I'm still here...

So, I realized that I hadn't a) written any new posts and b) called anyone who cares about me in the states in a while (too long according to my dad who e-mailed the dive center asking where the hell his daughter was). It's funny how time seems to just get eaten up here!

After writing my last post I did some hard thinking. Not that I hadn't been stewing over whether or not to leave Utila for the entire week. I was supposed to have left "Monday" the Monday before! I was just thinking about how easy it was to just leave and how that is in my nature. To travel hard and fast and see as much as possible with as many stamps in my passport as possible. Staying to complete my dive master training would mean missing out on another few weeks of travel in Guatemala and El Salvador. It meant having to probably stay in Panama for a while to get my Brazilian visa. It meant changing my intinerary completely for these first few months. I messaged a former Bonderman fellow and explained the problem: I'm stuck. I don't want to leave. I feel happier and freer here than I have anywhere else.

His reply: Go for it. So I did.

I'm well on my way to finishing the dive master training, which requires you to know the physics, physiology, environmental and equipment aspects of diving, as well as performing the 20 core skills they teach you in the open water course to demonstration quality AND completing various other stamina/stress tests. I have no clue why I am doing this or if I have changed, but I feel like I am exactly where I need to be.

It's strange how I have come to love diving over these past few weeks. All your worries--the drama, hangovers, obligations, etc--disappear as soon as you are below the surface. No one can talk to you. All you have to (or I suppose get to) do is chill out and hang with the fishies. It's fun being a dive master in training as well. I've assisted on numerous open water courses and seen a whole range of new divers, many of which started out in the same places as my fellow DMTs and I did. Some are very insecure at first (like me), some are very awkward (like Sophie, one of my Australian friends and housemate), some are more aggressive (like Steve, another housemate from Canada) and some have to learn a sense of their own body (like Robin, another housemate from England). But it's a beautiful thing to get to see all of them emerge being competant divers with an appreciation for the life underwater. You can tell when someone will go on to truly become a diver after a course.

I'm afraid to say that leaving here (especially right before the holidays) will be like leaving home again. I've grown very close to a lot of people on this island, and already have established "haunting" spots. It will be hard to leave next week.

First, I'll have to pass a "snorkel test", though. Which basically means that I put on a mask with a modified snorkel so that BOOZE can be poured into it. I have already seen at least ten of these tests, and none of them have been pretty. So pending my survival of that last task, I will be leaving here soon.

Some of my friends have been taking photos, so I am going to try to get them to send me electronic copies to post here on the site. Perhaps then you will begin to understand why I'm stuck here right now!

With Love,