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Published: September 25th 2006
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Thursday morning I woke up to a clogged toilet. I realised I had done it the night before. I still haven't got used to the fact that we don't flush toilet paper in the country. I think I forgot to mention that before in any of my earlier entries. You are simply meant to throw your used toilet paper in the trash can. All bathrooms will have these for that reason.
So after I asked in my best Spanglish for a plunger (I was able to say everything except "plunger" in Spanish), I fixed the problem (without even waking Chris!) and was not able to go back to bed. It was about 6am, so I decided to sit out on the porch of the hotel at a table and continue in my reading of my diving textbook.
It was such a nice morning. I spent a good amount of time just staring at everything around me. The woman living next door was doing her laundry. I don't know why I was so drawn to watching her but I was. Washing her clothes on a washboard, rinsing them in a giant bucket of water, and then hanging them on the
line to dry. It seemed so simple and she did it with such grace.
I read another chapter of my book, filled out the chapter quiz and then head to the dive centre for another day of certification training. I found a great little pulparia the day before run out of a family's house. I got some OJ and a sugar cookie for the second day in a row, today having a great conversation with the guy who owns it. I told him how different this place was from Comayagua and how I felt like I wasn't even in Honduras anymore. He told me that in Utila, almost everyone is biligual. Part of me missed the culture and language of Comayagua, but it was also so great to be able to make small talk with people. I haven't been able to do that in Comayagua. Hopefully my Spanish will improve enough to be able to conduct some sort of conversation at some point.
So Thursday morning was the first time we got in the water with equiptment. We started off the morning with a swim test. I had to swim between our dock and a neighbouring dock and
Don't Litter
The city had big plastic barrels lining the streets as garbage cans to discourage littering. They should do that here in Comayagua, as the garbage situation here is really bad. then had to tread water for 15 minutes. I forgot how much I'm not a swimmer. It wasn't too hard to but I felt REALLY slow compared to the Czech dudes who are practically olympic swimmers. Anyways, once that was done we got our equiptment ready and were shown how to set everything up. Once we had our wetsuits on, and equiptment ready, we were in the water. The water was only up to my shoulders but this was where we would do our first closed water dive.
Tobi told us just to put our face in the water with the regulator and practice breathing in and ou using it. I was ok doing this on the surface. It was kind of weird but felt kinda like snorkling, in the sense that your face is in the water, but you're on the surface breathing. Next he told us to sink down to our knees (this is done with the BCD- Bouyancy Control Device).
THIS was probably one of the scariest moments for me. There I was under water, breathing. I kept thinking about how unnatural it was that I was able to breath underwater. Then for this reason,
Mural Painted on Wall
I thought this was a cool mural painted on a wall. I saw it every morning on my walk to the dive centre. I started panicking that the air tasted funny and wasn't getting to my lungs properly or something. I kept feeling the need to swim up to the surface and breath in "real air". I told myself, however, that I would NOT swim to the surface, and would simply suck it up and push through the panic. I took a few deep breathes and before I knew it, Tobi was showing us the skills we needed to perform underwater, and I was doing them. It was amazing. "Skills" are things like removing your mask, clearing water from your mask, throwing away your regulator then retreiving it, breathing without your mask on, switching your regulator (breathing device) with your buddy's extra regulator, ascending to the surface without a regulator, hovering in mid water, and many more. Each time I refer to "skills", this is what I mean.
After we were done this first closed water dive (which took about 45 minutes) we switched our tanks and got ready for our second closed water dive, which was in water that was about 2 metres (6 feets) deep. Jeff joined my group on this one because he was unable to equalise his ears
on his dive the day before in Kari's group. This second dive was fun too. We again practiced and learned more skills which, again, took about 45 minutes. This second dive felt WAY more comfortable and I finally got used to the idea of being under the water for that long. It was pretty awesome having so many instructors with our group. It meant that we each got a lot of individual attention. Jeff was able to equalise this time too, which he was really happy about.
After this we had a lunch break, so Jeff and I went for burgers at a place called "Big Mamma's Cafe". We then went back to the Dive Center and did some swimming just off the dock. It was such a great place to just hang out, as well as the diving.
The afternoon was rather boring. We had to watch videos and do theory stuff. I think we watched 3, 45 minute videos that day... YUCK.
After diving, I went back to the hotel, where I met up with Jenna, Julie, Jill, Nadia, and Chris. Apparently Chris, Nadia, and Jill went snorkelling that day and had a lot of
"Totto, we're not in Honduras anymore!"
It's kind of fuzzy and you can't see it well, but this was a video rental place. The sign is completely in English. This was common everywhere on the island. There was more English than Spanish. fun so that was exciting for them. I had a nice chat with Chris about how unbelievable it was to breath underwater. It's a sensation that I cannot explain. It was amazing and I was STILL excited about it.
We then all got ready to go out. Jenna and I braided Chris' hair just for fun. We thought we were going to go to Utila Dive Center for their big weekly BBQ and party but it didn't work out. Jill, Nadia, and Julie left earlier to get a drink before dinner, while waiting for us to do Chris' har and be ready. The 3 of us then went to the UDC but ended up leaving when we didn't see the BBQ (didn't realise it was tucked around the back) and Jenna and Chris didn't feel like staying. I now sort of wish I had stayed, as Kari and Jeff were apparently there but around the back, plus it would have been fun to hang out with more of the friendly dive people.
Anyways, Chris, Jenna, and I ended up going to this cute little Italian place for dinner. It was SUCH good food. I got asparagus ravioli... Mmmm!
Big Momma's
This is where Jeff and I ate for lunch on Thursday Chris and Jenna were then heading to the bar to meet up with the others but I was EXHAUSTED from diving and decided to head home to bed. For some reason though, I was so nervous about diving the next day. I'm not sure if it was because I knew we'd be doing our first open water dive, or if it was because I now knew what it was like. I just felt a little panicked about the whole thing. I was nervous but excited too. I kinda wish I had more people to share the experience with. It's so hard to explain to people who don't understand diving. I guess that was part of the whole experience though. I was doing something on my own... something that I wanted to do for me... and it was unbelievably fantastic.
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