Ceiba to get to the jungle lodge we were going to be staying. Steve and I decided that we would take that risk and stick our plans through. We said that if they were running the ferry in the morning that we would take it and get straight to the lodge.
We woke up early the next morning (Nov. 27), did our final packing, wrote a quick note to everyone, and headed out. I dropped Steve and all our gear off at the ferry, and then took the car back to the rental place. Of course they weren't there early, so I was forced to leave it in front of the place and give the keys to the security guard. I took multiple pictures of the car and exactly how I left it. When I gave the keys away, I had half a mind to take a picture of the guard, but then thought better. I didn't want to be to un-trusting. I then said a little prayer and prayed that they would not take advantage of the stupid American boy.
Back at the ferry, we bought our ticket (premerio clase) and then sat around waiting. It was there in the waiting room that I had my first real Central American coffee of my trip. It tasted so much better than the instant coffee that I had to drink. Unfortunately I didn't wait for it to cool down, and I ended up scalding my tongue so I couldn't enjoy the rest of it. So typical.
Anyway, the ferry ride went off without a hitch. The swells were pretty big, so the boat was rocking and several people were turning pretty green. Once we got to the mainland we were corralled into this area where everyone was fighting for their bags. People were shouting there baggage claim numbers and others were throwing bags around. It was complete chaos, so I just sat back, took pictures and made sure I didn't see my bag leaving the area without me. Eventually the crowd thinned and I was able to pick up my bags. Then once Steve had his we went outside the area to try to find the people from the Jungle Lodge that were supposed to pick us up. I forgot to mention that the weather outside had taken a turn for the worse and that you could tell we were in the rainy season, just outside the rain forest. It was raining like no other. Streets had turned into rivers.

Well, as luck would have it no one showed up for us so we were standing around waiting for no one. I speak the best Spanish out of the two of us, so therefore we might as well been placed in the Stone Age. Lets just say it was easier to communicate with grunts and head nods. We finally found a guy that was really trying to help us and he told us he knew where we were trying to go. I was doubtful, since the lodge had no address and was supposed to be without any contact to the outside world. Anyway we followed him to his taxi, while jumping over ponds, hopped in and started off on the ride from hell. Everything started off fine, I found a phone book and showed him exactly where we needed to go. He agreed to take us for thirty dollars which was a good price. We were going along the main road and then suddenly he turned off of it into what I thought was a river. It was really a dirt road that was slowly being washed away by the rain. As we got further along, the water started getting deeper. Eventually I could feel it sloshing against the sides and bottom of the car. I was certain I was going to see water began to seep in through the doors but somehow it didn't. We eventually got off that road and got on one running parallel to this massive river. Waterfalls were streaming off the side of the mountain into the road and down into the river. It was if I was transported into Jurassic Park. The rain was not letting up and everything seemed to get just a little worse. As we rounded this bend there was a dump truck with a bulldozer that was clearing the road. Apparently the mountain was being washed away and was becoming one with the road. As they were clearing it I could see small avalanches starting at the top of the hill. It was only a matter of time before that road was gone. As we passed the bulldozer, the driver looks at me and tells me that I will be staying several days up on the mountain if we don't turn back. All that is running through my mind is, “bombs, mountains, mudslides, which one???”. I turned to Steve and asked if he understood. He said yes and that we should stay up in the mountain, so we continued on our way.
We eventually got to the lodge, but it looked deserted. Luckily it wasn't and one other guest was there. She had arrived 10 minutes before us and it was her second time to visit this place. She had been here last year for a week and had to come back because she loved it so much. It was a good thing she was here because no one else speaks English and she is fluent in Spanish. Thank the Lord for Melissa. We settled in, had lunch, got to know each other and now just waiting for the rain to let up. Over the past 3 hours the river has risen a good 8 feet. I hope it stops soon so we can go rafting or at least hiking. It is really gorgeous here.

After being woken up by Melissa we were told that they were going to do a zip line tour regardless of the rain. We wanted to do something so we decided to go. There were three other people that had arrived since we had, and they were only staying for one night. We all got ready and then had a short briefing by Pablo. Then we were off. The first line took us over the river which was really neat. After the first couple we hiked up the mountain to get to a different set of lines. It was so much fun because there wasn't much light, so you couldn't see and trees and vines were flying past. I was whipped in the face several times. We also stopped at a fish farm to feed the fish and check out all the stands of fruit trees. The fish were tilapia, and they had so many types of fruits. Limes, mangoes, papaya, breadfruit, and my favorite tree was the cinnamon. We picked a bag of the leaves so we could make tea later on tonight. I also crunched on a leave to get the cinnamon oil out. It was awesome. It was a natural breath freshener, which I severely needed. The last line was of course the best. It was super long and you started in the trees and then broke through to ride back across the river. By the end of the trip we were soaked through.

