Staff Diving, Fighting, Yeah!

With the IDC (Instructor Course) guys finished and a whole new bunch of Divemasters certified we decided the time was right to get a staff boat together. This is, as you would imagine, a boat full of just staff members. We decided to get Dan to come along with his video camera so the day could be captured forever…

Being a special occasion I decided it would be appropriate to wear my Speedos, to which I added some socks down the front (not that this was necessary you understand). This met with a mixed reception as I delivered the boat briefing (again no pun intended but I am good at finding them aren’t I?) in my little Speedos. As we approached the dive site Bruce and I decide we would jump over board and pretend to drown, again this met with a mixed reception and we were forced to recall our PADI self-rescue techniques from chapter 4…

After a messy, uncoordinated decent we gathered at about 30 meters to open a beer… this took some time, and as Bruce tried to open the bottle all of the divers gathered in a line behind him, all latching onto the tank of the person in front of them. I decided I did not want to wait in this queue so I floated next to Bruce and took the beer second, when it still tasted as the Hondurans had intended. The 15th person in the queue must have wondered what the bottle contained after everyone had taken a sip yet the bottle was still full, this wonderment was clarified after a sip was taken.

I then remembered I had taken a banana down with me and promptly shared this around, yummy. All the excitement had taken it’s toll however, and I soon ran out of air and had to surface… In between dives we cruised around and searched for Whale Sharks, this proved unsuccessful but later clever video editing would make this appear otherwise.

In fiery mood it was decided that the next dive would be to a sandy ledge about 20 meters below the surface. Here we would have a race as a warm-up to a boys vs girls fight. We descended in the style of a highly-trained parachute troop and lined up ready to race. A false start did not affect my focus and I pulled clear to an early lead, I became confident of the victory and reached to my pocket and pulled out my baby-bottle containing my apple juice and had a celebratory drink as I approached the line. To my dismay I began to slow and it became apparent that some parasite had clambered onto my back (this later turned out to be a combination of people led by Cat).

Freshly smarting from the race I was more than ready for the fight… Federico and Jodie squared up in the middle as a poignant precursor to the brawl, the signal was given and I headed towards the ‘honorary girl’ Bruce in full fighting mode, snorkel in hand ready to deliver a severe beating… However, the girls had somehow planned there line of attack and had freed-up four weight belts which were quickly tied around my ankles, legs and arms! The boys had failed to protect me, and as I hobbled off caterpillar style, I battled to free myself and seek revenge. This was duly metered out once freed, and I took out the baby’s bottle and fired its toxic contents into Bruce’s face… all was going well until I had to befriend a girl due to having no air left. I selected Jodie, as she was nearest at hand, but she soon passed me on to a willing donor whose air also then ran out…

We all made it back on board and several arguments ensued, with the silly girls feeling they had won, pointing to the fact that most of the boys had run out of air, and several had lost fins and other items of kit.

I have the DVD containing clear evidence that we won, stupid girls!

Divemaster Jedi complete!

Wow, this was fun. So the IDC (Instructor Course) guys all finished at the same time as Bruce, Nila and I finished our divemasters. Cue a massive party. The three of us decided we would make this a snorkel-test to remember and dressed up like muppets (see pictures). We arrived in rather flamboyant style, with home made microphones (half coke bottles) amplifying our already intrusive singing. After this fan-fair our snorkel tests were always going to be pretty intense. A snorkel test for those who are not sure is the final part in achieving your divemaster. You wear a mask and snorkel and then alcohol is poured, via a funnel, into the top of the snorkel, you then drink like hell.

I thought I was ready for the challenge but two aspects hit me straight away – the weight of the fluid entering my mouth and the inability to breathe. The breathing issue was solved by holding the mask slightly off my face (no pun intended) whilst the weight of the fluid was solved by drinking. All was going ok until my mouth began to burn as ifI was drinking nothing but pure rum (a suspicion which was later confirmed by video evidence). I finished with a parting shot – clearing the remaining rum straight out through the funnel and all over the gathered crowd! Shortly afterwards I experienced an excruciating burning sensation in my pants – this was disturbing, but I quickly realized that the sheer quantity of rum which had been spilt down there was not agreeing with me, this was solved by applying cold beer to the affected area.

Bruce was up next and managed to sink the lot, including a healthy quota of chili sauce… the rest of the night was as you can imaging slightly messy… all in all the best night on Utila though!

