Paradise Found

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Four days on Jewel Key turned into a week, and still I'm finding it hard to pull myself away. There are three restaurants and a couple of general stores. Every house sits on stilts, just above the water. The people rarely wear shoes and speak this sing-song English that's almost impossible to understand. There's a tiny white church and the "knowledge square," where the men sit around and talk the day away. The week was filled with loads of sunshine, ocean breezes, baleadas for breakfast and fish burgers for lunch, plenty of Salva Vida and some of the best people I've met on this trip. And then there was the diving - I'm officially PADI certified! I wouldn't have done it any other way.

The diving went smoothly and was absolutely gorgeous, after a minor near-death experience on the first day of class. Of course, only me! it's hard to explain but the short story goes like this.... We were all under water doing this exercise where you have to take off and put back on your BCD (which is the vest that's attached to your air tank and your regulator, which is what you use to breath). You never want to have to do this on a real dive, but that's a lot of what the class is about, how to avoid bad things happening to you underwater and what to do if and when they do.

So the instructor goes through the motions once underwater and then motions for me to give it a try. I un-velcroed the vest and took it off successfully enough. I thought I had a good handle on it, but then my mask starting filling with water, one of the other things you don't want to happen to you while diving. I reached up to try to clear my mask in the simple way that PADI teaches, which usually requires two hands. I'm not sure exactly what happened next. I don't know if I let go of the tank or if it just started to float away because of the weight and my mind being occupied with my mask, but somehow my air tank and vest started floating away from me, which in turn ripped my regulator out of mouth. So now, I can't see, I can't breath, and my only means of breathing is floating quickly away from me to the surface. I panicked - a definite PADI no-no. I thought, I have to swim to the surface now, that's the only way I'll be able to breathe. I started rushing to the top, which is dangerous in itself because of the pressure on your lungs and ears. Thankfully, my instructor started surfacing with me, was able to catch my tank and regulator and shoved it back into my mouth so I could breathe again. We finally surfaced, with me coughing saltwater and her looking incredibly scared and relieved. I was freaked out, but after a few minutes we went back down and I had to demonstrate the exercise again. This time it was a success.

I found out later that my classmates were all pretty freaked out by this little episode too. One of the Germans even refused to do it at first, pointing to my flailing body kicking to the surface for air. The next day I thought about it more than the first, and was a little nervous to go under again. But, I soon found out that once you're underwater and you have a reasonable idea of what you're doing, diving is very easy and a lot of fun. (I sound like the PADI videos...) I love the feeling of weightlessness! We did about six dives in total to different locations and parts of the reef. We saw morray eels, a sea turtle, sea horses, dolphins and loads of tropical fish and colorful corral.

Again, my favorite part of this little adventure was the people. The instructors, Adam, Mark, Anders, Karen and especially Martha (who saved my life!) are mostly British and hilarious. They make the laid-back Carribbean/partying and dive-instructing life so tempting. My classmates were awesome too. I met Terah, from Providence/India, getting off the ferry. We chose to go to Captain Morgan's together in a way, and ended up hanging out most of the week along with Andy, from Idaho. I love these guys. Dana, Nichole and Vanessa, aka "the Germans," made up another class of great peeps, and the Dutch adventurers, Vince and Rose rounded out the third. Others left in the beginning of the week or arrived toward the end and we all had a huge barbecue last night. We were up until 1:30 am, which on island time, is like an all-nighter in the states.

Today, I'm back to civilization in Utila. I said goodbye to Terah, but might meet up with him in Copan. I met Maggie and Mark, from Wisconsin, and now I'm staying with them on Blueberry Hill, run by Norma and Will. They have been married 57 years and have 9 children. Will swears Norma's the boss and she agrees, as she serves us three pieces of her fresh-baked yuka pie.... I could definitely get used to this life!

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