Finally a DM

Yeah....I finally completed my DiveMaster program. I can officially say that I am a PADI professional. Anyway that is all exciting and stuff, but what is cooler is that I actually got to go lead a paying customer around and actually do all the divemaster stuff. I was really nervous at first, but the guy said he had over 200 dives. However, he was a cruise diver, which usually means that they haven't been in a while and are doing it just because they can. Not because they really want to. I went out on the boat with several other divers and their DM and it turned out that we were going to The Odyssey and Rockstar. These two sites are not the easiest and certainly not ones you want to take a person from a cruise ship. Therefore I was even less confident. They are both really deep (110ft) and people usually suck down their air fast (20 minutes usually). However the Lord took care of me and both dives were quite a success. Turns out that his breathing was on par with mine, and much better than the other divers that were on the boat with us. Therefore, we prolonged our dives and it was actually my favorite dive that I had had on The Odyssey. We didn't see to much on either dives but conditions were great and the dives long. So in the end I had a happy customer. He was a real nice guy that had quite an interesting life. I believe he was at one time a race car driver, then a maritime lawyer, turned internet business man. He was quite interesting, and he really reminded me of Jeremy (my brother-in-law). He seemed like the overachiever type.

Besides that, not much else has been happening. I did my last dive today, which I believe is my 95th. It was neat, with huge sponges and groupers that were 3/4ths my size. Oh...I also had one last night dive which went really well. We didn't see anything spectacular but I did sit in the sand and play with the bioluminesent lights. They are so amazing. In the end right before we went up I took off my fins and started running around in the sand patch. Others joined in and we started doing Kung Fu Scuba. It is hilarious, you can jump around and float around in poses and it is the funniest thing to watch. What was even better was that this was at night so as you moved you lit up because of the bioluminesence.

Well, I am still trying to finish up getting everything ready for my trip home. I am getting really excited, but a little nervous. I have been trying to use more of my Spanish lately but it keeps failing me. I am sure that I will be able to work it our and hopefully the locals will help me out. I still have to finish my laundry and try to sort out what I need to bring back with me. Tomorrow is my last day here, and it is ironic seeing as how it is Thanksgiving. It will remind me just how thankful I am for this whole experience and nicely it worked out. I think that everyone is planning on going to this American owned bar that is throwing a huge Thanksgiving feast. So hopefully I won't get to miss out on all the holiday festivities. I will take pictures and make sure that I fill you in on everything later

Final Days

So the countdown to when I leave Roatan has started. I thought that I would stay for a while and complete my scuba instructorship. However, the instructor I wanted to take it from decided not to do a course in December and that meant I would have to go to a completely different shop. I also realized I really only wanted to do DM (divemaster) work and that I didn't really want to instruct anyone. Plus, I realized that I would be home in time for Christmas. I hear it's going to be in Pittsburgh, so I am REALLy excited. I get to see all my family along with my nephews. Plus it might finally be a white Christmas. I might go into shock though going from the Carribean to freezing cold. Haha.
I have been doing some research on how I should get home and I wanted to slowly make my way home. I found some cheap flights out of Guatemala City so I decided I would take a little over a week to make my way there. I decided that I would go to La Ceiba and Copan Ruinas, while in Honduras, then go to Antigua and then Guatemala City, in Guatemala. I have been researching it and trying to figure out what I need to do in all those places. I am getting really excited and trying to get accomidations and things nailed down. I can't wait to start so I can share all my pictures and stories. However I still have a few things to finish here in Roatan for my divemaster program, plus I want to get as mush diving in as I can.
Speaking of diving, I have gotten a few more dives in since the last post. I finally saw a seahorse on one of my dives. That was really neat. Then we did a night dive to try to see the ostrocots. However, that did not go so well because we had guests and other divers that were freaked out and wouldn't turn off their lights. Therefore several of the interns, including me, just sat in a sand patch messing around. We were laying on our backs, then our heads, then chasing each other and all sorts of stupid stuff. It really was fun. Then on another dive with just Steve, myself, Mike and his two guest we found two nurse sharks. They were so amazing. Mike swam right past them which is unbelievable, seeing as they were well over 7 feet each, and right in the open. However, one of the guests spotted them right at the same time I did. It was so funny to see how the guest reacted when he saw them. He literally did a double take, spit out his regulator, fumbled for his clinker, and somehow managed to inform everyone else. Quite hilarious. The sharks were really neat though. They were just on the bottom and we all hovered over them less than two feet away. Another neat dive was when I found a juvenille smooth trunkfish. He was really small and looked like a floating button. Their fins are so small you can hardly see them and the are black and white poka dotted. Really interesteing. On that same dive we found a huge lionfish that Mike tried to capture in a bag. (They are invasive and are killing the fish population here.) However, the fish was smarter than that and charged Mike. He literally got three inches from Mike's face. You could see the look of death pass over Mike's face. Afterwards it was kinda funny. Not much else in the way of diving.
My divemaster training is going pretty good. I only have two more things to complete until I am finished. Unfortuately I am fed up with one of my instructors. She is really annoying, she wont shut up, she thinks she knows everything (she doesn't), and man....don't get me started. She is in charge of the last bit of Steve and I's divemaster training. However, I refused and told Marshall I wasn't going to do anything until he does it with us. Let e just say that my other instructor did not like that. Ever since then she has been mean and unkind to me. However she hides it behind her fake Texas friendliness. She makes me want to hurt someone.....preferably her. It isn't me though, just about all the other interns are SO sick of her. Oh well.....I took care of her. She is no longer finishing our divemaster program by herself. Thank the Lord for Marshall.
Anyway, not much else. I did get to go back to place that Amanda got attacked by that monkey. I found out then that it was a homosexual monkey (no joke) and he only liked guys. He would be really nice to the guys and only tolerate the girls (only if there were no guys around). Really strange. He refused to get off my head and I ended up having to squat down and hobble out of his reach so his leash pulled him off me. It was really awkard. Even worse, when I left I swear he got to the end of his leash, reached out for me and then started to quiver his lip. Yes, that monkey truly did not want me to leave. However the quivering lip put me over the edge and had me running for the car. Just plain weird.
Well, I will keep everyone informed with everything going on. I hope that my plans for getting to Guatemala hold up so that I can get more stories to share.

