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Published: March 22nd 2012
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En route to Cayos Cochinos!
We really don't look like sisters with such different skin tones. Ok. Three things. Important things. First, my sister is here! Second, I’m officially an advanced open water SCUBA diver! And third, I went on a boat trip with friends to Cayos Cochinos! If you have no desire to read my blog posting, just stop right here. You got the highlights. You’re welcome.
This past weekend I did my final certification dive, a night dive, so now I can do all kinds of fun dives whenever I want! I was a bit nervous before the night dive, since the whole jumping-into-dark-water-without-seeing-what’s-lurking-below thing kinda freaks me out. I had also had diver friends tell me about “bloodworms” which come out at night and swarm around your light, which sounded just delightful….. not. Anyway, after a bit of mild freaking out I jumped into the water and it wasn’t so scary. My flashlight was really bright, as were the lights of the divemaster and my sister, who came on the dive with us. It was really cool swimming around and seeing all the nocturnal creatures. There were tons of crustaceans and anemone which I wouldn’t normally see during the day. I also saw some squid, which looked really cool as the light reflected
off of them, and a giant green moray eel. I also saw….. the worms. Oh, the worms. Hundreds of them, swarming around the beams of light cast by our flashlights. And remember how I was comforted by my bright light in the dark water? Well, it became much less comforting once I figured out that the worms liked the bright light. If I was moving and swimming it was fine, but as soon as I hovered anywhere massive amounts of the little buggers would congregate around the beam. This was cool in the respect that the three of us could shine our beams of light close to an animal, like an anemone or crab, which would go into a feeding frenzy with all the worms. This in itself was quite entertaining and I found it vaguely reminiscent of being in a petting zoo and getting to feed the animals pellets from my hand. Except for the fact that the pellets were wriggling all over my hands and forearms, and the animals I was feeding would not be found in a zoo (“Ok kids, let’s go feed the sea anemone!”) To me the whole thing felt like a test on “Fear
Factor”: How long can you hold the flashlight and feel the worms squirming around your hands and arms, and face and mask and regulator, before freaking out, covering your flashlight beam, and swimming as quickly as possible away from the worm cloud? I should also mention that while my two dive companions were wearing thick, full length wetsuits, I was stupidly only wearing a shorty wetsuit, which left my arms and legs regrettably bare and exposed to the wormy water.
I’m happy to report that I did, in fact, survive the wormy night dive. This is not to say that I didn’t still feel them crawling all over me even after I got out of the water (which was totally justified since I found them on my wetsuit, in my mask, and in my bathing suit when I was rinsing out my gear) but I haven’t been scared away from night diving either. I was told that usually there aren’t that many worms on dives so I would like to do it again, because of everything else that was cool to see. But maybe next time I’ll borrow a full-length wetsuit.
So enough ranting about worms. On to
the next important thing- Cayos Cochinos! Cayos is a group of small islands that are near Roatan- between a 1 and 3 hour trip by motorboat, depending on the wind and waves. A group of friends and I took a boat out to these islands for a friend’s birthday. The islands range from super small, like you can literally straddle the island, to big enough that people can live on them but still relatively small and pretty deserted.
The ride over to Cayos was nice- we had a big fancy motorboat, and spent the ride over listening to music and bouncing around on the bow of the boat. Also, we had travelling companions for part of the time- dolphins! When they came I was right at the bow, and there was a whole pod of dolphins also at the bow keeping up with our fast pace. I think that was one of the closest experiences I’ve had with dolphins; when they breathed through their blowholes I actually had some residual spray hit me (not gross at all, surprisingly…. Although I guess my gross standards have changed after diving with worms. See the rant above.).
The first island we
stopped at was tiny (see the picture) and had nothing on it but a little shack. It looked as though someone could live, or at least camp there- it had all the luxuries like a thatched roof and even a wooden couch/ bed thing. We hung out there for a while, swimming and chilling on the beach, and of course taking lots of pictures. There was talk of doing our own version of “Survivor”, since an Italian “Survivor” was currently being filmed on another one of the islands, but we ended up settling for margaritas on the beach instead of immunity challenges.
For lunch we went over to a slightly larger island, where there were a few bungalows for tourists and some restaurants (I use the term “restaurant” loosely). Lunch was very island- Honduran-y: coconut bread, rice and beans, fish, and plantain chips. No fish for me of course, and honestly I found the concept of my food staring up at me from a plate quite terrifying, but everything was really good. After lunch we swam and beached a bit more, soaking up the wonderful remoteness of Cayos, before getting back on the boat to head home. The ride
back was a bit rough, since we were going into the wind, but we eventually made it back. After spending almost all day on the water basically everyone was sunburned including me, who often gets mistaken for a Honduran. The whole day was really fun though, and the islands were so pristine. I hope to go back soon!
On a side note, a band came to play for the school last week. The Mighty Manatees were touring Roatan for a few days, and we got them to come give a concert at the school. I really love that the kids get to hear some live music besides the cover bands on the islands, to broaden their musical horizons at least a bit. Also, I have less than two weeks left of school before my week break for Semana Santa. I have two friends coming down to visit for the week, and I’m so excited to see them! I love my time off here, when I just get to play “tourist on a tropical island vacation” and not worry about working.
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mom
non-member comment
I thought you liked worms!
I thought you did like worms! Not me though! YUCK!