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Honduras

Freediving, Paradise Island

I do have at least one more good story from Roatan. The week after the IDC I was in a bit of a funk trying to figure out what to do with myself. My entire life up until that point had been planned out until some point in the future. College after high school, divemaster insternship after college, IDC after divemaster, but suddenly the IE was over and that was the end of my plans. My entire future suddenly became a blank slate. And with all the nonsense that I already alluded to that was going on, I finally decided

Honduras

Rambling, Scuba Diving

I'm Back! I hate leaving projects unfinished and I feel like I never properly finished telling my story of Roatan. I've also realized that I plan on traveling a fair amount in the future, and rather than create an entirely new blog for every adventure I go on, why not just keep this one up and running? I am not promising to blog on a regular basis, but when there is a story to tell, I will tell it. These stories will be sparse until I do begin a new adventure, but there just might be a few interesting tidbits

Honduras

Scuba Diving

It's official! I got my Divemaster certification number yesterday. Also, I have logged 99 dives. Next dive is 100! (which I am told has to be naked). Tomorrow Holly and I start the EFR instructor course.

Honduras

Scuba Diving

I finished my divemaster certification! It is tradition around the world to do a snorkel test to celebrate this momentous occasion, and so last night, three of us new divemasters, along with two others who had never done their snorkel tests, had to wear taped up masks and snorkels while beer and rum was poured down the snorkel. I've never been able to shotgun a single beer. Way too foamy. Last night I did three, through a snorkel. Initiation complete. I may be staying a bit longer than I originally anticipated. I know I told everyone that I would be home in

Honduras

Misadventures, Scuba Diving

It was a typical morning at the shop and we walked in, and went to the board to see where we were supposed to be for the morning. Four of us interns were assigned to the Kasandra, going to Sea Star Channel, to work on our mapping project. There are various skills we need to complete to become divemasters, one of which is mapping a dive site, and we were all assigned sea star channel. There were also customers on the boat so we were going to be dropped off to do our mapping, and then picked back up on

Honduras

Misadventures, Scuba Diving

All of us interns decided to get our wreck specialties, which means that we spend four dives mapping, planning, and finally penetrating a wreck. And yes, the actual technical term in diving for entering a wreck is "penetration," so you can only imagine the wide array of jokes that go along with wreck diving. There are two wrecks in Roatan down near West End, the Aguila, and the Odyssey. Earlier this week we spent an entire day diving the two. Dive #1 is just exploring the outside of the wreck. Since Holly and I had already done esentially that for our

Honduras

Paradise Island

I'm uploading a video to facebook because try as I might, my blog won't let me upload it. We were supposed to be working on our mapping project and got a little sidetracked. You'll see what I mean. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151480588251737&set=vb.666151736&type=2&theater Yesterday was perfection; one of those days that you know that years from now, you'll look back on as one of the best days of your life. We got the day off and one of our boat captains drove us two hours east to a little deserted island called Pigeon Key. You know those cheesy island calendars that you buy full of beach

Honduras

Scuba Diving

Day 47 There is a single road that runs the entire length of the island and that is the only way to get from one end to the other (short of having your own boat and sailing around). The shop is about half an hour away from the intern house and this morning we made it about ten minutes before being stopped to find out the road is blocked for the triathlon. So there is no way to get to work today, which is just fine by all of us because another storm is rolling in. So Valentine's Day was absolutely amazing.

Honduras

Rambling

Day 38 I truly do apologize for the lack of updates. By the time I ever have any time to write in the evening, I'm usually too exhausted from the day's fun to bother turning on my computer. But here's what's been happening the past week. Saturday we hitchhiked our way to the iguana park. I love that hitchhiking is a thing here. Don't worry we all stayed together as a group and the general rule is you only jump in the backs of trucks; don't get into a the cab of a stranger's vehicle. Finding our way there and back was

Honduras

Other Water Activities

Day 31 It's Friday! But every day is Friday here. We started out the morning by taking our Rescue exams. 50/50! So easy to do well on things you actually care about. And then we went tubing, complete with photo shoot because the shop wants to start offering tubing to people. I'm not going to lie, as fun as it was, it was also a thoroughly painful experience. We rock-paper-scissored for who got to ride first, and Holly and Matt won. So we watched them bounce around until they finally flipped and all had a good laugh, until it was Aaron

