After dinner myself, Mickey, Mick’s brother Jake, and my friend Vic played King’s
cup with cheap vodka and/or sprite. Shout out to Jake Kay for bringing the art of drinking games to Guatemala. Then we made our way to Central Park to take part in the festivities: bands, men running with firecrackers on their back, packed bars, and 2 simultaneous fireworks displays. It doesn’t get much prettier than fireworks over the Antigua arch; I felt like I was in a real-world version of Disneyland. We spent the first day of the year relaxing in (chronological order) bed, the sofas in our house, and famous gringo-bar Monoloco to watch some football.
We decided to start 2010 off right with a scuba-diving adventure in Honduras (the cheapest place in the world to get SCUBA certified). Mickey, Jake, and I left our house at 4am on Sunday the 3rd, and after 20+ hours of travel arrived on the island of Utila on Monday morning, just in time for our beginning SCUBA lessons. Our rooms, dive school, breakfast nook, and hostel bar were interspersed on a few connected docks. Teal Caribbean waters lapped below, a baby sea turtle and several barracudas came to visit, the dive center’s 2 resident dogs chased pelicans in the water, and our dive instructor couldn’t be more knowledgeable. But while we were there, the weather was oh-so-shitty.
For 5 days I was forever wet, cold, or in a wetsuit. The weather made the water pretty choppy, so on our 1st dive Mickey found himself feeling pretty sea sick. When we came out of the water from our first successful underwater experience, Mickey threw up. I felt so bad for him, although puking in the ocean makes for a pretty easy clean up. Then after our 2nd dive that same day, when we came back up to the chopping surface, I threw up. Then Mickey saw me throw up, which made him queasy enough to throw up again! We both felt better by the time we got back to our dock, but vowed never to eat tomato soup together again.
By our last dive, the sun peaked out, and I had finally gotten over my hesitancy of being 60 feet under water. I left the dive school appreciating SCUBA for the freakin’ awesome sport that it is. It really is a whole other world down there. Plus being completely weightless really makes you feel like you’re on the moon! While on the topic of weightlessness…I was pretty darn bad at staying neutrally buoyant. Between 2-4 times on every dive, I found myself floating up to the surface, waving for advice from Mick, Jake, and our teachers below. I blamed my possibly large-ish lungs (good excuse?) when we got back to the surface, but then our dive instructor actually found a problem with my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device—basically a little life jacked that you can pump air in to). Yes! Better excuse!
By the end, I got the hang of controlling my breaths and my BCD – just in time to see a sea turtle, eel, porcupine fish, and a couple of bioluminescent shrimp. SCUBA-ing was just too fun for Jake to pass up the advanced SCUBA course the following day.
Mickey and I had to leave Jake, and after another 20+ hours on bus and boat, we found ourselves back Antigua getting ready for Transitions 2010.
