Another day, another dive

So as Chris said, we decided to chill out here in Utila, Honduras, for awhile. We didn't bank on getting marooned when it rained solidly for a week and the ferry stopped running. Still there are worse places to get stuck for awhile ...

So you were waiting with bated breath (weren't you?) to find out whether weak and sickly child Chris would be allowed to dive. We went along to see Doctor John, who reminded me strangely of The Dude. The Dude checked Chris over, then freaked him out by pulling on a pair of latex gloves and asking me to wait outside. It was just to check for hernia, but also turned out to be a good way of checking whether Chris had any stress-related asthma. Chris's lungs turned out to be better than the average lungs, so off we went to Utila dive centre.

Within three days we were diving down to 18m and loving it. The reef here is quite spectacular, one of the only places in the world where you can see Black Coral at recreational dive depths. I am really loving seeing all the animals I know from England's rocky shores, except twice the size and in more colours and varieties. We finished our open water course, did a couple of fun dives, then - oh no, a rumour that the ferry isn't running. So we accidentally signed up to do the next course, advanced open water, where we did all kinds of fun things, dived to a wrecked boat, went down to 30m, and went on a night dive (Chris's first experience of bioluminescence). Then the ferry really wasn't running due to the rain, the harbour in the mainland being closed, the captain taking a long lunchbreak, etc. So the next thing we know, we've been here for nearly two weeks and we are qualified as Rescue Divers. We nearly feel like it's home - people in the shops and restaurants know us and we recognise people in the street. We love it here despite the fact that it's rained every day and nothing ever gets dry ... imagine if we'd come during the dry season, we'd probably stay forever!

In fact our friends from the dive centre are trying to talk us into staying on for another month and doing the divemaster course, but our bank account tells us that we really should move on. We're definitely getting off this (beautiful carribean) rock in the next couple of days and heading down to the pacific coast of Nicaragua. Definitely.