Jess and Stacey’s Travels

Utila Pix-click on photo for more pictures

Our Spanish is officially leaving the building.  On the positive side, we are certified for advanced open water scuba diving, Stacey has overcome her ichthyophobia (fear of fish) and we are also much tanner.  Utila has been ideal for squandering all previous investment in Spanish lessons while luring us into greater investment in scuba lessons.

They say that there are three lies of Utila – 1) This is my last beer 2) I love you and 3) I’m leaving tomorrow.
That pretty much sums up the atmosphere of Utila.  A lot of under 30 scuba rats mixed with a Caribbean local culture.
We fit in well. 

We’ve been here about ten days – three of which were spent hunting down the doctor for medical clearance.  The other seven were spent in dive classes at Utila Dive Center with our dive instructor Tracy, an Aussie.  We seem to attract Aussies.  Our first class was the ‘open water class’, which just gets you able to dive without drowning yourself or others.  We went on to do the ‘advanced open water’ class, which makes diving more enjoyable.  For this class we had to do five dives.  The ‘deep dive'(30m/100ft) and ‘navigation dive’ are both obligatory dives.  We also did a ‘wreck dive’ to a ship that was at 30m, then a ‘night dive’ and a ‘search and recovery dive’.  We also did a dive to improve our underwater control but you’d never know it if you saw us underwater now.  Our underwater control is about as good as our Spanish.  Monsieur Jacques Yves Cousteau would roll over in his grave seeing us near the reefs.  We are getting better with each dive but still do not get as close to things as most of the experienced divers do (do not want to hit the coral, etc)

Tomorrow we take the first of our four “fun dives”, i.e. the ones where we don’t have to perform like trained seals for Tracy.  We can enjoy just looking at the fish and reefs.  With each class you get a couple of ‘free’ fun dives.  We saved up the two we each got from taking the open water class to use after finishing the advanced open water classes so that we wouldn’t be as limited in our depth for our fun dives.

For anyone looking into the dive schools down here, we would difinitely recommend the Utila Dive Center.  It is well managed, friendly, the equipment is good, the instructors are well qualified and they emphasize safety but with fun.  Tracy and all the divemasters have been exceptionally patient with us and always positive even when we’re not.
It has been a good experience. 

Outside of classes and the dives, we’ve just lazed about in our hammock overlooking the bay.  Our first night was spent in the free accomodations provided by the dive center.  But, we were in a room next to the communal bathroom-how do you say stinky pee in Spanish?  We have been splurging since then.  We have been staying in a more expensive, by Central American standards, room.  The room is on the second(top) floor of a hotel, Rubi’s Inn (looks more like a motel).  Our end of the building ends about 20 feet from the water.  We have a balcony with a 180 degree view of the water and island.
Being on the end of the building, having 2 windows for cross ventilation, a ceiling fan and french doors to the balcony keeps it comfortable without turning on the air conditioning. We have a mini fridge, coffee maker and microwave and there is a small communal kitchen too. Here we can also swim off the dock.  The private bath with hot water and the balcony were the real selling points.  

We’re loving our current accomodations and exploring the undersea world.  This is going to be hard to leave behind..but we’re leaving tomorrow (see lie #3 above)

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.