Sea legs

Well Matt and I have finished up our diving in Utila. We are now both certified Open Water and Advanced Open Water Divers! The Advanced was a really fun course, we got to go down to 30 metres (which doesn't actually feel much different than 18, it's just darker and more sand); we saw a ship wreck, which we got to swim through a little (first diving through more confined spaces!); and we got to do a night dive! The night dive was pretty neat, we all had flash lights and had to go searching under rocks and coral to find sea life. After our course was over we got to do our fun dives, unfortunately, Matt has an ear infection so we only ended up doing two of our four.. oh well, diving is exhausting when you're going out every day! Our fun dives were great. We went out with a dive master named Lydia from Colorado, who I'm pretty sure hasn't been diving for necessarily the longest time but she was confident and easy going so it was really fun. She took us to some underwater caves that we got to swim through. The water temperature throughout them changes so many degrees every few feet - it's a very cool feeling! At one point in the caves we turned a bend that was swarmed with a school of fish called Glassy fish. They're small, beady-eyed, shimmery grey fish that just huddled in this corner. You have to swim directly through them to get out which was kinda cool! Once we got out of the caves we planned to make our way back towards another buoy where our boat was going to pick us up. The reason I don't think Lydia is an overly experienced diver is because she managed to get us lost, underwater, in the middle of the ocean. She stopped us all at one point (there were 4 of us diving) and signaled that she was going to surface to look for the boat and we should stay down, so we drifted around checking things out. When she came back down we set off again but by this point, some of us were getting low on air. Matt has a tendency to go through his air at an alarming rate. We aren't sure if it's because he's got bigger lungs, he gets too excited underwater and starts hyper-ventilating, or if he just exerts energy too quickly. Either way, he ended up becoming very low on air and was signaling me this. I knew that we must be near the end of our dive because I was getting low on air too and I'm usually really good with my air consumption. Lydia finally  signaled us to do our 3 minute safety stop 5 metres below the surface but we were already too late. Matt came floating over to me, desperately signaling he was out of air by cutting his arm across his neck in large exaggerated strokes. I tried to remember our out of air training and fumbled around for only a moment before covering my mouth piece and pointing to my alternate under my right arm. Matt yanked it out, popped it in his mouth, and took a long inhale. I could tell he was slightly panicking because he started to immediately swim up, but we hadn't finished our safety stop yet so I had to yank him down, hold him, and then eventually we got to surface together, doing the Roman handshake and all. Luckily, Lydia got some of this on camera and we promptly bought a burned disc from her of all our adventures from that day.

Since we've been diving so much, both Matt and I have noticed the non-stop swaying, almost floating feeling that seems to follow us wherever we go. While making breakfast yesterday, I had to lean right against the counter for full support otherwise I would've fallen over. This is apparently common with new divers, boaters, snorkelers, etc. Basically anyone who spends a prolonged amount of time on or under water. We haven't yet developed our sea legs but I think we will soon. In the mean time I actually don't mind the constant swaying feeling that follows me around! In bed it's like being rocked to sleep every night and anywhere I sit it feels like I'm being gently rocked in a boat. I've always enjoyed that feeling, I've heard of others who pass out or puke from it though, so apparently I'm among the lucky ones.

Yesterday, after a prolonged international Skype call, Matt learned that he'd passed his exams for his third and final year of school and is now (minus the hours he needs) basically a journeyman! HURRAY MATT! Naturally, we went to celebrate with milkshakes as soon as he found out and then of course, we went out that evening too! We started our night at a bar called Skid Row, where if you can slam back 4 shots of this infused rum, you get a free shirt. Sounds easy right? Except that this rum is infused with like.. grass, or hay, or some kind of random weed. I didn't mind it so much as others, it kind of had a cinnamon after-taste, but it definitely burned going down and left my belly very warm. Our whole dive class ended up coming to this bar to do it together and we all left with our free t-shirt! By now (about 7pm) everyone was well on their way to being too drunk and Matt and I wanted some dinner so we went to the Indian Wok (such good Indian food!!!) for a drunken bite to eat. We finished up and headed next to Alfredo's house where he was having another bbq party (not in Matt's honour, it just worked out that way). It was a great party! Beach volley ball, free food (even though we didn't eat any of it), free beer, and rocking 90's music all night long (listened to "Mr.Vain" twice in one night!!!!). Matt got his money's worth slugging back a ton of beer and I had the pleasure of walking him back to the hostel and getting him to bed. He's quite the chatter when he's drunk and it was a hilarious time for me, listening to him ramble away about his ingenuity of who's hooking up with who amongst our dive class.

Tonight is at long last, our last night in Utila. We've made friends with a few of the locals and today is Danito's (our boat captain) birthday. So we're going to go find him later on to hang out for a bit and heading to his house later tonight for his party. Also tonight, we are going to watch the local soccer tournament. Everyone here is hooked on soccer and most have been playing since they were quite young. They have organized a rec soccer league and we just happened to be here during the tournament! Apparently they are phenomenal, which I don't doubt in the least, and I'm really looking forward to seeing some spectacular amateur football tonight! Matt thinks that all of his friends who play should plan to come down here and organize a game against the team here. I think that the locals would love that! Although I also think they have a huge upper hand being climatized to this god-awful humidity and anyone from away would have a hard time running around for any prolonged period of time here. I've tried, it lasts about 5 minutes.
Swimming is really the only exercise I've been able to do here, and the 17 countdown of pushups and situps, which, Jessie, I've been doing everyday! I'm actually excited to get back to Canada to start exercising regularly again! In the meantime, may as well enjoy the fact that it's too warm to move and drink and eat as many cold things as possible. Smoothies have quickly become a staple in our diets and we average at least one a day each. I don't know how they make them so tasty here but the banana smoothies are actually the tastiest treat ever. Not to mention that when you get them to go, the put it in a plastic bag, tie a not in the top and stick a straw in it. Best to-go cup ever.

Mmm. Now I want a smoothie in a bag. I think I'll be off then! Matt wants to play a game (I've been beating him a lot lately and he keeps wanting to "redeem" himself) and I want the first round of my daily smoothie!

Much love to everyone. Hope all are safe and happy!
 Love Christine (and Matt)