Settled and Safe

Things are going well here. Since my last post, I found an apartment, committed to staying there for one week to try it out (though I like it so far and will probably stay my entire time in Utila), and I've been diving just about every day. I must say, the luxury of being able to sleep in every morning, roll out of bed, wander to the dive shop, and hop on a boat at lunchtime is pretty well divine.

As for safety, I finally joined DAN. That is the Divers Alert Network, and they provide diving-specific insurance that most insurance companies exclude. Upon discussing insurance with other divers here, I realized I very well might not be covered for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber if I need that one day. So I checked with RWAM (my current travel insurance provider), they exclude such costs, and I signed up with DAN. Now if anything every goes wrong and I need to decompress at a rate of $450/hour, I won't have to dish out for it myself. Not that anything will go wrong, because I am a safe diver.

Diving here has been lovely. At first, I felt disappointed because Southeast Asia offers about 20 times as much to see on every dive and is infinitely more colourful, but now I'm getting to appreciate the small things. Seeing a tiny starfish crawl across the sand, or spotting a well-camouflaged flounder or lizardfish is so much fun. The lack of colour is a shame, and I do miss seeing boxfish and clownfish and sea anemones, but there are other cool things to be found. I think the trunkfish is my new favourite--look it up! Oh yeah, that's right, it's triangular...

In other news from the island, a coke plane was chased down by the military a couple of nights ago. From what I hear, it eventually crashed, the pilot got out, and was shot dead. The next day, all the talk on the boat radios was of a man found floating on a drum in the sea. Now, rather than the three regular police officers that ride around the island (two on one motorbike, it's really cute), there are a couple of dozen Honduran military police officers patrolling. One of them was at the bar last night, having a drink, holding his gun, letting some girl wear his helmet. They're clearly very serious.

Now I'm off to the scuba gear dealers to see about buying some of my own things. I've had enough of misfitting rentals and always being left with the last pick. ¡Adios!