Surviving my 26th Birthday!

Another big night was upon us as I ticked another year off. Cat was on the case with a sponge and Nutella birthday cake which was truly awesome! The night of the 2^nd was fun, at midnight I was treated to the usual TreeTanic ‘Brain Hemorrhage’ birthday drink which was followed by lots of free drinks from my adoring public. I got rather drunk and contemplated riding by bike through Coco-Loco’s and off the pier, but instead I just fell asleep.

The next day (my actual birthday) was slightly more subdued to begin with. At first I wanted to do nothing but Nela came up with the awesome idea ok kayaking. We got the ‘cobra’ out and dunked her in the water and off we headed with 1.5 oars and a whole load of hangover… we paddled for about 3 minutes and then decided it would be more fun to just lie down and drift, plus we kept falling in when trying to paddle which was just plain annoying. We were rather more successful at this drifting approach and found much amusement in drifting past several dive sites and several dive boats, all of which presumed we were dead until we mustered the energy to do the PADI standard – I’m not dead signal.

The sun plummeted into the ocean ahead of us signaling it was probably time to head back. We sat up and began to paddle… this didn’t seem to do us much good. Our boat by this point had taken on a fair volume of water through the many wholes along its bow, and was not sitting to pretty in the water. Thinking back through our PADI training we remembered that salt water weighs 1.03kg/litre whilst fresh water weighs 1.00kg/litre, we then realized that this knowledge was not really helpful at this point and tried to paddle harder… Thinking quickly we decided to head to the nearest pier and drain the Kayak… this almost met with disaster as we came within a few feet of grounding the boat on some coral, batting the urge to laugh uncontrollably we tried to back pedal ourselves out of trouble, this was difficult as we had not really mastered front pedaling…

There is a lot to be said for knowing when to admit defeat, and we finally reached this point and decided to let the sea take us wherever it intended… this miraculously ended up very close to the lagoon, with renewed enthusiasm, and with the current, wind and pretty much the whole island behind us we powered into the lagoon. After finding a suitable pier to drag our boat onto we let it drain for what felt like 30 minutes. We also found a local guy who gave us a few pointers, well I think that’s what they were, I didn’t really understand what he was saying, I just nodded than continued into the lagoon. By this time it was pretty dark so we decided the only option was to hide the kayak under the nearest house and walk the two miles back to UDC (Utila Dive Centre).

Somehow we still had energy and managed to dance the night away when at about 4.30am we had a sudden, yet profoundly awesome idea… we would go and get the kayak so no one at UDC would know it was gone! We found an American with a golf buggy and said kayak was intricately placed atop this 12 volt beauty and returned to its home.

I love it when a good plan comes together…

New Yeah! 2007!

Well new year had a lot to live upto after Christmas had turned out so well. Bruce and I got back on the case and between us I think we managed to talk to everybody on the island and invited them to join us at TreeTanic. The plan seemed to work as the whole island turned up, a bit like Noah’s ark, two by two until we could take no more and we started analyzing the creatures to decide which breeds should survive… Luckily the crowds spilled over into the gardens and all were happy, and Bruce and I were working flat-out (with a little help from Ket). Again the music was cheesy and the mood was jovial and we managed to once again shatter the all-time record takings, and earn ourselves some healthy funds to take into 2007.

We closed the bar at about 2 and then headed to Coco-Loco’s on the waterfront and danced for way too long. We finally gave up at about 9.30am as the sun was becoming too strong. Nice!

Christams on Utila

Well Christmas was awesome. Well, Christmas eve to be precise. I spent the day diving in the perfect sunshine and then we packed Treetanic with people and had a big party! Yeah! We had some pretty cheesy music going on (think Take That, the Pogues, Chesney etc) and managed to break the record takings for a night, much to our satisfaction.

Christmas day had a lot to live up to, and it began late – we were still dancing as the sun poked it’s head over the solitary Utilan hill. Luckily the girls were up to the task and by the time we made it to Ket’s house at about two food was well underway. The food was awesome, luckily between the 15 or so of us we had a few closet-chefs who managed to work wonders and produce a massive Christmas dinner. After munching our way through this everybody progressively passed out whilst watching films – just like home then!

Working in the trees!

Woohoo!

So the divemaster is still going really well and I am progressing along. I am now also working at the best bar on Utila (Treetanic), and maybe even the best bar in Central America, and some may even argue the world (well I suppose it is now on the merit of the bar staff).