Fun times!

So I told myself that I wasn't going to do another post for a few more days. Right now the days are becoming much the same with not much happening. The last two days have been spent at the shop; studying with several exams and just a few dives. Not much else to report. However today was a bit different and forced me to write, while it was fresh on my mind.
Today was a cruise ship day and we had about 8 people to pick up from the ship. We were all going to go down there to get them and then all ride together in the two pickups back to the shop. However right when we were going out to the trucks, the heavens opened up and released everything it had. We took a moment, decided that Marshall along with 2 divemasters and 1 instructor would go, to get them started on their dives and snorkel trip. Then Marshall would return with the truck to pick up all the interns. Fortunately, after they left the rain stopped and the interns just walked to the road to jump in the back of the trucks as they passed.
I believe that around four of the guests were going on a canopy tour, so on the way to the shop we stopped to drop them off. The canopy tour place has this pet monkey that is on this jungle gym contraption were tourists can have pictures taken with him. Everyone of course jumped out of the truck and wanted to go see him. Then one of the cruisers got real close and the monkey jumped on her. Of course everyone wanted the monkey to sit on their shoulder. I was smart (due to all the youtube videos I watch of monkey attacks), saw the evil lurking in the monkey's eyes, and stayed in the bed of the truck warning everyone to stay away from him. Eventually all the tourists left the monkey to get started on their incident release forms, so now some of the interns wanted to visit the monkey. Mike was already down with the monkey, and had it wrapped around his waist. Amanda was in the bed of the truck with me and was trying to talk Claire and I to come with her to see the monkey. I refused and so did Claire, which was quite a smart move. Amanda jumped out and slowly approached the monkey. I was closely watching everything and the reality of what was about to happened was revealed to me. I watched the monkey turn it's gaze on Amanda, clench it's fists and tighten it's hold on Mike. As Amanda got closer it prepared to jump. It let out a scream, grabbed her arm, and brought it's mouth to her forearm. Amanda freaked out, added her scream to the mix, which in turn scared the monkey. He quickly let go, jumped to the safety of Mike and landed wrapped around his head. It continued screaming all the while gyrating on Mike's head. He reacted to the monkey's humping movements my throwing it off and running to the safety of the car. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. I could not stop laughing and afterwards felt really bad. However, Amanda is fine and just shaken up, while Mike is still washing his face trying to rid himself of the horrors of being molested by a monkey.


I had finally controlled myself by the time we reached the dive shop. We got everything ready for the divers and then found out that Steve and I were going to be taking the lone snorkeler out to the reef. It was to be a two hour snorkel, but usually they only last about 45 minutes because people get tired or bored. I was not looking forward to it because I hate snorkeling. I never see anything, I always breath in more water than air, and well....it's just not worth it. However, I needed to do it to get one step closer to my Divemaster rating.
We headed out to the reef, and Steve and I introduced ourselves and tried to warm up to the snorkeler. She turned out to be a middle aged lady, from Chicago, with not the most friendly attitude (you could tell she wanted nothing to do with us, an elitist, I think). Anyway, we were going along, trying to find stuff to point out to her, and we looked up and noticed she was just bobbing along letting the current and waves take her wherever. She was halfway out in the channel and was about to be sucked outside the reef into the open water. Steve and I of course swam straight over and made her kick her way back towards the boat. Along the way I found a lobster, along with a eel, and pointed it out to her. She stopped, starred at me (not the creature), and then kept going on her way. That taught me not to show her anything else! We kept going along, and about an hour into it, Steve approaches me and asks me for the time. I tell him, and he replies "My hour is up, she's all yours." At this point she is back at the mouth of the channel, flirting with danger, so I swim over to her and coax her back to safety. This is probably about the 5th time that Steve or I had to do this, and each time she glared at us from under her mask and reluctantly followed us. As I lead her back to the reef, I looked up and noticed Steve was nowhere near. He had decided to just leave and climb back on the boat, since his time was up.
I thought for sure that she was going to give up snorkeling soon but the minutes went by and she showed no sign of stopping. Every time I looked back for her, all I saw was this large, neon blue butt up in the air as she was trying to get under the water to look at something. You would have been laughing had you heard what was coming out of my snorkel. I was constantly moaning, whether it be about the snorkeler who wouldn't stop, how cold I was getting, how Steve had just left me in the water, or whether I was trying to prevent myself from drowning due to all the sea water in my snorkel. Let me just say that this sealed how much I hate snorkeling. Eventually I had to tell her to make her way to the boat and she grudgingly obliged. Back at the shop no one believed how long we were out there, and they said that was the first time anyone stayed for the whole two hour snorkel.

