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When Marieka, my stepdaughter, saw those words on our first layover at the Las Vegas airport, she knew we had the motto for our trip to Honduras. This country, roughly the size of Tennessee, is in the north-central part of Central America and is bordered by Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the Caribbean Sea. A primarily Spanish-speaking culture, Honduras is known for such things as the Mayan ruins of Copan, coffee, high poverty, and scuba diving. However, if you’re anticipating a story about the lovely Honduran culture and its remarkable heritage, this is not it. DeRay, Marieka, and I were off for a family adventure to visit my son and his new girlfriend for the holidays. We went to Utila, a little Honduran island in the Caribbean.
When I first decided to visit Josh, I didn’t realize that out of our nine-day trip, four would be travel days. Scheduled to arrive 3:45 PM on the December 24th, it would take five planes to reach him. Flying in peak season, our schedule was tight with little room for delays -- maybe not the wisest planning when going to a part of the world that often operates on a more relaxed time schedule. My concern was that all transportation in Honduras stops on Christmas Day, that if we didn’t make each flight close to schedule, we would lose two days from our trip. As it turned out, we had only one minor delay, just enough to raise my blood pressure and question if I could accept what is, but not enough to affect our schedule. Amazingly, our last flight, a three-person Cessna charter, landed at Utila exactly on time: 3:45 PM Christmas Eve. My son was waiting at the little airstrip with all smiles. After DeRay, Marieka and I settled in our comfortable room at the Mango Inn, Josh returned with Monika to introduce us to her -- and to enjoy our first family dinner with him in eighteen months. My first impression of Monika was awesome -- she’s beautiful, smart, and she only got better -- I’ll share more about her later. This tiny island is all about diving. There are at least 15 dive shops, more than 60 dive sites, and it seems every conversation is related more to the world beneath the surface than above. While I have enjoyed snorkeling, I’m quite comfortable taking my deep breaths above water and doing my diving exploration in more internal ways. Yet in our dinner conversation, when Josh casually asked the three of us, “Do you guys think you’ll try out diving?” I noticed my comfortable feeling begin to get a little uncomfortable. I wanted to see where Josh works. On Tuesday, after a wonderful and delicious Christmas Day of celebration, DeRay, Marieka and I visited the dive shop where both Josh and Monika work. Josh shared more about diving and then brought in two course instructors who talked to us about diving options. Though DeRay and I had previously discussed that we likely would not dive, we did listen to the options. Marieka was interested and her enthusiasm was contagious. Because of our short time frame, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Scuba Diver certification seemed most appropriate. It is a combination of theory and underwater skills. Once certified, we could do a fun dive to a maximum depth of 12 meters with Josh or any other professionally rated diver. However, we needed to get a doctor’s approval before going into the water. We could start the theory that afternoon. Next thing I knew after a late lunch, we were enrolled with Nicholas, our patient instructor. He began showing the three of us the dive equipment and how it all works. We were given our books, a DVD, told to start reading the first three chapters that night and answer the quizzes at the end of each chapter. We walked to Josh & Monika’s for dinner. Josh made his coconut shrimp curry specialty, and we started cracking the books, well some of us did. Marieka wasn’t ready to focus on positive and negative buoyancy just yet. Dinner was yummy and afterward we decided to start the video, except the computer we borrowed belonged to Josh’s Turkish buddy, Sarp. None of us could understand his laptop’s desktop or navigation panels to play the DVD. Oh well, we were all too tired anyway, plus we needed an early start the next day to wait in line at the first-come-first-served community clinic.