The place is awesome, thanks to Neil, the Californian rather eccentric owner. Neil has spent the best part of 20 years working on the bar, restaurant and gardens as though they were a blank canvass for him to stick marbles to! The result is pretty and awesome. The bar is so called because it is a boat in a tree. From this boat the ladders and platforms extend out into the gardens and into a mosaic clad telly-tubby land. Ok, I’m not doing the best job of explaining what it looks like. Take a look at the photos on my website www.russellbutler.com and maybe all will become clear!?!

Divemastering

So I have now begun my divemaster course and all is going well. My first mission was to get my skills circuit signed off, along with my ‘lead’, so I could begin guiding fun-divers. But before taking up this responsibility I got myself signed up to assist on as many rescue classes as possible. This included getting work at Cross-Creek (another dive shop). Rescue classes are so much fun, you get to play act lots and beat-up would-be divemasters, so much fun.

The best bit of the rescue classes is always the problem solving at the end. Turning on all the experience I have gained from Bruce’s amateur dramatics I became the most feared victim. Acting narked is always great fun, but watching the students’ reactions is better. Especially Andrew’s face whilst trying to deal with a bout of leg cramp I was suffering from and then realizing that he was out of air (Jason had snook up and turned his air off). Now this may sound dangerous, and no doubt my parents (if they read this) will be shaking their heads in dismay, but I assure you that we are highly trained divers and we had the situation under control. Andrew however panicked and failed to ask for my alternate air source so we had to pass it to him. However, next time this happened he reacted like a true pro, gave the signal and retrieved my alternate, see there is a clear lesson learnt – we all need air in order to breathe underwater!

Becoming a DMT!

Woohoo! Well I have finally finished my rescue course, that was fun! The last day involved trouble-shooting, this is when all of the DM's and Instructors go crazy about 20 meters under the water. The majority of the girls were acting Narked (Nitrogen Narcosis) and were 'riding' their tanks, whilst Bruce was on a mission to steal all the masks he could! This was all good fun, and I had to try hard not to laugh, and focus on saving people! Bruce stole my mask and refused to give it back leaving me to have a 3minute safety stop without a mask on. I shall seek revenge...

So I have now started my DiveMaster Traineeship, and have already got a few notches on the board, which includes my skill circuit meaning I can now assist on classes! Hoorah!

Parasites lost and found

So all seemed to be going well apart from a really irritating itch on my foot. This had continued for some time so I finally decided to get to the pharmacy. Diagnosis ring worm - fair enough, that happens, so I got the cram and began liberally applying the stuff. This didn't seem to stop the itching, which had now spread to my other foot. On closer inspection I noticed that the itchy patch was moving in a crazy path... I headed back to the pharmacy and one of the locals in there told me I had a worm in my foot and that I should go and see the doctor!

Being not-unfamiliar with the Central American parasitic families I decided this was sound advice and headed to see doctor Jon. Jon was quite excited to see that I had in fact got a Hook-Worm in each of my feet. He was most excited about the fact that (and I use his words here) my worms were performing text-book maneuvers on my feet. Whilst worm one had rather ominously drawn a perfect 13, worm two had been slightly less clinical in it's execution of an 'M'.

Jon gave me some antibiotic 'ointment' to drink and requested that I took some photos of my worms and sent them to him. The next day the itching subsided, and in a final moment of genius worm one (worm two had given up by this point) modeled it's intricate 13 sculpture into what can only be described as a phallic masterpiece. Whether this was done in admiration of it's host or as a parting shot is unclear, either way it was very creative for a worm which normally resides in a dog or cat.

One step closer to Hoff!

The next step on our PADI ladder was to become RescueDivers! We had three students (including me) and about 4-5 DiveMasters to save! This course basically involves us being taught theory interspersed with helpless DiveMasters jumping into the sea with a whole array of ailments and illnesses.

Possibly the most challenging of which was Bruce who decided to cough up a chocolate biscuit before we had even been briefed on the first day, even the instructor (Tash) wasn't sure if he was acting or not - so we all sat there and watched him collapse on the dock and pass out. We then decided we should administer first aid, but we were told we had failed. We all decided we never liked Bruce anyway so that was ok!

