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!