A scuba hoober

When you arrive on Utila there is a bunch of people ready and waiting to bombard you with leaflets and all the reasons in the world as to why their dive school is the best. It was the last thing I wanted in 35 degree heat and with the heaviest rucksack in the world on my back, and so I was quite snappy in telling some of them that I would take their leaflet and see them later.

I didn't really intend to do that so it was quite awkward when we rocked up to the Bay Islands School of Diving and the manager immediately recognised me as the person she'd tried to accost just an hour earlier! She apologised for it though, so maybe my snappiness wasn't entirely over the top?!

When asking for a quote for a diving course you don't just get a quote. You get the full shebang: tour of the classrooms, kit room, air room, accommodation and places where you'll be doing the first open water sessions. They all offer pretty much the same deal: open water course plus two fun dives, free accommodation for the duration of the course and a free t-shirt for US$280. Which is a total bargain. As they all offer the same, after three tours of dive schools we were pretty overwhelmed, but in the end we went for BICD because they had some other people starting an open water course the next day and we were getting a private room for free, whereas the others only offered beds in dorms.

Our first night on Utila was a bit crazy. The dive school was running a BBQ plus all you can drink rum punch. We made our first mistake here, by opting to go for the drinking part only. The second mistake was not having anything to eat until we were well gone, and we hadn't eaten anything all day. My third mistake was having a veggie burger that was basically just shredded carrot and Ciaran's third mistake was doing the Skid Row Guifity challenge. Guifity is an absolutely disgusting rum, made by taking any cheap old rum and adding a bunch of herbs and spices to it, before leaving them to infuse for far too long. The challenge is to drink four shots in a row, for which you receive a free t shirt. I didn't even try and do it, it looked so disgusting, but Ciaran manned up and is now the proud owner of a Skid Row vest and up to now, a 2 day hangover.

While Ciaran's spent most of his time festering in our (luckily) private room I have been learning how to scuba dive! The first day was tough, mainly because of the absolute stinking hangover I had until we got into the water- the three hours of PADI videos prior to that were not fun! My dive instructor Nick wasted no time in telling me how bad I had looked in the morning and how I looked much better in the afternoon. I think it helped the hangover, having something to focus on, especially when that focus is making sure that you're breathing properly. We did some other things like controlling buoyancy, filling our masks with water and clearing them underwater and giving each other air with our spare second stage (spare regulator).

Myself, Brianna and David have 2 more days to go and then we will be fully fledged open water divers, and able to dive to depths of 18M! I have to say that so far, the snorkelling we did in Belize walked all over the coral and fish I've seen while diving here in Utila, but the experience of diving is awesome and I can't wait til Ciaran and I hit a new place where we can go diving together!