Our dive instructor

The culture around the island is interesting. Life is very laid-back here and for the locals there is little to do apart from fish or serve the tourists. Most locals speak a weird and loud Caribbean English which sounds like Street American and can often seem threatening and aggressive unless you know what to expect. Lots of fat women and blokes seem to just sit around all day moaning at each other in loud voices.
At Thomson’s bakery, an old white chap sits in the cashier’s chair. He is a descendant of the first British colonisers of this island and speaks with an Irish accent. The funniest thing is that when you ask for something from the shop he stays sitting where he is and shouts exactly what you said but louder at the two women, possibly his daughters, who bake all the cakes and wrap them. Traditional labour division applies…
Elsewhere a rather disturbing thing is that all the young kids walk around the streets carrying relatively realistic-looking plastic guns. All of their parents presumably own real ones, but I don’t like the lack of respect they give these weapons.
We wake early again this morning ready for diving. The sun is already hot and bright – a beautiful day – as we get our kit together. Then we are off on the boat to a nearby reef where the plan is to do two proper dives today each to about 14 metres and lasting about 50 minutes. I am excited. It all feels very natural today – breathing under water is so easy. I have some initial problems with my ears but they are fine quickly and we perform the tasks easily. After that we are off swimming to the reef to hassle fishes. The coral “wall” is just incredible and drops down from the island level to about 40 metres. Unlike with snorkelling where you look down on coral, here you get the coral towering above you and stretching out below you. The water is filled with fishes swimming above and below. It is as beautiful as a forest but entirely alien. New sounds, new colours, textures and shapes. It is breathtaking: another part of the whole.
Even we, the divers, are beautiful, covered and immersed in millions of silvery bubbles. It is so easy and fun to be down there. I mess about somersaulting and diving. We’re about 14 metres deep and it seems a long way to the surface. We have to come up all too soon but return for a second dive at a different spot. I play with iridescent fishes. Afterwards we are both extremely tired – it is surprisingly exhausting. Take a burger for lunch and then it’s back to the classroom. Dinner and sleep like a log.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 31st, 2004 at 11:58 am and is filed under Central America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.