Wednesday morning DeRay and I managed to be in line at the Clinica Comunal de Utila by 7:05 AM, with only a young Frenchman ahead of us. As we waited outside, studying, more divers and local residents started joining the line. Marieka came by with warm baleadas (tortillas with beans & cheese or a meat filling) and fresh juice. Up for hours, she had been exploring the town. Her period had started -- for that and other reasons she decided not to take the diving course. Josh visited us with more treats, Monika & Indigo dropped by, and more folks joined the line. By mid-morning I was finally called in. Dr. John, 51, is a character: a non-diver who wears board shorts & t-shirts to work and is reputed to be one of the top 10 doctors in the world specializing in treating diving patients. Among other things, he checked me for asthma and looked at my eardrums. Everything checked out fine. With DeRay, Dr. John tried to find every way possible to fail him for diving. He asked him, “What do you wanna do this for, at your age?” Nevertheless, DeRay passed his medical exam. The young Frenchman before us did not. There will be no diving for that young man. Each of our visits cost $15 US. Can’t beat that for a check-up by a world-class doctor! It was past 1:00 PM before we got to the dive shop. DeRay and I still had more to read. Nicholas started us on the three hours of videos. And during our breaks, we tried to figure out our return travel plans. No one knew about the weather, which could be very different on the mainland. On the island it was cloudy, but there was no rain. Seems there was a major bridge washed out on the mainland making our return bus travel impossible; we would have to fly again. Meanwhile, we continued our class as Marieka explored the town. Josh was around and opened the door to our little enclosed video room and gobbled loudly at us periodically. It was too late to get in the water by the time we finished our theory, so we headed across the street to RJ’s Restaurant Grill where both Josh and Monika work a second job, taking orders and waiting tables. Marieka came and joined us. Fluent in Spanish, she had been getting to know the indigenous residents. She had made friends with Julio, a native guide, and his young son. The next day, Julio took her to the core of the island, helping her deliver food to the impoverished children that live there.
Thursday, we woke up to a beautiful morning. Marieka was already out the door. DeRay and I met Nicholas at 9:00 AM. We donned wetsuits and got our tanks & equipment ready for our first confined water dive and skills test. Monika was Nichola’s assistant. The confined dive was just off the dock. We did our skills on an underwater mat where we could easily surface if necessary. I found that I could indeed breathe underwater, though sometimes it was hard for both DeRay and I to understand the underwater sign language. We finished most of the skills before lunch. We enjoyed a family lunch before readying ourselves for the open water portion of our adventure. The boat was full with other students, instructors, assistants and divemasters. Josh was leading a dive for a couple, and two other students had joined us for the two open water dives that we would be doing. The first dive was at a reef site called Ron’s Wreck. It was difficult for me at first to equalize, but I enjoyed the dive, relaxed and had fun moving through the coral reefs. We swam with schools of colorful fish, saw vibrant sponges… it really is an amazing world underneath the surface!
DeRay took to diving naturally, like a fish. Being relaxed, moving slow and being present are all keys. My second dive was more challenging. I was not relaxed. My ears were not equalizing and I was having a hard time blowing my left ear clear for pressure equalization. When Nicholas had me fill my mask with water (one of the skill tests), I swallowed water several times and tensed up. I relaxed my breathing again, but my mind would not quiet down. So I motioned to Monika that I needed to surface. We surfaced easily, but frankly I had had enough. I wanted to go back to the boat and told her so. She hung with me, allowing me to calm down and relax in both mind and body. She told me I was free to go back to the boat, but she invited me to consider going back down again, reminding me that I had done well on the first dive. She understood what I was going through and shared her own experience about having her mask fill with water and coming off underwater. She suggested going down more slowly and if my ears weren’t equalizing to just ascend a few feet (which I had previously forgotten to do). What a gentle and wonderful coach Monika was. I found myself going back down, assuring myself that with the least little turbulence I could resurface and return to the boat. That was not necessary. In fact, I was calm for the remaining skill tests and enjoyed the rest of the experience. I love Monika and I love the calm world beneath the surface. We returned to the dock to watch a beautiful sunset. We did get PADI certification as scuba divers!
It was difficult and sad for us all to leave Josh, Monika, Indigo, the little island they’re staying on, and that special world beneath the surface. What a fabulous opportunity to be with family, learn and discover new things on oh, so many levels. While there was much more to the trip than simply diving, I’ve chosen to share about my diving experience because it is such a great metaphor -- reminding me of how life on the outside reflects what is going on inside. |