After drying off I just fell asleep and waited for everyone to be ready to leave. Tomorrow, we only have two divers and we have a night dive planned. I am sure something will happen so you will hear from me soon.

Long and Tiring Days

So I can hardly remember what day it was that I last posted something. The past couple of days have been a lot of the same. We had the same divers diving with us and the conditions were the same, which forced us to continue diving off the docks by the intern house. This meant for us interns lots of hauling gear and tanks around, and making sure everything is there for the guests. I didn't get to dive on Thursday and just sat at the docks waiting for them to return so that we could switch out tanks. Afterwards, once Marshall told Mike, Steve, and I we were done, we started walking back to the house. Halfway there, Patrick came up and asked us to come with him to help him out. We hopped in the boat with him and we went all the way to the next little bay. He finally told us what we were doing, which was picking up a boat he just bought. He pulled up to this grungy, dilapidated dock that had three extremely broke-down ghetto type boats. There were three locals there that didn't look to friendly that started talking to Patrick in Spanish. He pulled up to this sportfisher and started tying our boat to it. He then informs us that the sportfisher has no steering or motor. At this point I started envisioning all sorts of situations in which all the endings were bad. Steve and I ended up riding back in the sportfisher, which kinda freaked me out. The boat is quite nice, once you look past the rust, grime, and holes, but I was afraid to look around it because I thought a body was going to pop out somewhere. I seriously thought that we had just stolen a boat from a drug smuggler or something along those lines. I had no idea what was on that boat, I was just praying to get back to the docks without swimming there. Everything went well though and we made it back to the docks within an hour.
That night we decided to go th West End to get something to eat. There was this one place called Cannibal Cafe that supposedly had really good burritos. They were about $11 each, which is alot here, but they had a way around this. If you ordered three and ate all of them within an hour they are free. And you get a free t-shirt. I decided I was up for the challenge. The first burrito went down easy, and as the second one came out, I noticed that it had gotten slightly bigger. I got through that one and then had about 25 minutes to finish the last one. I got down to 5 minutes and only had 2 more inches to go. I somehow managed to force it down, even though I started gagging. Yes, I know how very disgusting this is. However, I finished the challenge, against everyone's expectations and walked away with my free t-shirt. Let me say the drive back in the bed of the truck was a little uncomfortable.
Friday was a little more stressful, however I did get to do 3 dives. Let me start with the morning first. I was told to stay at the house while everyone else went to the shop to get the gear and tanks. They wanted me to stay around to set up the gear once it came. There were three of the guests gear locked up in the owners garage. However, it was locked and the owner with the key was gone. Also I had no tanks so I couldn't get the gear ready. I waited at the house and was going to go down when I heard the truck come back. Anyway, I didn't hear it and the owner, Patrick, ran up to the house and preceded to yell at me for not having the gear ready on tanks. I told him I had no tanks to get ready and that I didn't have a key to get the few pieces of gear out of the garage. It really made me mad. I am not his employee and plus I couldn't do anything about it. Everything turned out well though and we left the docks with plenty of time.
The first dive was with the group of 6 people. It went really well, however I didn't see anything to memorable besides a large cowfish and a puffer. The second dive was on a wall called Cemetery Wall. It was really neat and had a dark, gloomy feeling about it. I saw a pipefish along with this tiny half inch fish which was a arrow blenny. The third dive was a neat one with lots of interlocking corals. I didn't see to much because there were so many different hiding places.


After the dives I went with Marshall to return the gear and tanks (there were 50 of them). On the way back we got in a traffic jam due to a wreck so we decided to stop at the Chinese food. There were several other interns with us that were at the stop to do their instructor course. When we got back I was so tired, and went straight to bed even though it was 8:30.
Luckily today was our day off...so I got to rest a little. However, I was completely out of food so got a ride to the grocery store with two other interns, Liz and Karson. We got our groceries and decided to walk to the next village to look at the food stalls. This ended up being a longer walk than we remembered but kept on walking regardless. It ended up being over a two mile walk, which I completed with my 30 pounds of groceries. From there we got a taxi and got back to the house.
Afterwards Liz, Steve, and I decided to go diving on the reef behind our house. We had planned this so we had kept 4 tanks and our gear at the house. We took two kayaks with our gear all the way around this mangrove island and then up the reef a bit. Then we jumped in the water and started our dive. It was an hour long dive which was along this beautiful wall. I saw three really large puffers which were over two feet long, along with a moray eel, a spotted drum and tons of my favorite red banded shrimp. We got back to the kayaks and paddled back to the docks. After we cleaned up our little adventure had lasted over 4 hours.

The rest of the day, I decided to make a pizza along with tres leche. They turned out great and now I am just enjoying them. Hopefully this coming week won't be so hectic since all the guests went home and only two new people are coming. Plus it helps that the weather looks like it will be nice.

