Scubadiving and more

SCUBA

I´m about 95% done with my getting my PADI open water SCUBA Diving certification. All I have left is the written exam, which is very easy. The class is built for a 10 year old to be able to understand, so everything in the written portion is very simple.

The practical part of the class was really fun. I was being trained with one other guy, Marco, from Finland, who was in his 50s. My instructor was very helpful, and I responded to the water pretty weel. The first lesson was just off the dock, and we did some basic stuf - took the mask off and on under water, find your regulator (gives you air) underwater if it falls off, etc.

The deep water training went well. We got down to about 50 feet the first day, and 60 feet the second. The biggest thing going deep was making sure to equalize every meter or so (like you unpop your ears). We did some underwater swimming without the mask and practiced some emergency accents. Overall, everything was pretty easy if you remember that you can just relax and breathe while doing it.

During the practice dives I saw a lobster, garden eels, a stingray, a school of baby squid, and a hawksbill sea turtle, amongst some awesome coral. I have two free fun dives to do, and after that I will probably do a couple more while on the island. Its about 50$ for two dives, which is a pretty good deal considering the quality of the diving.

Around the Station

Last week was pretty slow due to the weather. For awhile, it looked like Hurrican Ida was going to hit us. It did do some damage near the Nicaragua and Honduras border, but we just got a lot of rain. Things were a little slow, but I tried to keep busy.

Thursday we played kickball again, which was a lot of fun. Thursday night we all picked a dish from our country. I chose to make stuffed green peppers, because I couldn´t think of any important food in the US that wasn´t just borrowed from somewhere else. They turned out pretty good. We also had a German chicken dish, some English food that I forgot the name of, a bunch of great Honduran food, a apple pie from Switzerland, a hot pineapple punch served con Ron, and traditional onion rings and deep fried snickers. We ate for over 2 hours, spread over multiple courses. The main challenge was fitting everything into one small oven with only one grate.

This week work will pick up again. The station is builing a classroom for our education projects, and we will start building that this week. Additionally, I am writing a couple short reports on animals to be used for a lesson plan for kids. My first one is on the hucksbill sea turtle!

Running

Running here is a lot of fun, but its definitely challenging at times. Its not uncommon for there to be some non-running breaks required. My favorite run so far involves running west about 18 minutes, swimming across the canal for about 2 minutes, and then continuing west. West of the canal is almost completely undeveloped, with just one road heading parallal to the coast, about a quarter mile inland. The road is about as wide as an ATV trail, and cuts through a mangrove swampt. Due to the rain, some parts were flooded at least six inches.

The other runs I do all are based off the main road that goes to the airport. The airport has just one plane that goes back and forth from the mainland. Once I had to wait for the plane to land, but usually I can just run along the runway and cut over to the beach.

Last week I was able to put in 59.5 miles, off of 7 days of running (range 5.5-12, avg 8.5, 11 days straight) .

Next Up

This week I will be making a trek to Rock Harbour, on the other side of the island. We will be collecting some iguana food and exploreing the mangrove labrynth. Thursday we´re going to one of the Cays off the coast to celebrate one of the Doro´s, one of the volunteers, birthday.

I think I will be leaving the station just before Thanksgiving. That will give me about 3.5-4 works for traveling. My initial plans are to head to Pico Bonito National Park, just south of the mainland ferry port, for a few days. There I will hike, and hopefully see a jaguar. Then, I think I will take a bus across the country to Copan. At Copan, I will go to the ruins, and do some more hiking in the national parks near there. There is a peak of 2400m just east of Copan. Following that, I think I will go the 10 miles west into Guatemala and explore a bit there. The southeast coast of Belize isn´t much further, but I don´t know if I will venture that far.

Adios!
Go Badgers!
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