Day 70: Fun Diving - Utila, Honduras
Utila, Honduras
There were 2 American middle aged men, with huge underwater cameras. Chris a UK girl who was traveling and decided to do some diving and another older couple from Europe. After everyone was set up and role call was completed, Captain Errol fired up the boat and we headed out. I was feeling reflective, taking in all the scenery, and also sleepy. We were heading to the North Side of the Island which is not often visited, and is about a 35 minute boat ride. Once we arrived at our dive location and the boat was tethered, we were able to enter the water. I still wasn't used to being able to enter whenever I am ready as opposed to when an instructor says you can. Weird to think I am now an autonomous diver and responsible for my own decisions and safety, no longer under the watchful eye of the number 1 instructors Matan & Declan. So I did my giant stride into the water from the back on the boat, holding my weight belt and mask. Once in the water, I got a slight shiver even with my wetsuit on. Since the rain the water temperature had dropped a bit, probably still sitting around 27 degrees, but when you are used to 30 degree temps, 27 seems freezing. This dive Susanne was leading, we spent about 50 minutes in total under the water. It still amazes me every time, the feeling of complete calm you get when all you can do is breath in and out and take in the gorgeous corals and schools of fish. It is such a relaxing activity, everything is done with minimal effort to minimize air usage and maximize fun and under water time. We saw a number of different fish ranging from the size of my finger nail to the size of my thigh, no big barracuda's or whales this time. After the 50 minutes was up we all surface and immediately started the post dive debrief which is always 'did you see this?' 'Did you see that?' 'My mask kept flooding' etc. This dive we managed to see a moray eel or two and a toad fish which was quite ugly and just relaxing on some coral. During the surface interval once we all boarded the boat and undid our gear, it was biscuit time. Vanilla Oreo's not as good as original but delicious all the same. The next dive location was about 20 minutes away, I ended up having a mini power nap. All this diving and late nights was finally catching up with me. On arrival at the next sight Susanne gave a briefing before we all kitted up and entered the water. It was still slightly cold and I actually felt some goosebumps appear. All I could think is what are these things? They are so unfamiliar since I have been sweating buckets in the sweltering heat for the past 10 weeks with not a goosebumps in sight. But I do tend to get cold during the surface intervals so it was nice to jump back in the water. After we were swimming for awhile, I was practicing some buoyancy techniques by floating head down feet to the surface and breathing in and out to make myself rise and sink in the water when Chris tapped me on the shoulder and made the signal for shark with her hands. I nearly jumped out of my skin as I looked around frantically, because a) I didn't want to miss it and b) I was a little scared. Turns out it was just chilling, sleeping in between the coral, approximately 1.5m nurse shark. It was amazing, I couldn't stop looking at it. I could have stayed and watched for ever. So that was the highlight of my diving for the day. After 50 minutes we all surface and boarded the boat ready to head back to the dock which was about a 15 minute ride. Immediately we all started talking excitedly about the shark and other smaller things we had seen on the second dive. I was buzzing from excitement. I no longer felt tired, I felt invigorated. When I got back to the dock, I unloaded and washed my gear. Then had a coke to refresh myself and filled in my log book. Iker was there getting ready for to go diving in the afternoon. I decided to go back to the Mangoe inn to shower and freshen up. I met Iker at the dive shop at 5 and we went and got pizza from pizza nut. It was delicious. Then we had an early night as we were both exhausted from diving and had to dive again in the morning.