I have really debating whether or not I want to shell out the $250 for another diving course, cause even though diving is fun it does not give me the adrenaline rush I am so addicted to. Snowboarding every day for the past few months has got me hooked on adrenaline. Man I miss the mountains and flying down steep slop as fast as I can, the wind in my hair.... I am getting shivers right now just thinking about it, and Utila has really reminded me of Sun Valley in a few key ways:
1.Everyone here lives to dive, just like everyone in Ketchum lived to ride. They might work in a bar but there end objective is all the same.
2. You cannot walk down the street without running into twenty people you know and stopping to chat for at least five minutes at time. This makes it virtually impossible to go anywhere in a timely manner, but who cares its island time. It also makes it absolutely impossible to avoid people you do NOT want to see. Like poor Meghan whose ex-boyfriend of two years that she was supposed to go on this trip with but broke up with right before coming down here not only happens to be on the island, but was on the same ferry over here. And just pops up everywhere at the WORST times. It also means you cannot avoid the skeezy guys who are always hitting on you. It really makes you think twice about random hook-ups. Its the law of adverse-attraction; you always run into people you actively try to avoid.
3. Gossip travels fast here. The story about Brad feeling Dave up in the middle of the storm has already traveled all across the island, and was retold to Dave by some other British guys we met two weeks ago in Guatemala; they did not know Dave was "the poor bloke who got felt up" until half-way through the story. Halarious though. Ok and lets put things into perspective; we have only been here six days, not even a week, but feel as if we are already ingrained into island culture. Knowing Lynn really helps which leads me to the #4 reason Utila, Honduras is like Kethcum, Idaho:
4. I get free drinks here. In Ketchum I was one of the only cute, single girls in a town with a guy to girl ratio of 12 to 1. So obviously I got a lot of free drinks there, not to mention that Emerald, the bartender at my local bar Lefty's, absolutely loved me and always hooked it up with free drinks for me and whoever I brought in. The guys in Ketchum were obviously jealous cause I was getting free drinks all the time from guys AND girls, but hey I am just that cool. Ok so things are different here. I am just one mountain girl in a sea of tanned, fit, gorgeous girls. I feel like I get lost in the crowd here, actually I stood out when I first came cause I was so pale from snowboarding (thankfully my Spanish genes came through for me and I am now acceptably tan for Utila, although nowhere near as tan as most). Somehow though, I still get bought drinks an awful lot and Lynn also bartends here, in the fabulous, fantasy, TreeTanic and hooks it up fatty for me and mine.
So basically my expenses here, except for the actual course fees for PADI (Put Another Dollar In), are very minimal. I get free room, a few free breakfasts, we cook communally with a few of the instructors and dive masters here a lot and have awesome potlucks which has been a blast, and free drinks at night.... oh and the people here are halarious and a lot of fun. Like our crazy French Canadian instructor Biskit, who smokes with us after our dives and dances with us at night.
Therefore, I am going to ingnore my traveling bug for a few days and indulge myself in the local island culture, but not for too long. Everyone here, including Lynn, is like ya I came for a week or so and have stayed for.... (enter any insane amount of time to be on a small island, anywere from 6 months to 15 years). I like it here but that is NOT going to happen to me. I like it here and all, but the diving is not even that good. I mean it is good, but the sights in Belize were much better and I was only snorkeling.
The water is clear here, but not as clear as the waters in Belize and we are on the same reef. Unfortunately, humans have had a much greater impact of the environment here. The environmentalist in me cringes everytime I see plastic floating in the water here, which is virtually everytime I dive. And I am totally disgusted by the fact that people dive right off the coast here cause all the sewage is flushed out to see. One shop here, Parrots Dive Center (the only locally owned dive shop on the island) is right next to one of the "hottest" bars in town, Tranquillo. Tranquillo does not have toilets, only a hole in the deck that one squatts over and shits right into the ocean. So basically when people are doing the shallow water diving training they are literally diving in shit water. One kid I know cut his foot and got a gang green infection because of the water. Actually, Cross Creek, where I am diving are the only outfitters that do there shallow water training at reef sites, thank god, cause I did not even think about that when I was looking at dive shops.
To top that off all the cruise ships drop there trash off the shores and the local beaches are feet high in plastic and trash. Fucking disgusting. We just got done hiking to Pumpkin Hill, the highest point on the island, and afterward went down to the North Shore beach that we knew was abandonned to swim al natural and stumbled upon huge trash piles from cruise ships. The ocean is not a trash reciptical!!!!
What are we doing to our oceans???? I heard that there are miles of trash "islands" in the deepest, most deserted parts of the South Pacific. The currents bring trash there and deposits miles long have built up. We are poisoning our oceans with our refuse, and overfishing our reefs. One of the reasons that I think Utila is not as nice as Belize is that the locals here overfish everything. They have scoured the reefs for all the remaining lobster and conch shell to sell to tourists that they are practically endangered here now, and yet they still sell them at almost every restaurant!!! We no longer can see lobsters while diving, but if we pay enough we can see them at restaurants. What has this world come to?
The ocean was once thought as a bottomless fish market; but recent estimates tell us that only 40% of all marine wildlife remains (as a precurser all the statistics and facts I will use in my blog were from a reliable source at one time, but may have become scewed while waiting years to be used in my head, so maybe they have been 40% fished out- the point is our resources are seriously dwindling). We need to become more responsible with our resources, trash, and lifestyles.
Ironic right, since I am spendig so much fuel traveling down here and all around. But I actually feel like I am using LESS resources being down here cause I basically only spend money on food, travel, and housing. No needless crap, and usually I eat local, cheap, and vegetarian. I have been very introspective on my lifestyle though lately, and think maybe I might just give Environmental Justice another shot. Although I do think the largest environmental problem is: us, overpopulation, and I think international sexual health education and policy making would also be a great avenue for change. Who knows, I change my mind so often; I might not even stay and do the advanced course. I feel the pull of surfing from across this tiny country. The Pacific is yelling at me: "hey you, stop swiming slowly around with a tank on your back and come SURF me!"
I did have a great sign though today. I was swimming AND breathing underwater (its even more exciting than when I learn to swim and drink underwater in the boundary waters- and that was REALLY exciting), thinking of whether or not I should shell out the money to dive more when, out of nowhere, a baby turtly swims right under me. Of course I go chasing after it and start screaming underwater to Lynn (who has lived here for 5 months and never seen a turtle, I have been here a week and seen 5- turtles might just be my spirit animal, they always come to me). I finally get her attention but lose the turtle. So I go to the next coral forest where I saw it swim off to, peek over a rock, and there the little guy is, just waiting for me and looking in my eyes. And then we saw a nerf shark. Ok Universe stop rubbing it in, there is something for me to learn on this island, maybe even something more than just diving. Who knows? If my luck is this good with turtles, maybe I can also see some Octopi on the night dive? Ok off to frolicing with friends, laughing, and dancing, but most importantly the daily tradition: watching the orange-lifegiving orb drop over the horizon.
Oh and I was commisioned by the majority of Cross Creek dwellers to make the next Cross Creek T-shirt:
ReplyDeleteDive Cross Creek: All the other dive schools literally dive in shit.