Don't get excited. I didn't see one. After assisting on a couple of consecutive courses and getting sick, I took a day off and had a nice lie in. Slept a solid 12 hours until I woke up sweating on an opressively humid day. It was perfectly lovely until I headed over to the dive shop to review my physiology material and write the exam. There, I learned that one of the morning boats found (and snorkeled with) four whale sharks. What a piss off! I take a day off, and people sight whale sharks.
Annoyed, I went about my business and wrote my physiology exam. Then the afternoon boats came back. One boat, which happened to be filled with other DMTs (divemaster trainees), managed to find six whale sharks. *sigh* I actually hit one of my friends here when she announced this information while dancing around in front of me. She had asked me the day before if I'd go on a fun dive with her, and I said I needed to get some rest because I was coming down with a cold. I would have been on that boat.
Honestly, I think one of the most difficult things I have to deal with here is making choices. There are always at least two spectacular things I could be doing, and I need to choose one of them. Normally I find that one option would be more appealing than the other, but when you're left with choices like 'go on the party boat with everyone from the shop down to the cays for the afternoon' or 'go fun diving on the resort boat with only three other people when you haven't been diving in a few days,' it's far too difficult! (I chose the diving, by the way. I'm glad I did it, but sad that I'm yet to see the cays.) Yesterday it was a matter of whether I should begin assisting on a rescue course today, or sign up to go out on the boat that's most likely to find more whale sharks. I managed to choose the rescue course, which I think was very responsible of me, but I'm going to be unfit to be around if many more people see a whale shark before I do.
To complete the whale shark day, we had a staff meeting and whale shark presentation last night. There's a whale shark research foundation here in Utila (http://www.utilawhalesharkresearch.com/), and they were explaining more about how to behave safely around whale sharks and how to help with their research. It was very interesting, though slightly annoying to be surrounded by people still glowing from their first whale shark encounters, and I won a baseball cap. At the very least, I got that. My face keeps getting too much sun on the dive boats, so I've been looking for a baseball cap to buy. Everything I've found so far has been too expensive for my liking, so it was lovely to get one for free.
Now I'm off to pick up my laundry. I finally broke down after a month of hand washing and paid to have it done. I think it's going to cost me about $5 (I haven't paid for it yet), which I find ridiculous. I guess I'd pay close to the same at home, but I still have Southeast Asian prices in mind for laundry. If it can't be done for $1-2, then it's too expensive. ¡Adios!
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