Crazy and Hectic

So the past two days have been filled with lots of activity. Yesterday, we arrived at the shop and started pulling gear and tanks for the 6 divers that are diving with us all week. Of course I had gotten only two tanks on board when they showed up. They were 45 minutes earlier than we told them to be and they were expecting to show up, walk on board, and leave the dock without having to even lift a finger. That is the way it usually works but since we had no time to get ready for them, it looked bad on us. However they were happy to help up and set up their tanks and equipment. I felt bad, but what could I do. Regardless, we were off the dock by a quarter of 9.
So, it was the 6 divers, me, Claire and then Steve. All of us were interns so this was going to be rather interesting. Especially with Ariel being one of the divers (i found out later her name is Barbie and everything she owns is pink). I decided to give the first dive briefing and lead it. The site was Rockstar which I am quite familiar with. The dive ended up being quite a success. I found a black and white spotted nudibranch, a spotted drum, three lionfish, two large puffers, and a large filefish. As we were doing our 3 minute safety stop I noticed one of the divers had a large, hot pink, lace bra attatched to the back of their tank. Yes, not the most normal sight underwater. As we surfaced all of them were laughing and really enjoying themselves. Always a good sign, and even better when you are doing your first fully fledged dive leading.
The second dive was for Steve to lead, and it took place at Emily's Escape. Everything went well, except it definitely wasn't as good as my dive. We didn't see half as much and Steve sorta lost the boat and I had to show him where it was. I got a huge confidence boost when one of the divers was following Steve and then swam to me and motioned if Steve was going the right way.
We got back to the docks and had our lunch. Then we got the boats ready for the afternoon, and unfortunately I was chosen to stay at the shop while everyone else went diving. When the group of 6 found out about this, they complained and told me they were going to miss me. Another confidence booster.

When they got back the shop owner, Patrick showed up and was wanting to take someone with him to pick up the van. Of course he asked me if I could drive stick and I just told him I've done it a few times. I failed to mention that it was on a BWM that was super easy to drive, and not a 16 passenger van. I ended up going and the entire time I was slightly freaking out. Let me just say that the roads here are not the best and that if you have access to a car then you are qualified to drive here. Anyway, I didn't have any problem and only stalled out on one hill. Pretty uneventful, but now everyone knew I could drive it which is not the best thing as you will see later.
Of course, here it is the rainy season and we are seeing that full force nowadays. Last night it was raining so hard it woke me up, which is not the easiest thing to do. This morning it was even worse and conditions at the shop were to rough to dive. However, since we had 8 paying divers, along with 4 cruise ship guessed, Patrick decided not to cancel the dives but just taxi all the equipment to the intern house and leave from the docks by the house. This was totally different since the shop is on the Northeast side of the island while the intern house is at the Southwest.
The first truck went to the shop to get the gear and tanks for the morning dive for the cruise shippers and 2 of the guest divers. There was only so much room in the truck for interns so they left me at the house and told me to go with Claire to get the people from the cruise. That was fine with me, and once we got to the dock, the rain had stopped. We waited for a while and the first set to cruise people got off. Claire took them to the van and had me wait for the next set. They finally arrived but as soon as they did the heavens opened up and poured down rain. This continued for the rest of the day. We finally got them back to the intern docks where we got them on the boat and off to dive. After this instructions got miscommunicated and everything went downhill. Claire and I were supposed to go back to the dive shop and get the next 6 divers gear and tanks for their afternoon dive. However they wanted us to only take the truck which we figured would never have enough room for all that. Therefore they told me to take the truck and Claire would take the van. As we made our way through the rain up to the shop, I, of course, stalled out in the middle of the town on the biggest hill. That wasn't the biggest problem because after that the truck refused to start. After several minutes of praying, trying and keeping the sliding truck on the road it finally jumped back to life and chugged up the hill. I was shaking from all this and a little less keen about driving. However, I made it all the way to the shop and got everything loaded.


As soon as it was all loaded up I had to turn back around and head back to the intern house. By this time it was 40 minutes from when I started my trip, in the middle of the mountains, where there is a full monsoon in swing. I was just a little nervous, needless to say. As I made my way down to the house, I found that the truck's wipers were old, slow and unfaithful. There were times where I could not see out of the truck and even then couldn't tell where the road was because it was in the process of being washed away. I just kept praying, all the while trying to stay on what I thought was the road. You have to remember that I was all by myself, in a 4X4 (which I needed) stick shift, without my license, in a country where I didn't speak the language. Maybe I was just a little over my head. Praise the Lord I made it and I didn't even stall out.
Finally, back at the intern house I set up all the gear and tanks and just waited for everyone to get back. I had to face Marshall (the shop manager) which was not fun because his plan was thrown out the window and he got to the dock and had no idea what was going on. He handled everything well, but he was really pissed off. Not at me of course, I was doing things interns are not even supposed to be asked to do. Everything worked out and my crazy group of 6 divers got to the docks and were ready to go. I had snuck my gear into the truck along with extra tanks so I was able to hop on board with the 6 divers and the divemaster Mike. I was so psyched, since interns never got to dive the South side which has the best dive sites since it is in the Marine Park. The other divers were really happy I got to go because they swear I can see things other people can't.
The dive site we went to was Mary's Place which is world renowned and on Jacques Cousteau's top ten favorite dive sites. It easily lived up to the hype. The site is a series of 8 foot cracks in the ground that are in the shape of a Z. They drop to 130 feet and are encrusted in coral and sponges. It was absolutely beautiful and the life there was quite abundant. There were the yellow headed jawfishes, which look like little ghosts hovering above the seafloor, then I found a decorator crab, which cover them selfs in sea junk to blend in, a scorpinfish, a school of large permits, and the neatest thing was a large octopus I found that was out in the open. Only me and one of the dive guests saw him and we stayed with him a while. He went through three color changes from a blue color, to white and then red. Very appropriate considering it's Veteran's Day. This dive was way worth all the trouble I went through today. Plus my dive group was in love with the dive and couldn't say enough...the lady who saw the octopus with me kept giving me high fives and wouldn't shut up. It was quite gratifying.
Anyway, that was about it and now I am super tired. I am sorry for such the long post and I apologize. Just so much happens in two days and even then I have to leave out so much. Like the rasta Cat in the Hat, and the rat and bat in the house, along with the horse I met in the shopping center. No, I am not making all this up and yes it really did all happen. Anyway, I'll have more later....