This general theme continued for the duration of the rescue course with Bruce constantly acting up, panicking, seeing sharks etc. It was all good fun through, that was until I injured my foot. We were busy rescuing an unconscious diver on the surface and all was going well until we tried to get him (Michael) out of the water. We were using a very high dock and we dropped the blighter mid lift! I decided I would do the 'Hoff' thing and dive in after him, I managed to catch him but in pushing him back onto the dock I smacked my heel against a broken barnacle under the pier! Owwww! I still managed to drag him out of the water and deliver those all important rescue breaths before turning to look at the damage. I discovered a big gash across my heel, doh!

Luckily Bruce came out of his panicked diver mode and helped me clean the wound. He got a sterile needle and some alcohol and I tried to think of happier times. He did a good job, and over the next 24hrs Bruce and Hillake managed to remove a smashed barnacle piece-by-piece from my heel. In the words of Doctor Jon they did a 'smashing job', to which I replied 'it'll heal'.

Home from Home

Well here I am. I now have a new home. There are two of us beginning our Divemasters together so we decided to get a place together, so Cat and I now have a little house. The house is awesome. It's costing us $400 per month which is just over 100 pounds each, nice. We have a 25 inch TV with cable (so I can watch all the Premiership football), a Hi-Fi with four speakers (and my iPod plugged into it), Air-Conditioning and hot water! This is pretty awesome, and better than any place I had as a student! We also have a fully equiped kitchen, but it's so cheap to eat out here it probably will only find use when we have a party/hangover/christmas.

Utila itself has been awesome, and I already feel like I know about 200 people. Everyone wants to know everyone, and people seem to come to Utila and leave much later than planned (a couple of years later in some cases). This place is awesome basically. We have now completed our Emergency First Responder course, and we're getting closer to finishing our rescue diver course, which is a good laugh. So we will be sworn in as DMT's (DiveMaster Trainees) on friday, and we can begin assisting on courses and leading dives. I am also hoping to get a job at Treetanic (a bar in the trees) I spend most of my evenings there so I may aswell get paid for it!

The weather has been pretty dicey over the past few days as a tropical storm has washed through, but Cat's ear infection has meant we couldn't dive during this time anyway, so we have just been in the classroom ploughing through the theory, hoorah!

Right, I will update every week or so, hope everyone is well.

Utila!

Hoooooooorah! I have arrived on Utila. We got here and found somewhere to dump our bags and then headed to the beach. After becoming aquainted with the millions of sand flies (which will be an ongoing issue I feel) we jumped into the warm sea and did nothing... until I got hungry. In my hunt for food I came accross a nice place on a pier run by a couple of Texans. With limited funds I sat and pondered the menu, and then one of the regulars at the bar, who had an English son-in-law decided he would buy me fish and chips! Awesome. The fish and chips was much needed and powered me up to find a dive school.

The decision on which school to go with was pretty easy. UDC (Utila Dive Centre) was by far the most lively place to be, and everyone seemed really friendly so I booked myself in and started diving. Our first dive was excellent, and I saw a couple of Moray Eels, a Hawksbill Turtle, and lots of other critters.

So I'm fully into the swing of things here on Utila now and I'm just looking for a place to live, and a couple of other folk from the dive school are looking so fingers-crossed I will have an awesome flat on the water very soon!

Super Bueno!

In to Honduras

Hoorah, we made it! The trip down from Belize was ok really. It just involved a whole day on a boat. We arrived at the docks expecting to see a sizeable boat for the cross-country trip and found a little 20 person chugger. Never mind, it got us there, and even did some pretty impressive leaps off waves on route. We also had the fun of the immigration control, whereby two people jumped on to the boat, ordered us off and then moved us back on, Noah style whilst putting the relevant stamp in my slowly developing passport.

Arrival into Honduras was made painless by my travel group growing to include an Italian, a Dutch guy, and a Canadian, all of whom could speak Spanish. We managed to get onto a seriously crowded bus to San Pedro Sula, the mingy capital, and then got another bus to La Ceiba which was also pretty nasty. I did get a beer and T-Bone steak for about $4 though, so that's ok.

Next stop - Utila! Hoorah!

Belize!!!

After a night watching Titanic and a morning watching Robin Hood I was all set to head out through the forest and onto a boat! Boarding a local bus through Belize is one of the best ways to travel. The language is close enough to English to understand and the locals seem to love to laugh at each other, which is always good. Add to this a bus with twice as many people on it as God intended, and the sound of a Prodigy concert tuned to Reggae Christmas music and you have got the picture. I arrived in time to get the last boat to Caye Caulker which successfully managed not to hit any ice bergs.

