Diving

Hello Everyone

The sun is still shining here everyday on Utila and it is so so hot! I don't know where the rainy season is, but its not here, im not complaining.
Ive done such exciting things since I last blogged.

I'll start with the bat caves on the way to Pumpkin Hill, 1 of only 2 hills on this tiny flat island. We trecked through forrests to get to the bat caves, I was a little anxcious as you can believe, then we had to climb vertical coral (as the whole island used to be under water so lots of it is made up of coral) this was so scary and of course I wasn't prepared, no I didnt decide wear my suitable trecking walking shoes that you bought me mum, I had on my lovley pair of pink flip flops that Annie bought me, great but not at all practical for this adventure!! Anyway it was a short climb to the top, by this point I was sweating a little and my nerves were growing, but with encouragement from my new friends, Marc, Hazel - (which I now share an apartment with as of 30min ago! more on this in a minute) French David and lovely Mayja, we reached the top and were faced with a tiny crack in the rock into which we had to climb eek!! I which you may or may not know, (Age I know you do) am a bit claustrophobic, but really wanted to see inside and am up for trying new things and would hate to be the whinny english one who never tries new experiences and is a bit of a baby! so in I went, guided by Hazel who was acting as our guide as had done this a few times before, she was v patient with me. We all climbed inside very careful not to bang our heads, and crawl through about 5m into this dark crevice, my heart was pounding, and there were bats flying all around us, then down into a large cave full of bats flying and hanging form the ceiling, it was amazing and I was so glad that I had faced my fears, but then I had to leave the others quick smart before my chest exploded and i had a heart attack, and crawl my way out to daylight! Its amazing how trying something new can make you feel so alive and also that untill you try someting you have no idea of how it will make you feel, i dont really get paniky or anxcious very easily so its funny to see what conditions make me feel like that.

We then climbed pumpkin hill and then down to a v small beach where we just lay in the water for a few hours - pure bliss!! before starting the treck home. I think I may have lost a little bit of weight, which is always a bonus, as I am fairly active all the time and of course sweat half of my body weight out daily, along with everyone else, its quite disgusting but you kind of get used to it!! But when we go out for dinner the portion sizes are huge - enough for 2 people, so maybe this weight wont stay off for long oops! but at least this will help for diving as chubby people float! yey!!

We went out dancing the otehr night to a new bar on the 3rd floor with a lovely coolish balcony, 3 rums later and light headed from the heat, we blame everything on the heat! we all (4 of us) eneded up dancing on the bar with the 3 dancers that were entertaining the bar sporadically during the nights football. Everyone had left he bar at this point, and I think they welcomed the new faces and liked trying to teach us their moves! very funny indeed! Again another good work out!

I did my 2nd day learning to dive today, was so so Amazing, but I did feel a little sea sick at times! Im learning with Maja, David and JOn, all of which are from the iguana station except French David who is volunteering at BICA conservation. Its lovely learning with these guys, we can all be begginers together!
We went out on the south side of the island to do 2 dives. It wasnt scary, we went down 12m which sounds quite a lot but its greadual and there is so much beautiful; coral to see and fish so that takes your mind of it. The only problem I had was equalizing my ears, this is tricky and for hours afgter getting on dry land after, my ears still needed to pop, I hope this doesnt happen again! Ooh and we saw about 8 dolphins on the way back so we jumped off the boat with our snorkels to swim with them, they are so beautiful and playful, but did kind of swim ahead once we got into the water so hopefully next time we can try and swim with some.

I am having such an incredible time, Ill write more tomorrow and put more pics up then too.

Take care

Cate xxxxxxx