Meeting a Mermaid

Ok....so I know that the title of this post is a little strange, but you will understand by the end of th post. Let me start off with yesterday and everything.
I went into the shop with the rest of the interns. We had several new divers that had dive packages show up for the week. I went with Mike, along with his two divers, Kathleen and Barbara. They are two older women that are really nice. Anyway we took them to Milton's Bight and then Emily's Escape. I didn't really see anything really exciting. A moray, toadfish, and several small interesting fish. The really neat part was the the conditions. Since the weather has been really strange lately, the water has been acting just as weird. We had a really strong current and there was a really large swell. I was watching my depth gauge and I was being thrown up and down about 5 to 6 feet. It was a really neat feeling. It was like being inside a washing machine. Afterwards, we went back to the shop and debated whether we should go out again after lunch. The women decided they wanted to try again...so we went just outside the channel and dove on the house reef, Labyrinth. This reef was right by the channel so the current was ripping through there. It would have been a really horrible dive, but I found it really fun since it was conditions I was not used to. We were fighting the current, the visibility was poor and there was so much debris in the water. I felt like I was in the Sahara Desert fighting against a dust storm. Though, just a little wetter. We decided to end the dive early and just head up.

Later that night, Mike's (an instructor) girlfriend, showed up at the island. He was really excited to have her so he wanted everyone to come down for drinks and dinner. It turns out that she has just turned 20, dropped out a college, ran away from her parents, just escape from a psychiatric clinic, and jumped on a plane down here. She told me her parents were putting out a missing persons report. Yeah, I have met some crazy individuals down here. They partied it up down at his apartment and I decided to leave early to go study. Unfortunately, some other intern decided to go with me, and she would not shut up. I kept telling her I needed to study, and she would shut up for 5 seconds then start talking about the most inane things. I was very much over her. Finally I just decided to go to bed, but then everyone else showed up at the house. Half the people were drunk or stoned or both and of course my room mate was the worst off. We just put him in a hammock outside and left him there. He survived. Then as I was in my room getting ready, I heard someone enter my room. I went to see who it was and it was this drunk girl who decided to lock the door behind her. At this point I was kinda freaking out. She preceded to talk to me and then try to seduce me. let me just say, drunk girls really have problems with this. I just laughed it off and told her to go to bed. Luckily she listened and as soon as she left I locked my door and went to bed.
By this morning everyone had slept off there stupidness and everyone forgot about the night before. We had a a busy day ahead of us because a group of six divers were coming in. This was going to be the group that I worked with for the entire week with one other intern and Marshall, our instructor. When I first met everyone they all seemed normal and reasonably good divers. Yeah, well once we hit the water that all went down the drain.
We got to the first dive spot Shipwreck Wall and Marshall gave the briefing. He was going to lead and the interns were going to be in the back making sure no one strayed to far. As we descended Marshall was having some trouble at the surface so I went to check on him. As I approached him I noticed that he was writing something on the slate. To my horror, I watched him write the words "Problems with ears, you take divers, just get them back." Then he ascended. At this point I had so much running through my head. First, I had never lead a dive, let alone with paying customers. Second, I had never even been to the site and had no idea what to expect. Lastly, I really hadn't listened to the briefing, NOT GOOD. I tried to act like I knew what I was doing and preceded to swim along the wall. As we got to the end Marshall suddenly appeared and signaled that his ears started working. However, he wanted me to finish the dive. Looking back I did pretty good, got everyone to the boat and no one complained afterwards. However on the dive I noticed that the divers were quite independent, some seemed lost in their own worlds, and others had obviously not listened to the signals. One lady kept giving me the okay signal everytime I asked for her air pressure. Then on the three minute safety stop another lady forgot to empty her BCD and shot up to the surface. I happened to look behind me and see her trying to swim down as she burst to the surface like a cork. Not good. However it was their first dive, so they were just working on getting back in the groove of things.

