Diving is fun
Trip Start
Jun 20, 2007
1
21
30
Trip End
Sep 03, 2007
West End,
Honduras
Thursday, August 2, 2007
As I said previously we had intended going to Utila, the next island over because of what we'd heard from other travellers but decided at the last minute not to. Maria was delighted anyway because Utila has no beaches while Roatan has, but on reaching the ferry terminal to go across the Utila queue was full of teenagers. It turned out that the weekend we were going was the one weekend in the year where there's a massive 2 day rave on Utila so we really felt like we dodged a bullet on that one.
Anyway we weren't sure whether to go with Coconut Tree divers because there are so many dive shops there so we couldn't know which was best
01-We're qualified divers!
. After talking to a few of them we headed to Coconut Tree and decided to go with them. After the first day or so we realised that we were probably in the best place on the island for learning, although we got lucky too with our instructor, Will. Firstly he's going for the instructors' instructor qualification so everything he does has to be spot on and secondly, we were his first learners course after 2 weeks not diving due to a chest infection, so he was very enthusiastic. Also it seems like Coconut Tree have the only boat which you can step down into from the dock rather than climbing into, which is a real bonus when you're carrying all your diving gear.To sum it up, all went really well, although some of the early parts of the learning like taking out your regulator (what you breathe through) and removing your mask underwater were tough enough. Also learning to breathe consciously through mouth only was tricky. But all that is just in case something goes wrong, which means its great to know but won't often be required. We found that once we were under water properly on the open water dives it was all actually easy enough once you just concentrate and relax.
By the end we were really enjoying it so we did a couple of extra dives including to a wreck over 100 ft down. The water around there is so clear that you can see for at least 60 feet and the reefs are spectacular. Loads of brightly coloured fish of all sizes as well as huge lobsters and crabs and some moray eels. Where we dive is in a marine park so there's loads of wildlife and at times it was nearly like Finding Nemo live.
Other than the diving we just relaxed and enjoyed the beach. It was a much needed rest again after a lot of travelling and activities in the previous 8-10 days.
