Day to day.

I have sat down to write this three times now, and have come up with amazing excuses such as washing the dishes, sitting on the couch, and reading the physics chapter of my divemaster book to avoid it. I just keep thinking that I should wait for something interesting to tell you all about. Does anyone really want to know what I do every day here, even when it’s not crazy and wild?

Of course! That’s why you’re following along, isn’t it? What happens when you leave the cubicle behind and move to a tropical island?

It’s not as thrilling as you might think, but it’s my life now.

So what’s your day like?

Well, I wake up at 6:15am at least 6 days a week. I’m nearly at the end of my divemaster internship and I have to be at the resort by 7:30am every day. It’s on the other side of Roatan and since a lot of interns and staff come from West End (the town I live in) every day, they send a van to come get us in the morning and take us back at night. The interns get Saturdays off, but every other day I get up, eat some peanut butter on a corn tortilla and head out for my 15 minute walk from my house to the other end of town where the van picks us up. On the way I pick up lunches for people who’ve ordered it the day before – there is a guy in West End who makes really delicious sandwiches every day for 50 lemp ($2.50) and I fell into organizing getting lunches for people at the dive shop every day. Then I have a 30 minute ride out to work, which is either a great time to sleep or a laughing riot, depending on everyone’s mood in the van.

Once I get to “work”, we all sit around on our iPhones, iPads and laptops until 8am… we have guests at the resort and so we can’t make noise loading boats, etc. until after 8am. It’s pretty chill. Around 8 the instructors let us know what we’re doing for the day – if we’re diving, what boat we’re on, how many people are going… then it’s time to get ready. We haul tanks to the boats, set up the guests’ gear and make sure no one forgets anything. Then the boats start heading out for the 8:30am dive. If there’s room and we don’t have any skills or classroom stuff to do, we get to go out on the dives. After the dive, we come back and change tanks quickly and head out for the 10:30am dive. Once we get back from the 10:30am dive, we change tanks again and then relax a bit for lunch. I usually spend my lunch break either online and visiting with people at work or a 20 lemp ($1) cab ride away to Megaplaza, where I enjoy the air conditioning at Tigo while I yell at them for fucking up my phone (weekly occurrence here, unfortunately). Then it’s back to the resort for the 2pm dive. After we get back from that, I have a hot shower (we’re spoiled rotten at this dive shop, it’s swanky) and then sit around and log dives or chat with guests until the van comes to pick us up again.

When I get back to West End I have to walk back down the road to my house. It takes forever because by 4:30pm everyone has come out of the woodwork and I usually see a lot of people I know. Sometimes stop at one of the bars to have a drink with the Wifey (my roommate, for those just joining us) or grab some veggies from one of the vegetable trucks. I get home and by this time I’m disgustingly hot and sweaty since it’s usually about 40 C or more with the humidity here, so I take a cold shower (though I do now have hot water if I want it!) and then lay on the couch and visit with the Wifey while we decide what to do for the evening. She makes me dinner and I wash up (and steal British sayings like “wash up”). Sometimes we sit here and watch NCIS all night. Sometimes we go out dancing and get way too drunk. Depends on the night. Her friend from back home in England has just arrived so she is living with us now too, and two guys from the dive shop I’m at are moving in tomorrow. 5 people seems like a lot but we have a big 2 bedroom 2 bathroom place, with king sized beds and a big couch so we have lots of room. More shenanigans than usual will likely ensue with all of us here.

And honestly, that’s about every day of my life here. It’s been 6 weeks and there haven’t been many days that have deviated from that. I’m totally okay with it. I do manage to take time every day to appreciate that I don’t sit in a cubicle any more, and that I live in a gorgeous place where people come on holiday and get jealous of me living here. I certainly enjoy the fact that I’m on my third rum and coke writing this, and it’s 7:30pm, and I have no reason to not have another!

So that’s what I do. Now you know!