Honduras

Rambling

Day 30 Bob had a successful dive lead yesterday and finished his internship after a year. Sadly I wasn't there. We all celebrated at his and Darren's house last night though. A new intern named Matt arrived today. He's from Louisiana. Shiela made Intern of the Month! We started working on rescue skills today with Renee. Pretending to be a panicked diver in the water is surprisingly more exhausting than it sounds. We finally have internet at the intern house. So feel free to email / fb message me whenever. I can't believe tomorrow is already February! Why does time have to fly so fast when

Honduras

Rambling

Day 29 So Rhami moved out on Saturday. Just up and told us that he couldn’t live with people. Actually there’s more to the story but I won’t go into it here. Andrew left for Utila on Saturday. Christine left for Nicaragua this morning. Aaron and Sheila stayed at the shop to go on the night dive. (I gave the whole night diving thing two shots before deciding that I don’t like being blind and cold and underwater all at once). And Holly went for a run. So here I am, alone, in this big, rickety old house, except that I

Honduras

Misadventures

Day 28 Cruise ships roll in on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and so those are usually our busiest days, because in addition to the divers staying at the resort, we have all the lovely people who load off of the ships who want to go snorkeling. Today we had a boat going to the shipwreck, which doesn't happen very often because it is an hour away, and a private charter going to Pigeon Cay. There was only enough space for two interns on the wreck boat, and one intern on the charter to Pigeon Cay. Holly and I tossed a coin

Honduras

Scuba Diving

Day 24 Finally Sun!!!! It's been rainy for the past eight days and the sun finally came back out today! I think I can say that I have never ever in my life gone that long without a good dose of vitamin D. The second those first rays came out I stripped down to my swimsuit and just soaked it all in. Today we had an English bloke from the marine park come over to the shop to issue us all licenses to hunt lionfish with spearguns. Before you go getting all offended and animal rightsy, know that lionfish are an invasive

Honduras

Travelogue

Days 17, 18, 19 A rainstorm rolled in at 3:00 in the morning on Friday and it's been raining pretty much nonstop ever since. The hammering of the rain combined with the howling of the wind is enough to keep you awake all night, only to get out of bed and slip all over the floor because it is practically flooded from the roof leaking. Darren picked us up and told us we were all crazy for not taking the day off. When we got into the shop, Rhami, Holly and I were given our Emergency First Response manuals and told to

Honduras

Scuba Diving

Days 15, 16 I completed the work for the advanced open water certification today! Next step: rescue! Yesterday we spent the morning in the pool doing skills with Christina and Andrew, the two who have been here the longest and are nearly complete with their divemaser training. So part of their training is to demonstrate that they can review skills with divers, and us newbies were the divers who they got to teach. The skills I am talking about, if you are familiar with diving, are removing your mask underwater and then putting it back on and purging the water out, loosing

Honduras

Scuba Diving

Day 14 First and foremost, today is the one year anniversary of the day I left to circumnavigate the world. So many happy memories with so many incredible people. If any of my SAS friends are reading this, I miss you guys like crazy! Where to begin? Today was our third(?) day at Subway Watersports. My internship wasn't supposed to technically begin until today but they put me to work as soon as I got here! We usually leave the house around 7:30 every day, Sunday through Friday, spend the day at the shop working in exchange for our training, and then

Honduras

Rambling

Days 12, 13 I love my life! Too busy scuba diving all day every day so write much else at the moment. It's Sheila's birthday today so we're celebrating tonight. Damn, I have so many good stories but no time to actually write them all down. Coming soon!

