Utila

Amazing. This place is sick. Theres only two or three roads that go around the islands but there is tons of things on each of them.

We get into town after an hour ferry ride from La Ceiba. Immediately upon arriving, we are swarmed with like fifteen representatives from each dive shop on the island. There are around ten or so dive shops here, maybe a few more. All of them are pretty much the same price. We walked around the island with Jen and Darron, a couple from Oregon we have been traveling with for the past week or so, and shopped around for a dive school. We finally landed on Utila Dive Center, which definitely seemed like the most legit shop on the island. Everyone is incredible. I never want to leave haha.

With our Open water scuba dive class, we get a tshirt, two fun dives, and free lodging at the mango inn. Its a VERY nice resort on the island. It has a pool, hammocks, and everyone that is diving with Utila Dive Center stays at the Mango Inn, so its really fun.

We started our dive course the next day in the morning with the first three chapters of classroom work. Crap. Three hours of videos on scuba diving. Hey at least the room was air conditioned. Our class is pretty cool. We have "The American Couple", Darron and Jen, "The Canadian Couple", MAtt and Lolita, "William Wallace" the 18 year old Scottish Kid Elliot, and of course Ben and I "Team America". Haha its really fun because everyones really fun. Our instructor Jessie, is from Switzerland. She speaks 5 languages and is 25 years old. Theres also two more 21 year old instructors. Ryan, from Ohio, and Sandra from Canada.

Once we finished our class room work, we started to get in the water. We started shallow, and progressively got deeper and deeper with every dive. Yesterday we went out on the first boat open water dive. We went to a massive wall dive just off the coast. We only went to like 14 meters that dive. The next dive was a sea mountain. It was amazing. Just before the dive, our captain spotted a pod of about 25 dolphins. What did we do? JUMPED OUT OF THE BOAT AND SWAM WITH THEM OF COURSE!! It was amazing. Our whole class swam with dolphins yesterday. Hands down the best experience yet. Half way through the dive, we were officially certified in Open water! After the dive we all went out with the instructors and everyone to celebrate! Great times in Utila :-).

Ben and I decided to do our Advanced Open Water Course, so we start that tomorrow, But thats a whole new entry!

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