Utila - Honduras

After the previous few days of relative stressfulness, I was searching for a safe haven from bad weather, hustlers, and angry landladies. I found reprieve from all three on the tiny Caribbean island of Utlia. One of three sandy outcrops just off the north coast of Honduras, the Bay Islands have a unique history. Columbus landed there on his fourth and final voyage in 1502 and subsequently wiped out the indigenous populations and the island remained uninhabited for many years. Not much changed until, in the mid 1700s, the British expelled a group of rebel slaves to the islands where they repopulated and established a society that is today known as the Garafuna. It was also a popular hideout of English and Dutch pirates who used it as a home base for robbing Spanish gallons returning home with there treasures.

With a rich and diversified history such as this, in is no wonder that these islands, while still technically Honduran, are in a world of there own. Utlia is considered the cheapest of the three, and is therefore a beacon for backpackers. Beside being a chilled out, English-speaking Caribbean play land for backpackers, Utlia also has the cheapest dive courses in the world; costing around $200 for a four-day Open Water Certification. Although never really one for Scuba before, I felt that this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up and signed up at one of the islands more reputable shops known for helping nervous first-time divers. And, while this was their biggest selling pitch it would prove to be an moot point, as both my classmates, myself, and my teacher where going to make it a wild and bumpy ride.

Chiara, a 23 year old California girl had just finished her instructor certification and we where her first class-though we didn't learn that until much later in the course. She was friendly, enthusiastic and I felt relatively comfortable putting my life in her hands. Along with myself there were two others in the class: Doran, a 20 something Israeli who could not read or understand English very well -a definite problem when you have to get through a 175 page PADI book in the first two days of the course- and Bill, a 56 year old trucker from Nevada who was as blind as a bat and had trouble hearing. Needless to say that the first part of the course, consisting of reading, classroom videos, quizzes and confined water diving skills, was a bit of a process. Chiara, who you will remember had never taught a class before, had to find a way to teach Doran all the things he was not willing to read in the classroom, and a way to demonstrate underwater skills to Bill who couldn't see two feet in front of his face. As you might surmise, there was a lot of repetition in the early stages and it was taking us twice as long as in normally would. I for one was fine with this because I had been putting off diving for a week due to a head cold and wanted as many extra days as I could muster to try and unclog my ears before entering the open water.

The fateful day finally came where we went out for our first open water dive and lets just stay it was memorable. We all made it into the water just fine and Chiara, working to tread water with an extra weight belt of about 25 lbs was quick to explained our dive plan. We would descend to a small sandbar 30 ft below the surface and work on a few skills before having some free time to explore the surrounding reef. Sounded great in theory. But as we tried to descend both Bill and I could not attain negative buoyancy and floated on the surface. Chiara, obviously fighting to stay up with the extra weight struggled for five minutes trying again and again to properly weight us. All the while we were being carried further and further from the sand patch, and the boat, and he had to struggle to get back to our drop zone. She did her best and again started our slow decent. Then everything went to hell. My left ear would not equalize and before I hit 2 meters I was in a lot of pain. I signaled to Chiara that something was wrong but she didn't see me. She was too busy chasing after Doran, who, apparently not understanding the final exam he had somehow managed to pass, let all the air out of his BCD and was dropping like a stone to the bottom. She managed to catch up with him about 20ft down at which point I couldn't wait any longer and made my way to the surface. Bill, oblivious to the everything that was happening, was turned around in the opposite direction still trying to descend. When Chiara finally surfaced with Doran, who was bleeding from his nose, Bill was floating off in the strong top currant and couldn't hear her yelling for him to return to the group. She had to race over there and toe him back to us, all the while still toting the heavy weight belt in her hands. At this point she made the wise decision to cut the dive and we faught the currant back to the boat defeated.

Doran ran to a corner, now terrified of the thought of diving, and mad that Chiara had not warned him about what happens when you drop four atmospheres in 3 seconds. I couldn't hear anything out of my left ear and was jumping around trying to get the water out with a bottle of water and vinegar. Bill, tripping over fins and weight belts was following Chiara around trying to figure out what happened. Even though time would have permitted it, we decided not to try another dive. I could see the obvious frustration on Chiara's face, whom I felt bad for having had the luck to get the group from hell for her first class. She didn't let it show though, and only gave us positive encouragement. In the end that proved to be her, and our saving grace. She convinced us all to give it another go and two days later we made two successful dives. I got down to 57ft, Doran learned the you only get one pair of sinuses and is best not to crush them, and Bill got a pair of subscription goggles and was able to get down (where you can hear better because sound travels faster underwater). We even saw a huge pod of dolphins on our boat ride back and everything seemed perfect. Two days later, we finished our course and became Open Water divers! Chiara quit the next day.

Aside from many hours spent at the dive shop, Utlia has a great social scene. When you get a group of people from all over the world in one town for something as adventurous as diving, you get a great blend of people. I made some great friends, Russell, Orin, and Bruce, were a group of Brits who singled-handily changed my view on the British. There was always something to do, a trivia night, an all you can eat/drink BBQ at the dive shops, a black belt drinking challenge (where you have to drink six shots in a row; all the levels of the belts. Proud to say I am a black belt). Lots of people come here for their open water and stay for their advanced and dive master, tacking on a couple extra months to their stay because they love the place so much. Unfortunately for me, I didn´t have the time, or the money, for that and after a week, I moved on... to Nicaragua.