The second dive however went just about as good as the first. We went to Fish Pot and the other intern, Steve, was going to lead it. My job was to follow behind and watch for stragglers. I thought it was going to be easy. Once everyone was situated underwater and on there way I noticed this one lady darting around after schools of fish. She would be going on track with the others, then she would spot a school and break from the pack on an all out sprint right towards the fish. She would follow them arms outstretched trying to catch them. It was the funniest sight, and I immediately thought of my mom. This kept going on and once she disappeared up a canyon. I went after her and brought her back. Meanwhile Steve was having trouble with the rest of the group. I got back to the group with the fish chaser and he was sitting in the water column so confused. No one was following him and they were all spreading out in seperate directions. We finally gathered everyone up and checked everyones air. It turned out that the fish chaser had used all but 500 pounds in 20 minutes because she was sprinting around. Steve paired me with her and told me to take her immediately to the boat. We got there in time and when she was climbing out of the water she started to explain what she was doing down there. She told me she felt like a mermaid, Ariel to be exact, and that she was chasing after her friends. She also said that her favorite dive spots were caves, cervices and caverns because she was searching for her hideaway like Ariel's. Yeah, I wasn't to sure how to respond to this so I just told her Roatan had plenty of dive sites she would like.


That was the last dive I had with them today, but I will be diving at least twice a day with this group. I am sure I will have more stories about them. The rest of the day was uneventful with lots of studying. Now I am just trying to rest, and prepare myself for the rest of what is sure to be an interesting week.

Free Day!

These past days have been flying by. I can't believe how fast time goes. I have been doing my normal routine, with nothing to out of ordinary. There has been several dives with studying and sleeping in between. On Thursday we got a intern. She is a divemaster and is getting her instructor certification. She is Austrian, and that definitely took me off guard. She is nice enough, she is just very serious and seems to be yelling all the time. It is kinda funny. Yesterday morning I had just gotten up and was still groggy. I went to the main part of the house and she was there. She preceded to ask me a question, but to me it sounded like she was yelling at me for something. I just shrank down in my chair and mumbled "What? I'm sorry....ummm...I don't know." She just looked at me like I was crazy and walked off. I really felt ridiculous, but I just don't expect someone to come at me like that so early. I guess I will just have to get used to it.
Anyway, the dives have been pretty good. Yesterday we went to Milton's Bight and Emily's Escape. The first dive was a fun dive...it lasted 45 minutes and we swam quite a ways. The cool things I saw were a trunkfish and a small sargassum file fish. The rest of the time I was just taking in the amazing coral formations. On the second dive the visibility took a turn for the worst. There was a storm brewing offshore and it stirred things up a bit. I went down with the dive instructor, Julian. We saw some toadfish, which are the coolest things. They have these beards that are several inches long. Then when we were searching for the boat, Julian told me to stay there (in a sense) and that he was going back to see something. So he left me there just floating in the water column. I just watched the minutes pass and tried not to think about what was behind me. Let me say that I really hate being left alone in the middle of the ocean. Anyway, he came back and we eventually found the boat together. That was the end of diving this week.
Then today, I woke up and decided to make banana pancakes. They were really good and I also made a carmel creme banana sauce to go with it. Let me say that they were the bomb. Definitely, I will make those again. Afterwards a few of us went down to the docks to swim and goof around. After eating lunch and stuff, we decided to go to the beach and swim out to the reef to snorkel. As I was waiting for everyone else, I just stood in the shallows and was looking around. Out of the corner of my eye I say something slithering thorough the water towards me and I quickly jumped out of the water. It was a moray eel that came about 6 inches from my feet. It was really freaky. Once we got out the reef, we say some huge schools of fish, a barracuda, and quite a few lobster. Then as we were walking back to the beach. I started to step down on a rock and then I noticed that it moved. It ended up being an octopus. I started to mess around with in since it was in ankle deep water. It preceded to squirt me with water from it's jets and then suck onto my arm. I, of course, started freaking out thinking it was going to take a finger off with it's beak. After that I decided to leave it alone. That was about it for my day and now I am just studying for my equipment exam on scuba.


Tomorrow we are going in to the shop and supposedly we are going to have 8 new customers for the week. Plus I get to meet the other instructors that have been out of town. It will be a busy week and hopefully I will have lots of stories to tell.

