Still in West End, Roatan…. still loving life. The rain has stopped and the weather is gorgeous! We’ve had a beach day and today my friend started her open water course. I came along for the confined water part to test out my new equipment and she ended up not being able to complete it. Poor girl had a panic attack underwater. Some people just aren’t cut out for it. She is going to try a Discover Scuba course instead – if she can do two more skills then she can try an open water dive. We will see how it goes. She was pretty freaked out today. It was good for me to see though, because soon enough I will have students like that and I need to know what to do! Anyway the instructor (my friend) nixed the diving for my friend for the rest of the day but I couldn’t wait another day to dive so she took me out right then. I was SO happy to see the reef and be underwater again. It’s been three months but it all came back pretty quickly and I did a decent dive. At the end my BCD had a problem and I scared myself a bit but it ended up being okay after my friend jumped on the back of my tank and fixed it. The reef was awesome – I saw two turtles, a trumpetfish, a puffer fish, and lots of sea urchins, parrotfish, shrimp and crabs. So I was happy! Can’t wait to go again tomorrow.
We are heading back for a nap at the hotel…. we had a VERY late night last night that included way too many rum punches, an impromptu 30-person underwear pool party that got us escorted out by security, swimming out to some guys boat in the water and having a dance party on it, and losing yet another pair of flip flops.
I’m still so in love with this place even though my legs are torn up with sandfly bites, my liver hates me and I can’t get a decent salad for the life of me. But it’s still my favorite place. Why? Well, here’s where I’m going after my nap:
Oh, I'm so glad that your friend is ok, though sorry to hear about her panic attack! One of my biggest worries is that when Tony and I try diving, only one of us will take to it and the other one will freak out! I'm generally very comfortable in the water, so I think I will be ok (I have no problem snorkeling), but I suppose there's no way to know until you're actually trying to dive!
I'm glad to hear, that apart from that, life has been sweet! What a gorgeous beach! Must be pretty hard to get too bent out of shape, when that's what's waiting for you following a nap!
I actually saw that happen a couple times during my open water and advanced courses the first time I was in West End. I saw a few teary stressful conversations that didn't go over well. But you're right, there's really no way to know until you try! I think you guys will both be superstars at it 🙂 If you're comfortable snorkelling you've already won half the battle.
And yes, it was pretty hard to tear myself away from that beautiful beach… the picture still makes me smile now even when I'm home.
Looks gorgeous! Thanks for keeping us posted – now go get into some more trouble! (the above water kind…)
I got into all kinds of above-water trouble! Stay tuned 🙂