I'm Here!!!!!!!

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Yay I made it finally to Honduras or to be totally correct I am in Utila one of the Bay Islands just off of the coast of Honduras!! Had an eventful trip as my plane which was meant to take me from San Pedro Sula on the mainland to Utila hit a storm and when we landed in La Ceiba (still on the main land) they canceled the rest of the journey so I had to find somewhere to stay for the night in the pouring rain. Luckily I had already met some really nice people so we all headed off together and found a place to stay. The biggest problem was that no one had me on the flight list or when we landed they also didn't have me on the mandate but this being Central America and a wee bit different from what I'm use to I managed to talk myself onto the plane ... twice. Can you ever imagine that happening in the UK?????

So I finally arrived a day after I was supposed to and have been having an amazing time ever since. The day I arrived I did 3 dives, 2 the next and another 2 yesterday and I am now a qualified Advanced Open Water Diver specialising in Deep Diving, Navigation (Oh dear :o)), Drift Diving, Advanced Buoyancy and Night Diving. Deep and Night Diving were the ones that I was most nervous about but they are by far the best diving experiences I have ever had. Floating in mid water 100 feet down not being able to see the top or bottom with the most beautiful massive coral wall in front of you fading into the distance in all directions... wow I have goose pimples just thinking about it... It's so amazing!!

Anyway, Utila is a very small Island and almost everyone here is here to dive. It's a bit of a backpackers haven which means that the evenings are quite lively although there really is only one bar to choose from. At the UCME (Utila Centre for Marine Ecology) there is a mixture of staff, interns and volunteers with about 22 people in total. I'm staying at a house with 4 other volunteers and another is joining us tomorrow. Then there is a second house for the Interns and another for the staff so we have a bit of a community going on. No hot water at all but the houses are very comfortable and we even have 2 ladies who come in and cook for us all. Everyone is really nice, a mixture of nationalities, English, Canadian, American, South African, Italian, Spanish, Columbian and of course Utilian. We haven't started work yet as all the volunteers were doing dive training last week so we start on Tuesday.

The weather is absolutely amazing, the views are breathe taking and the beaches beautiful. If you picture a perfect tropical Island, then you pretty much have Utila.

That's all for now, I'll update you as soon as I start work. Hope everyone back home is well. See you soon. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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