Utila update

Imagine going back to some place you used to call home, and all of the things are the same, but the people have completely been replaced. That's what Utila feels like to me. I left here in June 2005, and this Sunday was my first day back on the island since then.

I went to the dive shop I was at before (Utila Watersports), and I found 100% new faces. On the island of Utila, your social network is generally formed by those at your dive shop. This island is full of drinkers with a diving problem, so it's only natural to finish off a couple of good dives by making plans to head out later on. So although I *knew* that basically no one from the old clique was here, it didn't quite hit home until I stepped through the doors and find a weird sense of familiarity in the surroundings, but no faces I recognized. I'd actually managed to have a pretty good friends network here when I was around the first time. Back to Square One.

Well, it happened fairly quickly. There are actually a few people around that I kinda knew before - the dive shop's manager, Kate, was doing some classes at the dive shop when I was doing my divemaster training, and I vaguely remember her. A couple of other people have been around for a while and know and were good friends with some of the same people that I was close to. And one friend is no longer on the island, but his sister is now here. Going out to bars, I've run into some people with familiar faces. In fact, one bartender recognized me the other night and greeted me with a "Welcome back!" and handed me a drink on the house. And the other day, I was sitting on a bench outside of the diveshop, and the owner's son drove by on his quad and was talking to some other people, then turned to me after a while and said, "Were you here before?"

So, my first night here was the Super Bowl. (This just shows how behind I am on my pop culture - I didn't find out that the game was on that evening until that same day...) When I re-introduced myself to Kate, the manager, at the diveshop, she promptly invited me out to a bar with her and some friends to check out the game. I got there a little after halftime and actually enjoyed a Super Bowl! It was a great game, and perhaps even better was a bet going on at the table... Kate and another guy agreed that if their team lost, the following Saturday (this coming weekend), they would put the winning team's name on their forehead in permanent marker AND they would drink a small bottle of some of the strongest and most vile booze on the island. It's something that sounds a bit like moonshine. As the end of the game neared, Kate and Roscoe traded off on squirming in their seats as each new goal was achieved. I'm happy that I'll be around this Saturday to see Kate with GIANTS displayed un-proudly on her face. Kate formulated and agreed to the bet because she didn't believe that her beloved Patriots could possibly lose to the Giants, and now she's gotten screwed. Anyway, it'll be entertaining.

I passed up on diving on Monday so I could have a day of hardcore relaxation, but I was at the shop at 6:10am on Tuesday morning to head out on the 7am boat. We had 2 really good dives, but unfortunately, no whale sharks. We did, however, see a huge pod of dolphins during our surface interval. Captain John drove the boat over to them, and we enjoyed watching the dolphins race along at the front of the boat, occasionally jumping up. What was amazing is that in addition to the 10 or so dolphins up near the front of the boat, there seemed to be another 40 or so in the 30 meters behind the boat. On the next turn around, we all put our fins and snorkels on and hopped into the water to swim with them. You could here the high pitched clicks and screeches with your ears in the water, and after about 20 seconds of swimming away from the boat, I saw about 30 dolphins beneath me about 10-20 meters. Beautiful! Not my first time to swim with dolphins, but it's always magical to watch these beautiful creatures up-close.

Due to a lack of divers, the boat didn't go out yesterday, but I'm going out this afternoon and tomorrow morning for more dives. My goal is to reach 100 dives by the time I leave (definitely doable) and to see whale sharks (based nearly entirely on luck...). Let's see how I do! I'll probably be here for another week. With free dives, a bed valued at $3/night and beers at just over a dollar, this place is not doing much damage on my budget.... let's just hope I leave before the rum and beer do too much damage on my liver!