Now I want gills

09/25/2016 I didn’t forget about you guys out there in blog land, honest, I didn’t. At first I had nothing to blog about because  I spent a full week and then some on a raft in the pool reading. It was HOT, unbearably hot and being in the pool was my only salvation. I’m thankful my neighbor has several books, however you can only read so many James Patterson’s in a row. After a few books you begin to figure out whodunit pretty damn quickly.

My friend Marilyn had been gone for 2 months, I caught up with her briefly one day at the Reef House but I was slightly under the weather that day with my airplane cold. This damn thing still lingers in my chest, coughing and hacking like a TB patient. Although it is getting better, the fact that I have spent a lot of time under the water recently may have something to do with that.

Marilyn and I decided to spend a day poolside at our house. We floated and caught up on all the island info that happened while she was stateside. Her husband stopped by later on and took a dip, we had some snacks and I ended up drunk on my ass later that day. After Marilyn and Alex left I passed out on the couch, slept there for a few hours then went to bed. I had slammed one whole bottle of wine in the hot scorching sun in just a little time. I’ll blame it on my Seven Fifty wine thermos. I have to blame it on something and it certainly wasn’t MY fault.

I went to Alexi’s school and paid for the balance of this year, school is out the end of Nov for a few months. The teacher asked if she should put it in Alexi’s Mother’s name and I said, NO. I’m paying for it, my name. Bill bought Alexi new soccer cleats while I was in the states and the other day he took Alexi to the dentist for the first visit in 17 years. He had his teeth cleaned and he has 6 cavities  that need taken care of ASAP. We are also taking him to get his eyes checked. Bill had him doing something pretty simple and he messed it up because he couldn’t see it.

After that I drove down to Juticalpa and dropped off the rest of the soccer stuff for the kids. The director saw me coming and met me at the car. He was very grateful. I also gave my cleaning girl 3 bags of clothes I didn’t want / need. I don’t care if she gives them to friends or sells them, just as long as it benefits her.

On the way home from there I saw a poor sad dog along the road. I stopped to feed him and he started to walk away. I called to him as I was putting food down and he turned around and came back. He took a few mouthfuls and looked up at me and burped. Poor guy.

I posted his photo on FB and got so many comments that I was such a good person and stuff like that, and while that’s all nice and warm and fuzzy, the reason I posted the photos is so that others will realize that all it takes is to carry a bag of dog food and some water in your car and if you see a starving dog along the road, stop and feed it. Simple to do and it does make you feel good. By the looks of this guy, he hasn’t had a meal for awhile.

My friend Karen saw the photo of the skinny dog that I fed and asked me if I knew where there were any females available. I said I did, thinking immediately of Lola, the dog I was offered when we were passing out the food with the Carnival Cruise line people. She and her husband picked me up and we went to Pandytown looking for Lola. We found a guy named Jimmy who was trying to help us.  I noticed Lola laying under a truck, we coaxed her out with some dog food and I picked her up. She is a sweetie. Jimmy couldn’t get in touch with the owner to make sure we could take her so we put Lola in the car and drove around looking for him. We never found the owner but found a relative who said it was her dog and she paid for it. I am assuming that was her way of asking for $$ for the dog. Jimmy said he knew of a few puppies that were ready to give away so we looked at them. Karen fell for this little girl and ended up taking her home. Their last name is Bogart and they have a 120# male named Bogey so they named this little one, Bacall.

I mentioned in my last blog I was going to do my advanced open water certification at Blue Island Divers, with Eric White. The business is located in Sandy Bay.

I did the SSI course which is the same requirements as PADI Advanced Open Water but it’s called Advanced  Adventurer. It consisted of 160 pages of reading material and tests on each chapter. I could chose from:

Photography, Fish ID, Wreck, Buoyancy, Enriched Air Nitrox, Boat Diving, Dry Suit diving, Night and Limited Visibility, Search and Recovery, Waves, Tides and Currents and the 2 required were deep and navigation. I chose buoyancy, Photo and Fish ID and then also did deep and nav. Let me first say, I did not have my camera during the first 4 dives because I was concentrating on what I was supposed to be doing.

The first day I worked on my buoyancy using my own Buoyancy Control Device or BCD. I bought it online, new, years ago and I hated it then because I didn’t think it fit. After my first dive Eric said we were trying a different vest because I was constantly trying to get the BCD centered on my body. When I moved, the weight of the tank shifted my BCD. It was awful. I used his wife’s old Aeris BCD and what a difference. My second dive was fish ID which was pretty easy for me because I am familiar with a lot of the fish and coral in the sea. Not saying I don’t have a lot to learn, I do. But I see a new fish every time I dive and always make a point to identify it.

After completing those two dives on Thursday I was back there the next morning to do my deep and navigation dives. The deep dive was AMAZING. Eric asked if I had any fears about going down to 100′ and I said nope, fear factor missed me at birth. He said we were doing the Odyssey wreck and it sits at that depth. What he didn’t tell me is that you can go deeper onto the sand patch where there are all these garden eels. I’ve never seen them and was blown away. We went down to 112′ but at that depth on Oxygen you can’t stay very long. Well, not unless you want to get narced, Nitrogen Narcossis. At that depth the water was a balmy 84 degrees! We swam alongside the stern of the boat down to the sand patch, then up over the bow that was separated from the rest of the boat. Eric had me do a navigation test while we were there since I had on the compass and a computer. After that we just swam around and ended up close to the spot where we did my buoyancy tests. I plan to dive Odyssey again and take photos. My second dive was navigation, swimming in a square, starting off and ending at the same place. After that was done we just went for a dive and while diving I saw my friend Caroline diving at the same spot we were. How weird is that??

I was exhausted when I got home and went for a dip with the dogs then took a nice 2 hour nap.

Today was my final dive and yay, it was photography and my job was to take pictures.

I can feel my tail growing. I can’t even explain the feeling I get when I’m underwater. I watch the fish swim by and I’m instantly mesmerized by their ability to just glide along the reef, following the water movements, up and down, in and out. It’s enchanting. After my first buoyancy class when I did the fish ID dive in a different BCD I could feel how my breath affected my movement in the water and how I could control my body to go over the coral heads and then back down. I hung vertically in the water and just took deep breaths, feeling my body rise then descend when I exhaled. It’s such a cool sensation. I am still having some issues, when my tank gets down to 1000 PSI I start to float to the surface. Eric grabs my fin, pulls me down and adds weight. I’m convinced that my big boobs and the buoyancy of the tanks are contributors to this. He feels that once I get more practice I will be able to control this ascent, it surely isn’t because I want to surface. If I had gills you would never see me. I’d be down there swimming with Nemo and Ariel.

Gills are on my Christmas list.