Another Lazy Day

So the past few days have been lazy ones. We haven't had any customer divers or cruise ship guest come in...which is nice because then the interns get to take the boats out and just mess around. However, since I was getting over my cold and stuff, I decided to take Sunday off from diving to give my air spaces (sinuses and ears) time to equalize. They needed some time off. I just studied and laid around.
Yesterday was a little more exciting. I got to go on three dives. We did two morning dives. It was just me and the two other guys around here, Steve and Mike, that went. We decided to go to the east end of the island that no one goes to dive. There are plenty of dive sites there, it is just to remote for people to go there regularly. Turns out the diving up there is spectacular. We first dove Three Crabs, where we went down a canyon to a wall. We went down to 120 ft, and worked our way up. The neatest part was when we went around this corner and then looked up. The wall was completely covered with these huge black branching corals. They stuck out from the wall a good 6 feet with a span of 7 feet. It was so spectacular. Another great part about this dive was all the sponges. There was this one reef that was covered in sponges of every shape, size and color. The majority of them were the barrel sponges, which are my favorite. It is so neat to see a field of them all together. The second dive was at Dennis's Place. The reef here was the coolest. It was just tiers of corals and sponges placed on top of each other. It reminded me of the reef shown in Finding Nemo. It was so healthy and alive. After the morning dives we went to the shop and ate our daily portion of rice and beans. During lunch a new intern showed up. She is from the UK but for the past year and a half she has been working on a Disney Cruise line.
We then went on our third dive to Milton's Bight. We saw a really large spotted eagle ray but not much else. We mostly just goofed around and played games. Everyones favorite seems to be the "riding" game. Everyone trys to sneak up on one another and then latch on to their tank and ride them. If you get a good hold on them they can not get rid of you. It kind of fun to catch each other off guard.
On the way home we went to the store. I was walking around and all the sudden two guys turned up my aisle and both were carrying AK 47s. That always takes you by surprise and reminds you that you are no longer in America. Back at the casa we all just napped and then decided to go for chinese food since we got a new intern. This Chinese place actually serves really good Chinese. It is communal Chinese food so the whole table orders about 3 plates and then we all eat from them. The crazy part is how big the plates are. There is always leftovers. After eating we went to my favorite place, Cream of the Trop. This is the local ice cream shop and the ice cream is SO good. So far I have had cinnamon, tiramisu, coconut, chocolate mocha, and tamarindo. All have been amazing.
Today, we woke up to go the shop but everyone is getting sick. The shop manager, Marshall, thought he had strep so he went to the doctor. About half the other interns went with him to get checked out or have their physicals done. I just hung out at the house and slept in the hammock. When they got back everyone just decided to stay home and take the day off. So just another lazy day at the house. So far I haven't done anything productive besides going to visit the community's pet monkey. She gets real lonely so I went down with Amanda to see her. She ran over and sat down in front of us and then hunched over. It was really weird but then we figured out she wanted us to "groom" her. We proceeded to pick through her hair and pet her and she was in heaven. It was so strange....I would have never expected to be practically asked by a monkey to groom it.

I think later a bunch of the interns are going to the beach and stuff. Besides that....who knows

Halloween and More

So yesterday was our day of since it was a Saturday. It started for me about 7:30, real nice and easy. I had my coffee in the hammock while reading my new book. After about an hour I decided to make sweet potato pancakes for everyone. I was surprised because they turned out real good and everyone really liked them. Afterwards I went down to the dock to do my workout and swim in the mangroves. And that basically sums up my morning...just another morning in paradise.
Then me and three other interns decided to go to West End and see what was happening. We walked around there a bit, ate a really good lunch, walked around some more, and then bought some flavored rum really cheap for later on. Then we caught a cab back to the casa. The strangest thing happened on the ride home. I was in the front, and the driver had rasta music turned on. Then he started to change the music to the Begees or something like that. As the song started he turned to me, pointed and said "This one is for you." I almost burst out laughing. I didn't know how to respond so I just thanked him. I swear people saw the most crazy things to me. Earlier this week I was asked if I was looking for a Honduran woman to marry. But that is a different story.
Later on, the weather started storming up so it brought the bugs out, and inside the house. I was sitting in the living room and I looked up and noticed the wall across from me was moving. It was literally covered with hundreds of leaf cutter ants. The entire time it was raining outside there were trails of ants running all over our house. Also the mosquitoes were really bad. We brought all the fans to the center of the house and had the air whipping around just to make it hard for them to fly. We have one guy that is covered head to foot with bites just from last night. Not much else happened, we just sat around and watched Zombieland.

Diving Jokes

This morning was like every other. Up at 6:30 and out by 7. We got situated at the shop and then took the boat out for a two tank dive. We had 8 divers going, with just two non instructors/interns. We dove first at a place called Rockstar, which I have dove once before. However, each dive is different and this was no exception. We saw some great stuff, there was an crazy nudibranch which was black and white polka dotted, a mature lionfish, huge schools a fish covering the reef, a large moray eel, and so much more. I had one instructor freak out cause i acted like I was going to grab the tail of the huge moral eel that was sticking out. Pretty funny. The crazy part of this dive happened when some water leaked into my mask. I looked down and noticed the water was a deep green. I had no idea what to make of it then i remembered that green is the color red looks underwater. It was because my nose was bleeding bad enough to partially fill my mask. It was crazy to think that my blood was coming out green, but then i am from Roswell, NM. I figured that my sinuses couldn't take the pressure due to my cold so I just came up about 20 feet. After that I was good. The next dive was at Milton's Bight. This might be my favorite dive site so far. During our 55 minute dive, we saw two huge spotted eagle rays, another large green moray, a real small golden tail moray, and of course much more than I can remember.

Day at the Shop

The rest of the day consisted of reading my divemaster manual, cleaning shop, coming home, cooking a meal of beans and rice and then some rice pudding for dessert. All this makes for a pretty good day.

Our Beach

Well, I know all this is pretty boring about what I'm eating and all. So I will try to keep my next posts shorter with emphasis on just my dives and any other interesting happening in my day.