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Oh my God! I have been eaten alive! I think I have just spent the last 3 days in the breeding ground for mozzies, sandflies and all other bitey insects. There's not much of my skin left to suck on! I decided I should probably take malaria tablets so have started again. The number of bites I have, there must be one from a malarial mozzie!
Anyway, after leaving Copan, we took 2 very uncomfortable buses (one had leg room and no aircon and the other had no legroom and sporadic aircon - as long as we were on flat ground!) and a very rocky ferry to the island of Roatan in the Bay of Islands. This is a small island, famous for diving and snorkeling as it's surrounded by over 100km of living reef.
Got to bed that night for Jen to suddenly start screaming that there was a cockroach in the corner of the room by her bed. Bloody hell, not again. Honestly, I am going to get this magnetism thing sorted out as it's really not funny anymore. It then scuttled across the room to my bed at which point I leapt on top of my bed and whacked my head on the rotating ceiling fan, nearly knocking myself out. Ouch!!We couldn't see it after that so I settle down to do some surfing while Jen fell asleep. At the same time as she jumped awake, I spotted the roach on her neck. Aaaargh!!! After she had jumped around the room a bit and as we were both useless (and I almost had concussion!), I went down to reception to get the night watchman who looked at me (in my PJs by this point) as though I was a nutter whose only words were 'cucuracha'. He followed me up the stairs, wielding his rifle (even the security men at ice cream shops carry huge weapons!) but as we reached the room, Jen was smashing the cockroach with her boot. We slept with the light on and I tucked all of the sheets under my body and made sure I had no open orifices!!
There have been some tensions in our new group. I found out that a Norwegian girl (who really isn't a very nice person and has spent 6 years in anger management - clearly didn't work!) has been b****ing about me and has been telling everyone that I am 'lower class'. Charming, I'm sure. Not sure what she bases this theory on, especially as I watched her feeding a random dog from the table with her fork. Ugh!!! Anyway, girls will be girls and with the majority of the group female, there's bound to be some catty moments.
Got up early on Wednesday to do some diving and really liked the dive school (Coconut Tree if anyone is heading that way) - immediately felt at ease and looked after. And very cheap - only US$ for 2 tanks. Did 2 dives in the morning and was fine - my confidence has definitely improved. After lunch I headed to a bar with a terrace on the end of a pier and read my book while sipping a banana daiquiri. Now this is the life! Decided I couldn't really send the next day doing nothing so booked up to do some more dives plus a night dive. Things all changed on Thursday as I discovered that I could have completed all my dives for my advanced course so I nabbed an instructor and did my deep dive, buoyancy and navigation. I felt like a performing sea lion for most of the day as I had to swim through hoops, stand on my head and knock a weight over on the sea bed, lie on the sea bed. The navigation was funny at first as I kept tilting my compass the wrong way so it wouldn't work and I was all over the place (before you guys say it, I know, I'm a woman!!). Anyway, I ended up being the best so there! On the deep dive we had to point at numbers in sequence at 2 different depths to make sure we weren't being affected by narcosis which was funny as you sometimes naturally can't see a number even though you're staring at it so you get all stressed as you think everyone must think you're thick! All good though and I passed with flying colours! I seem to have spent the whole day getting on and off the dive boat and then I had to get back on for my night dive. I was excited to be doing another one but worried that I might panic as last time of course I had one-to-one attention. All calm and fine though as our dive instructor was great. It wasn't as colourful as in Cayman but we saw a whole heap of stuff, including a ginormous crab - I've never seen anything so huge - it was a mutant! We also saw loads of lion fish which the dive asters earlier in the day had been spearing as they are not native to this area and they are killing all of the coral (same in most of the Caribbean I believe). We then had an amazing experience. Similar to my first night dive, we switched all our lights off and suddenly saw all of these 'strings of pearls' which literally look like pearls dangling in rows, horizontal and vertical. It was mesmerizing. We then all started to wave our arms around and all of the luminous plankton thingies were flying round like fireflies. It all looked like fairy lights on a Christmas tree. Stunning!
So, I am now a certified Adventure Diver, whatever that means (apart from a new membership card!). I'm hoping to complete my Advanced stuff in Panama in a couple of weeks. For the first time, I hired an underwater camera and attempted some shots. Haven't seen them yet a they're on CD but will upload them (as long as they're not too bad!) in the next day or so.
Anyway, that was Roatan. I feel like I did nothing but dive but I had great fun and to be honest there's nothing else there to do apart from sit on the beach so I don't feel like I missed out on much. It has cemented my thoughts on living on a tropical island though - really don't think I could do it with everyone knowing your business and the nearest civilization being 2 hours away at least!
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Michelle Knox Hey, lets meet up somewhere random and have a Mojito. We both need it. Your room mate sounds like pain in ass. I had a cockroach in my bed last night too. My fly squatter still gets a workout. Norweigen girl is a stupid twat. Is Jen Australian? Keep away from her....... Miss me dont you??? Your former excellent tent buddy......