Hola amigos! Today I finally feel like writing on the blog. We have had a great day so far. We have spent most of the last week hanging out at the Underwater Vision Dive Shop here on the island. We came here because our friend Lacy has come here now three times and is a Dive Master at this shop. The dive shop consists of a few small dormitories, some private rooms, suits, and a hotel with our minimalist room. Yeah this room was free for four nights and is ten dollars a night, the downfall being that we kill about three cockroaches a night and we jimmy-rigged the fan with rope so that it works correctly...all part of the experience. The shop has a sweet dock and a restaurant/bar with one dollar beers and 5 dollar meals. We have met a lot of chill people from all over the world here at the shop, mainly Canadians and Australians. They are all addicted to diving and have passed the addiction onto us. A lot of the pictures below have our new buddies. After a week or so we have realized that it might be nice to plant down our roots for awhile, so this is the place it will be. The island has less than 2,000 people on it and is only a couple miles wide and five miles long. Only one part of it is inhabited, while the other half is covered with volcanic rock and tropical forest. The water is crystal blue and the temperature is super warm. Can you see how we could get stuck here?
Scuba Diving is such a wild experience, where you can see more life than any hike in any part of the world. At first we both had our own reservations about breathing underwater, but after the initial underwater skills the fear was gone! Our first time under it was only 3 meters, but we stayed down there for 75 minutes. After that we have done six dives all the way down to about 18 meters. During these dives we practiced more skills and explored six different dive sites around the island. We saw remoras (shark sucker), parrot fish, squids, box fish, bull fish, trumpet fish, huge lobsters, hermit crabs, angel fish, sea turtles and so much more. It is an amazing feeling to be weightless in the water and to have a school of fish surrounding you. Seeing fish above you is really an odd feeling. The visibility here is pretty good and it only takes about two hours to go around the island on a boat. Our instructor is Lacy's good friend James (the b-day boy in the pictures below), he was an awesome instructor who knows his stuff and has been on hundreds of dives. We were so lucky to meet him before the course, so we already felt comfortable and could call him 'aout' on his Canadian accent. For the past couple of days we have been questioning doing the advanced course in diving. This means that we could go down to 30 meters, do a night dive, do a wreck dive, navigation dive, deep dive and a peak performance buoyancy dive. It has taken a little persuasion on my part to get Amber to do the night dive, but I think that she is convinced, I mean you get a flashlight! :) The other part is that it would be about another 500 dollars total for the course between the two of us, but when in Rome - right? We figure it will give us the opportunity to see so much more of the ocean and of the next places we dive (Little Corn Island and maybe Hawaii in the winter?). So in the next few posts we will let you know how it goes, if we do it we won't start until Sunday giving us time to chill out.
Yesterday we found an apartment/house with our friend Lacy for 550 for the month, which is actually expensive for the island, but nothing compared to our last trip in South America. It is close to the dive shop and has a kitchen. Actually we haven't seen it yet.....but we looked on the outside and it looks nice. It includes wifi and cable so we can stay connected to the blog, oh yeah, the air conditioning will come in handy considering that is on average 90 degrees here all the time! It will help us save money and prolong the trip because we can cook for ourselves and relax for awhile. During our trip last time we felt that moving around every five days got so tiring and you really loose the relaxation part of the vacation. So by staying here for three or four weeks we can really get to know the place. Already we have found that the diverse roots of people here is crazy. The island was given back to Honduras by the British less than a hundred years ago and it has a large Caribbean vibe. They speak Spanish, Creole and English here. The island is also a refugee for Americans who leave the states because of legal trouble and don't want to go to jail. However, the island is pretty safe as long as you are cautious, which we have learned to be traveling throughout the Americas. Also this is the drop spot for planes traveling with drugs from South American before Mexico (to get to the states), so every once and awhile you get the DEA or South America's version landing on the island to bust them. But don't worry parents (and Aunt Nancy) we are safe and the people are really friendly and not scary at all. The only downfall of the island is how they deal with trash and how solar energy has not caught on here. But it is Central America and at least they don't burn it. Instead all the used water leaches out into the lagoon in the middle of the island and slowly makes it to sea to get washed away in the current. The trash is buried to make the island bigger. It is not that apparent, but in some spots it is really sad to see. We are going to have a trash clean-up maybe one day to help out and are going to start using big water jugs (10 gallon) that are reused to not add to the plastic consumption on the island. Other than that this place is beautiful and we have so much to explore.
In the next few weeks we have a ton of cheap activities planned and we will let you know how they go as we do them. Tonight is wing night at the restaurant/bar here and Tequila Tuesdays at Tranquillo. So that should be fun. We started the day hanging out at our friends house just chatting and listening to music, the dive staff here is super cool and we are enjoying getting to know them all and learn their talents. We also went on a run today in the blistering heat to explore the island more. That is really the best part of going on runs here, we get to explore and see more remote parts of the island. We are also thinking about going to Sun Jam festival on an even tinier island in a couple of weeks, Dj's from all over the world.
So as you can tell, we have really made this place home in the past week and plan on being here for at least two or three more. It is tough being away from the Garcia family and Aunt Nancy right now. We have been chatting with Aunt Nancy through email and it sounds like the cancer is progressing faster. We really wish we could be there with her, but we know in our hearts that she is happy with what we are doing. We love you Aunt Nancy and are thinking about you everyday. Our hearts and prayers are with you and the family. Okay so to my dad's family I will work on calling you all soon. Maybe we can set up a skype time, I will contact Jill soon. To the Griffin's we love you all and miss you too! If anyone is reading this let us know with a comment if you get a chance. Okay, my book for the day is over, Peace and Salud to you all!
Love,
Sean and Amber (Seamber)
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