As with everything in life, bad turns into good and back around again. It is impossible, in this environment to stay miserable forever, much as you want to sometimes. You try and put on a brave face, and eventually that faces becomes your real one, and as I always say (or at least have done for the last 5 weeks), there's nothing a good gym session can't cure! My mission to lose weight continues, and the usual frustrations with the office and life melt away with the sweat and a big dose of reggae music blasting through my eardrums. I was a very fat kid, and my time in Utila went some way to proving that there was bone structure under the layers...doing four dives a day with almost no food and lots of alcohol is possibly the world's worst and best diet! And on that note, if you're still paying attention, we shall continue. Don't ask me who I'm talking about going for drinks with, God only knows if I can remember, but Alex was the love of my life at the time, and a story for another time.
Week Three in Utila - Exhaustion Strikes
Hola! See, I'm picking up the lingo already - check me out!! I can now converse adequately with my lady that does (I say hola every morning and evening, and occasionally que t'al), well, it's just a good job everyone on the island speaks English, that's all I can say.
Things are progressing really well with my courses. I finished my Rescue Diver finally on Sunday, which was hell underwater!! Dom is Satan in disguise - at one point I had to deal with a panicking diver underwater, then Alex and Dom swam past me, ripped off my mask, ripped out my reg (the thing you need to breathe), unclipped my BCD (inflatable jacket with air tank attached) and stole one of my fins. So I was sat there 7m under, watching all my equipment floating past me and thinking, "Shit, I need that to live". All worked out okay in the end though!! We then had to kick ourselves on board a boat without using a ladder after towing a tired diver about 300m over the surf, and then lift them on board - I got a rather large Argentian chap to lift, lucky me!! We had to get them to the boat, get ourselves on board, them on board and start giving them CPR and breaths within 30 seconds - not easy!!
I started my Dive Master course officially on Monday, and so far I've done 2 exams and my swim test. After helping out with some resort divers yesterday morning, we had the exam and then the swim test with no breaks for food or a rest!! Nightmare!! The swim test was 400m freestyle as quickly as possible, then 800m snorkelling with fins as quickly as possibly, then 200m tired diver tow, then treading water for 15mins with our arms in the air. Phewee!! All done though - yay!! As soon as I've done one more exam and demonstrated the 20 skills needed for Open Water, I can start assisting on courses and getting my dive numbers up.
Today was awesome!! I was in the shop for 6.30am to help out in the equipment room and gear up all the boats (basically lugging about 30 air tanks across the dock to the boats). Got on a boat at 8.30am with a load of Argentian (what is it with these people!!) resort divers (basically that means they are staying in a hotel, are usually quite experienced divers with their own gear and we aren't allowed to tell them off or help them if they go wrong because they are just here to have fun). We sighted about 60 spinner dolphins off the stern, so jumped in to snorkel with them - it was amazing!! I had 2 adults, a juvenile and a baby about 2m below me at one point, just coasting along and singing really loudly!! We then did 2 dives off a great site called the Pinnacles where we swam through some caves at about 40m/130ft, and saw an eagle ray, a stingray ray, a 3m grouper, a 5ft tarpon, squid, lobster - best dives ever!!!! Am still quite hyper, you might have realised!! Then back this afternoon to do my second exam where I got 100% - the only one in the class, check me out!! Got 90% yesterday, but still the highest of the class - yeah!!
Well, that's all my news really, I've got to go and see what time my skills have be done tomorrow, and I have another exam at 2pm, and then I've passed all the entry requirements, thank god!!! Oh, and 7 more people have moved into my house, and I'm sharing with a weird Danish girl for a week who is very rude. I have a plug-in mosquito thing behind her bed, and she said "That's healthy, so I have to breathe it in at night do I?". I replied, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you'd rather die from malaria, I'll put it back on my side of the room and open all the windows at night shall I?". She stopped talking after that. Expletive, expletive......
P.S Me and Alex are officially over, boys smell, apart from one particularly nice one I've met here, we're going for drinks on Friday
I started my Dive Master course officially on Monday, and so far I've done 2 exams and my swim test. After helping out with some resort divers yesterday morning, we had the exam and then the swim test with no breaks for food or a rest!! Nightmare!! The swim test was 400m freestyle as quickly as possible, then 800m snorkelling with fins as quickly as possibly, then 200m tired diver tow, then treading water for 15mins with our arms in the air. Phewee!! All done though - yay!! As soon as I've done one more exam and demonstrated the 20 skills needed for Open Water, I can start assisting on courses and getting my dive numbers up.
Today was awesome!! I was in the shop for 6.30am to help out in the equipment room and gear up all the boats (basically lugging about 30 air tanks across the dock to the boats). Got on a boat at 8.30am with a load of Argentian (what is it with these people!!) resort divers (basically that means they are staying in a hotel, are usually quite experienced divers with their own gear and we aren't allowed to tell them off or help them if they go wrong because they are just here to have fun). We sighted about 60 spinner dolphins off the stern, so jumped in to snorkel with them - it was amazing!! I had 2 adults, a juvenile and a baby about 2m below me at one point, just coasting along and singing really loudly!! We then did 2 dives off a great site called the Pinnacles where we swam through some caves at about 40m/130ft, and saw an eagle ray, a stingray ray, a 3m grouper, a 5ft tarpon, squid, lobster - best dives ever!!!! Am still quite hyper, you might have realised!! Then back this afternoon to do my second exam where I got 100% - the only one in the class, check me out!! Got 90% yesterday, but still the highest of the class - yeah!!
Well, that's all my news really, I've got to go and see what time my skills have be done tomorrow, and I have another exam at 2pm, and then I've passed all the entry requirements, thank god!!! Oh, and 7 more people have moved into my house, and I'm sharing with a weird Danish girl for a week who is very rude. I have a plug-in mosquito thing behind her bed, and she said "That's healthy, so I have to breathe it in at night do I?". I replied, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you'd rather die from malaria, I'll put it back on my side of the room and open all the windows at night shall I?". She stopped talking after that. Expletive, expletive......
P.S Me and Alex are officially over, boys smell, apart from one particularly nice one I've met here, we're going for drinks on Friday
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| Very serious and hard at work... |
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