Island style

I love islands. I realized when I arrived at the dock in Utila that it has been over 6 weeks since I was on an island, and it feels good to be back. En route to Utila I stopped in Livingston, Guatemala for one night. It is also an island on the Caribbean at the mouth of the Rio Dulce but I didn't really like it there. Utila is great! Its not really authentic Honduras, there are tons of backpackers and expats here. The main reason for coming to Utila is that is has the cheapest PADI scuba diving courses in the world. Under $300 for the open water certification which allows you to dive up to 18 m, anywhere around the world. I am starting my course this afternoon, we will watch a few videos first. Apparently the videos are really bad, but everyone has to watch them. I imagine they will be similar to the videos I had to watch for my first aid training or my ski instructor training. Tomorrow morning we get in the water, not too deep yet, just in the shallows to learn how the equipment works and how to breathe and such.

I've made a friend/dive companion. Her name is Sarah and she is Irish, but she has been living and volunteering in Guatemala for the past few months. We were on the same bus from Semuc Champey, then the same boat down Rio Dulce to Livingston. In Livingston we figured out that we were doing the same thing so we booked the shuttle to La Ceiba together. We got to La Ceiba on Wednesday afternoon to discover that the ferry to Utila would not be running due to high winds. Along with the 3 other people in the shuttle we found a cheap hostel to stay the night. Not much to do in La Ceiba, so we went to the mall! A very american mall with all sorts of american fast food. We ate at Wendy's because there is no Wendy's in Europe, so it was a noveltly. I shared my childhood love of Wendy's french fries dipped in a chocolate frosty. I know it sounds gross, but it was yummy when I was a kid and its still yummy now. The next morning we got to the ferry, about 2 hours early because the guy working at the hostel said we would need to be there very early. We didn't. Anyway I forgot my motion sickness medication until just when we boarded the boat, so the first 20 minutes were rough. It was all good in the end though.

When the ferry arrived in Utila we were accosted by representatives of all the different dive shops, because as I said, this is why people come here. Sarah and I walked down the Main Street checking out different dive shops. It was impossible to choose so we just went with the one that we thought had a good 'vibe' haha. But after we were second guessing out choice... I'm still not sure we went with the right one. We had some issues with the price because they quoted us a price and neglected to tell us about the tax that was on top of that price. Then the exchange rate they use from dollars to lempira (honduran currency) was really high. So we had to argue with them and deal with some awkwardness, but we had already signed a 'contract' (which surely is not legally binding) so we couldnt really get out of it completely... anyway we got them to drop the tax so it all worked out.

Today we borrowed some snorkel equipment and walked down to the end of the island where the reef begins. Scuba diving is going to be so awesome.