wanderlust

i've been on utila for a little less than 48 hours and it's been a crazy time. i can't believe i arrived only 2 days ago! it seems like an eternity has passed.

after overnighting in la ceiba, caught the 9.30a ferry over to utila. during the ride over, i started to get really excited. after such a long time of planning, reading and imagining this experience, it was finally really going to happen! not even the rocking and choppiness of the boat could disturb me from meditating on this fact. about half an hour into the trip, started seeing the faint outline of the island appearing in the distance. the island is bigger than i'd imagined and i'm excited to get the chance to explore it over the next couple months.

landing at the dock was a bit overwhelming. hordes of people were waiting to greet the boat, mostly from the multitude of dive shops. i was glad i knew where i was going and headed straight to utila dive center (UDC), where i've arranged to do my divemaster course. within 10 minutes of walking in the door, i'd been given a tour of the shop, signed up for a scuba refresher that afternoon and sent on my way to check into the mango inn, where i get 9 nights of free accommodation included with my package.

found the mango inn and met a UDC instructor along with 3 people who had been on the same ferry as me. turned out one of the three was doing the scuba refresher and then advanced open water (AOW) as well, so i already had a buddy for my first certification course! the refresher was actually really great - i originally got open water certified about 7.5 years ago in boston (chilly!). although i've been diving about 20 times since i got certified, my last dive was 1.5 years ago (in saint croix) and it was a fun dive - no review or practicing of skills. i'm also always a little nervous the first time i go underwater after not diving for a long time, so it was nice to get that initial feeling of panic out of the way right off. we reviewed how to set up and check gear, then went underwater to go through the skills (mask clearing, removal and replacement of mask, recovering a regulator, buddy breathing, emergency swimming ascent, etc.). i'll be going through all this again in much greater depth once i start the divemaster course, but it was good to have a quick cram course.

yesterday morning, we had the first 2 dives of the AOW course - a deep dive and a navigation dive. we went down to about 100 feet on the deep dive, along a wall that just kept going down and down. played with a raw egg - cracked it open and i thought it was hard-boiled at first, before realizing that the pressure was holding it together. we then proceeded to pass it around and play with it like the astronauts play with water blobs on the space station. then we did a test of alternating touching our nose and the numbers 1-20 (mixed up) on a card. when we were back on the boat, we redid the test to see if we were much faster. i felt like i was much faster above water, but turns out i was only a second or two better. unfortunately, no nitrogen narcosis. :P

the navigation dive was pretty neat as well - we got compasses and practiced doing out and back routes and then following a square path. i spent the whole time concentrating on my compass and didn't really see visually if i was going the right way, so when i finished each time and found myself back at my instructor, i was pretty happy. i was also amazed at how quickly i got back to feeling comfortable in the water. comparing myself to what i'd been like doing the scuba refresher just the day before, i could already see marked improvement. can't wait to see what i'll be like after a month of diving.

we had the afternoon off and then returned at 5.30 for a night dive. i'd done one before in thailand and didn't remember being particularly impressed. the night dive here in honduras, however, was fantastic. we descended just at sunset so that we'd still have some light at the beginning. the visibility was incredible and the colors under our torches were so much more vibrant and vivid than they are during the day. oftentimes when diving, i feel like it's sensory overload - i'm trying to think about things like my buoyancy or remembering what it is i'm supposed to be doing with my gear. then i can't decide if i want to look at the fish or the coral or the light patterns or off in the distance in case there's a turtle lurking about. the night dive makes you focus on what you can see in the beam of light from your torch and removes all other distractions. as a result, i felt like i saw more even though there was actually less to see. we saw little hermit crabs hanging out in the coral, brittle spiny starfish and two octopi (octopuses?)! at one point, we stopped, kneeled, turned off our lights and waved our arms around to see the phosphorence emanating from our fingertips. pretty amazing. upon surfacing, i floated on my back and stared up at the moon (almost full) and the stars and couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else at that moment.

if the first 48 hours of this stint here is any indication, i think it's going to be an awesome time. i'm so happy i'm getting the chance to do this. because i'm staying for so long, it puts less pressure on trying to do everything in a single dive because i know i'll have more chances on the way to divemaster and afterwards. so for now, i can concentrate on one thing during a dive and i'm sure it'll soon become natural to me and i can then focus on something else. we'll see how the progress goes!