Utila, Honduras - Learning to Scuba Dive

I left Guatemala after spending my first two weeks there. It was an amazing place and there was more to see but I was kind of tired of taking bus after bus after bus to get to some of these amazing but in the middle of nowhere places. So I took three more buses and a day and a half to get to Utila, Honduras. Utila sits on the caribbean side of Honduras and is known for being one of the cheapest places to learn to dive and not much else. I had to spend the night in La Ceiba before catching the ferry in the morning. There were only two other people checked into my hostel but one was a friend I'd made back in Antigua a few weeks ago named Geoff. I've been staying with him and his friend Antony for the past few days. Its amazing I didn´t make really one single male British friend in 10 months in London but have met three really good guys in two weeks traveling.

Anthony and I are diving partners in our Open Water Certification class. I would have become officially certified this afternoon had my sinuses not picked this inopportune moment to flair up and make it completely impossible and dangerous to equalize my ears underwater. No worries though, I just have to wait it out, hopefully get better in the next day or two and then finish my final two dives. There could be worse places to be sick than a Caribbean island. My instructor's name in Niv from Israel and the school is the Utilia Dive Center. I highly recommend both Niv and the UDC. We have 6 people in our class and four instructors which is great.

Update: I finally finished my course! I tried to get better hanging out by the pool and reading for two days but my sinuses still were really blocked. I finally couldn´t take doing nothing anymore and just took twice the recommended dosage of some sinus medicine and two claritins and went for it. Luckily I was able to equalize and finish my course.

Diving is pretty fun but I´m definitely still getting used to it. It didn´t help that I wasn´t feeling 100% but I´m looking forward to diving a few more times and in a few more locations before really deciding how I feel about it. The ten year old pirate in me really wants to see some old shipwrecks.

Below is a pic of my two friends Geoff and Anthony with a Johnny Drama Lookalike. The road with the bulls in it is actually the main road of Utila.

As soon as I finished my course and two fun dives I got on the ferry and left Utila to head to Nicaragua. I´ll only be there for about 3 days unfortunately before flying back to Indy to see my dear friends Evan and Andy get married.