Young Man and the Sea

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I've heard for a long time that Honduras is the cheapest place to dive in the world, and from what I've seen it definetely lives up to that reputation. The island of Utila has a dozen or so diveshops all competing for your business; keeping prices down and promising all sorts of extras. Rather than sign up to dive the first day, Mike and Daryl checked out every shop and grilled them with questions and had them each put an offer on the table for us. We settled on a reputable dive company with good equipment, a decent price, and the best dorm accomodation on the island.

Most days the dive boat left at 7:30 and depending how far out we went were back between 11:00 and 12:00. The diving is best if you take a 30 minute ride to the north side of the island where the fish are more abundant and the coral much more colorful. We dove alongside a wall of coral where it drops off for a few thousand feet below. Also I did a drift dive where a current whisks you along the ocean floor and the boat picks you up at the end, requiring alot less swimming. Then I did a deep dive to 100 feet, and a wreck dive of a sunken oil tanker where you can go into the control room and play with the steering wheel while talking on the old rusty phone!

The weather was great the whole time and it was so hot by the time I left yesterday it was rediculous. At least the ocean is right there to cool off in but even that is not that cool. The food was realy good in Honduras too, I mostly ate balleadas which are bean and cheese burrittos with whatever else you want on them.

A group of us where swimming out in the ocean and a girl was joking about things biting, then she started yelling that something was stinging her. We all laughed and thought she took it a bit far by swimming at mach 5 back to the dock, when we saw the long red whip marks of a jellyfish across her legs we where like ewww that must have hurt. No one had seen jellyfish around there before but guess it's never good to cry wolf.

Now I'm bussing it down towards Costa Rica to meet up with my brother and sister. I made it to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, this evening and am spending the night here. What a city, things are hectic here, but thats a story for another time. There's a bus worker strike here at the moment so the few lines that are still running are jam packed. So yah, will be good to meet up with some of the fam and see Nicaragua. Will upload the few photos I have of the island when I get a chance.

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