The first night went well as I soon met some English, German, Norwegian, French, and Swiss companions who I could drink rum with. We headed down to the beach with the guitar and had an awesome night. The next day I moved into Tina's Backpackers where all the 'good' people seemed to stay. For the next few days I swam in the sea during the day and drank rum at Tina's in the evening! Excellent!

On Caye Caulker there is a 'split' where a hurricaine separated the island in two. This is the place to snorkel and me and my buddy Emily, and then Fi spent all day in the sea looking for sharkes, we only saw two though. We saw lots of rays, skate and puffer fish and an awesome eagle ray which was about 3-4 meters long - due to the massive tail and barb (which we all now know about).

Back to Tina's for food every day where I somehow managed to befriend enough resourceful ladies that I never had to cook, I just contributed some money (and the ipod and speaker) and food was put in front of me! Excellent. Thanks for that Chickitas.

All good things come to an end (so they say, although I think that's nonsense) either way the time had come to leave Caye Caulker, although most of the many people I have met are planning to come and see me on Utila which is bueno. So Julia, Elene and I headed off for an epic journey to Honduras!

More to come later!

Cancun to Playa Del Carmen

Hola! Well I decided Cancun could wait until later, the town is pretty grubby and Isla Mujeres is the place to go, unless you have money then the Zona Hotelera is awesome. I will leave Cancun until the end of my trip, that way I will know what funds I have left and I may have amigos Scott and Sellar with me.

So, armed with the good news (from Fat-Boy, Dad) that the $150 was on it's way back to my credit card, I headed down the coast to Playa Del Carmen. Playa is an alltogether nicer place although it isn't as cheap as I would like. I got to the San Pedsomethingorother hostel which cost $10 per night and threw my stuff down on a bunk and headed to the playa (beach). The sun had come out so I treated myself to a couple of 40p bottles of Sol. I stayed for a couple of days in Playa and met some interesting people, and two English girls who took pitty on me (for being a backpacker) and bought me muchos tequilla, Bueno!

Playa was good, but I'll be back here in a couple of months so I got a bus down to Chetumal and slept at the border to Belize...

Mucho Gusto! Rus

The flight to Cancun

Well this was fun. In the fun to look back meaning of the word 'fun'. I stayed at Jo's (Ryan's Mrs) on the night before I left (and we played Hockey, and I fell over, but that's a different story altogether). The reason for doing this was so I would not be late for the flight. This plan failed, and I was the last on to the plane. In addition, Delta and STA had jointly failed to warn me of the US 'stupid visa' policy which meant that I had to get a 90 day visa for the states because I was in transit there, and because I couldn't prove I was going outside of Mexico (the US claim Mexico as theirs as far as the visa is concerned) I couldn't have a return flight for the 28th Feb. So I then had to pay $150 to change my ticket so come home on the 28th Feb! This annoyed me and I let them know so!

Anyway, that behind me and my tail was soon wagging again (as in a happy dog, not an angry cat) as the plane took off over grey old England. I tried to get some conversation going with the woman next to me but she seemed to be on a completely different time zone to me, and suddenly became chatty as I decided to dose off. All in all the flight was good, and I watched a couple of films, including My Super ExGirlfriend or something like that, which made me laugh much more than it should have done.

Atlanta was a pretty painless stop over with just one incident of note: I queued to reclaim my bag and re-check it which never turned up, with time running out I realised that the bad was being checked through for me, disaster averted I tucked into a 'Babe Ruth' chocolate bar and wondered what the cast of The Goonies was upto at that exact moment.

The final flight to Cancun was fine again and I scrambled through the masses of Americans who were off to their big five star hotels and borded a local bus to town. Town was pretty dead and after a brief 'stalk' about town I found some fellow backpackers on the roof of 'Mexico Backpackers' and consumed lots of Cerveca to keep me occupied until 12 (6am UK) to 'acclimatise'.

So I'm here! Bueno, more soon. Rus

My Diary

Hi all, this is where I will keep my up-to-date, unabridged diary. If you want to hear it all, then this is the place to come. I leave the UK on the 22nd November 2006 - and I plan to return on the 28th February 2006.

During this time I am going to do my Divemaster qualification, learn to speak Spanish and above all else have an awesome time.

Bueno! Rus