Honduras

Crazy Cat Lady, Travelogue

Day 11 I arrived safely at the intern house! But alas, the internet is down so I don’t know how long it will be before I actually get a chance to post this. We packed up everything at the beach house this morning, and I called Subway Watersports to let them know that I would be at the airport at 12:00 noon. The lady on the other end couldn’t hear me and so I was skeptical as to whether I had actually gotten the message across or not. We said our goodbyes at the airport, Mom and I busting into tears. We

Honduras

Misadventures, Travelogue

Day 10 – Roatán Honduras So the reason I came down here was for this divemaster internship, and the reason my family came down to vacation this week prior was to set their minds at ease as to where I am going to be for the next few months. I’m afraid it did the exact opposite, at least in my mom's case, because everything that could have happened to raise concerns over my program, happened, and to say the least, it has been a terribly stressful week what with all of her worrying and begging me to come home and whatnot. This

Honduras

Travelogue

Day 9 - Roatán, Honduras Actually, I saw that word - aquaholic - on a t-shirt and quite liked it. I didn't buy the shirt because it was overpriced even by American standards. Here's the irony: I enjoy scuba diving. I enjoy looking at the fish. I never thought I'd be pulling them out of the water. But what did we decide to do? Go deep-sea fishing of course! I feel like I should feel worse about this; I killed Nemo. But that's just the circle of life I suppose? I never felt the least bit sorry for that piranha I fished

Honduras

Top Wildlife Experiences, Travelogue

Day 8 - Roatán, Honduras Mom and I went to breakfast just the two of us at this little restaurant on the main road that is home to two cats and I don't even know how many parrots; there were at least four hanging out in the rafters that we could see. So we were sitting at a table for four and one of the birds helped himself to the extra seat with his little cup of orange juice. I kept tearing off little pieces of toast for him but apparently that wasn't good enough, because before too long he walked

Honduras

Rambling

Day 5, Day 6 - Roatán, Honduras Snorkeling by day and drinking Monkey Lalas (Roatan's signature drink) by night. Monkey Lalas are a frozen drink made with Rum, Kahlua, Bailey's, bananas, ice cream, and a drizzle of chocolate syrup! Seeing as I'm going to be spending the next three months diving, I figured I'd just stick with snorkeling this week, and wow! I have to say that the snorkeling right outside our front door is better than some of the dives I've been on. So many different kinds of fish! I've been playing around with my new little GoPro and still need

Honduras

Travelogue

Day 4 – Cross-country, Honduras I can’t possibly describe to you how much I have missed this. They said I would be seasick but I just laughed. I lived on a ship for four months, I’ve crossed three out of four of the world’s oceans, I chased a typhoon around the Cape of Good Hope; I don’t get seasick. Emotional, maybe. Being back on a ship has been on my mind 24/7 since I debarked, and I was so happy to be back, so overwhelmingly ecstatic to be sailing into a new port that I couldn’t even think to sit in

Honduras

Travelogue

Day 3 - Copán, Honduras This hotel is spoiling me. It is not a fancy resort by any means, but just a quaint little inn with maybe four guest rooms. This morning when I woke up and went outside, there was a single table out in the middle of the garden set for three people. Breakfast was served, consisting of papaya, toast, eggs, and beans. Also, there is a “pillow menu” in the room. I just walked over to José, the doorman and also the only person working here right now, to ask if I could have a few, and he

Honduras

Travelogue

Day 2 - Copán, Honduras We were woken at 4:00 AM for our shuttle across the border to Copán. The person working the hotel at that hour packed us each a bag with a sandwich, water, a banana, and a juice box, which was a very kind gesture. Our shuttle, which was a minivan crammed with other tourists, picked us up and strapped our luggage to the roof of the vehicle, and we embarked on the four-hour journey to the Guatemalan border. I might mention that the entire journey there, my laptop was in an outside pocket of my backpack, and

Honduras

Rambling

I was about to say I'm leaving in two days but golly jeepers, I'm leaving tomorrow night! I've become a pro at this whole packing thing. I literally threw my scuba gear, cameras, and a few sets of clothes in a backpack and called it good. I remember the days of stressing for weeks over what to pack but no matter how many times I dump out my backpack with the intention of doing the job properly, I can't think of a good reason to bring anything more. Remember that detailed, extended packing list I posted before Semester at Sea?

Honduras

Rambling

This may be one of my greatest decisions to date! Most people go to grad school or search for a real-person job after graduating college. Granted, both of these things will likely have to happen at some point in my life but why the rush? All I've ever wanted is to live a life of adventure. Real life can wait. So after I've walked in my cap and gown and received my diploma in a few weeks, I'm hopping on a plane and leaving the country for Honduras. I landed a divemaster internship on a little island off the coast