Adventures in Paradise

The two shop cats are missing.  I don’t mean to make my blog about mystery but the two shop cats Molly and Lowfat are missing.  Now it’s not uncommon for them to take a little adventure here and there and stay out for a couple of days but it’s been too long.  We haven’t seen them for almost 12 days.  Molly is a little cat; she looks like a kitten but in fact has been with Uwe and Dorte for a long time.  She has been at the shop when the old owner Tyll worked owned the shop.  Molly hangs out at the Blue Marlin all nite long, gets in fights with the local dogs and hangs out on the roof all day.  Whenever I would go into work a few minutes early she would greet me and wait for the shop to be open for some food.  Although she’s sweet, she can definitely hold her own.

Lowfat, well, he’s a different story.  He’s the meanest, finicky cat on the island.  He spends most of his day lying around on our weight belts, on the benches, on the table where we are taking tests and if you so much think about petting him or moving him you will 9 times out of ten get a scratch mark or a bite mark.  He’s a bit of a bipolar kitty; he looks so peaceful sleeping but will attack without any notice.  He also is out all night but always comes to the shop in the morning and all day to eat and lounge around. 

So they’ve been missing.  Now we are pretty sure they’ve gone to that light in the sky.  It's sad because people do poison animals here.  One lead Dorte had is that Valerie (who owns Valerie’s it’s a very cheap place aka back-packer’s paradise behind Tyll’s) said that her kitty was killed by one of her tenants recently, but he left before Molly and Lowfat went missing.  I like to think they are off on an adventure together.  Although they weren’t the best of friends, lets just imagine they are on a beach in Utilla catching some catnaps and catnip or in Cayos Cochinos learning to fish.  I hope they come back or at least some info, but the mystery for now still remains.

It rained again for almost 10 days straight, but the last few days have been beautiful.  We’ve been diving when we can and when weather (aka the waves) permits.  Recent adventures in diving have been with Kala and two cruise shippers.  One day it was gloomy out and  Kala and I took the two cruise shippers to Moonlight dive site.  The divers had finished their open water course about a year before in fresh water in the states.  They were a very nice couple, but as we all are at the beginning: they were beginners.  We get in the water and I feel the telltale sign of jellyfish.  Pricks, stings all over my body.  I tell Kala that there are Jelly’s all around, but it takes us a while to get below them because the divers need time to equalize.  When coming up after the dive Kala and I look up and there are Jelly’s surrounding the boat.  Underwater the stings on my skin show up purple, up and down my forearms and on my legs.  Ugh!  We come up and one of the divers starts puking.  It had been surge-y underwater and of course she wasn’t used to the waves.  I fear that she’s been stung like me, but seems to be just fine and ready for the next dive.

Brian and Stacy (two awesome divers who have a vacation home here and have been diving with us for a month) brave the elements.  We; Brian, Stacy, Kala, the two cruise divers and I go to Fantasy Reef for the second dive.  Fantasy Reef was named after a silly television show you might have heard called Fantasy Island which was filmed here in Roatan.  I never saw the show but apparently the show involved people who are single and have to be slutty enough for someone to ask them to stay with them so a nite so they won't get kicked off the island.  If someone didn’t pick you then you were kicked off.  Kinky Adventures is more like it.  Anyway, the dive was the worst dive I have been on.  It takes one of the cruise shippers 8 minutes to descend (which is a lot) and then when we get down to the reef I can barely make out the bubbles of the other divers, even though they are about 20 feet in front of me.  I stay with the cruise shippers as Kala tries to lead us around the reef.  I can barely see my own hands so staying with the couple proved very strenuous.  The runoff from West Bay and from the storm make the water look disgusting and have that warm and cold effect.  The cruise shippers run out of air before Brian and Stacy.  Kala and I had discussed that I would go up with them.  It was my first time leading my own 3 minute safety stop.  I tell the couple we are doing the 3 minute safety stop and turn for a second and the woman is jetting to the surface.  Kala tries to stop her, but she’s going up.  It’s called a safety stop for a reason.   The male cruise shipper sticks with me and when we ascend to the surface the wife is on the boat barfing her brains out.  Keep in mind that I only about a month ago finished my rescue training/Emergency First Response training and am freaking out that she’s not ok.  It turned out to be just sea sickness; but it was the worst dive I’ve had.

A few days later I saw my first octopus!  Yes, Daisy, an octopus, but I didn't have my camera.  A  freaking octopus in the middle of the day AND it swam with us for about 10 minutes.  We had to leave the octo because we were running low on air.  Chase led the dive to Herbie’s Place with me, Brian and Stacy and two new cruise divers.  Again, I was going to lead the 3 minute safety stop with the cruisers.  While underwater as Chase was signaling that he was going with Brian and Stacy and I was to take the cruisers up.  Chase pointed behind me to the octopus.  It was freaking amazing.  I looked back at Chase while doing a little jig underwater and filling up my mask because I’m smiling.  We swam with the octopus us for about 10 minutes or so.  It’s amazing how it can change it’s color the instant it lands on a new object.  I’m pretty sure octopus or is it octopi or octopussies, (no that can’t be right my word spell check says it’s wrong J,) anyway, I’m pretty sure cephalopods are brilliant.  There’s this one story where I’ve heard that there was this aquarium where they kept on losing fish each night.  They couldn't figure it out.  So finally they put in cameras near the tank and in the morning found that the octopus from a nearby tank was crawling out of his tank through a miniscule crack and climbing into the other tank and eating the fish.  Then climbing back into his tank when it was done.  I’m also a little obsessed with that Discovery Channel show about the Giant Squids.  The adventures that those cephalopods have are unknown; I’m sure they are the closes things to aliens or maybe they are aliens.  They kinda look like the aliens in movies, right?!

My DMT is moving along, I’ve passed physics and theory, physiology and dive equipment.  I have finished everything except one more test; environment and dive skills.  On Saturday I finished my stamina test.  The stamina test is a timed test where you swim 400 m with only a mask, 800 m with fins and a mask no arms allowed, a 15 minute tread with the last 2 minutes your hands out of the water and then a 100 m tired diver tow.  I thought for sure I would fail and have to do it again, but I surprised myself and passed.  Uwe said I aced it, well, not quite but I impressed myself.  The last part of my endurance test was to jump off the double docks.  Not required of course, (not PADI standards) but Kala said it is the “do you have balls” part of DMT.  And yes, I do have balls.  Although, technically speaking if I had balls they would have been crushed after jumping off the deck because I landed straight on my ass.  Assflop.  But lets be serious, I’m usually not suave, it's just not my nature.  On Friday, after a dive to finish DJ’s advanced course, I went to untie the boat from the mooring and fell in to the water.  I can’t help it if I’m too short!  It was pretty classic, and classy to watch.  I screamed the entire way going down.  Laughed all the way on the boat ride back.

Moving right along, outside of diving life has been pretty good.  With the rain there has been movie nights at the Blue Marlin.  The first northeastern came and everyone sat in rain gear watching “Zombieland” and some horrible blow-em-up and kill-em movie.  Then there was dancing at the Dive to the talented music of Brion James.  And then there was the night that I learned to play the guitar; er… the harmonica.  Yes the gd harmonicas.  They are here more than anywhere else I’ve ever been.  Well I have a picture of me playing the guitar, so lets say that I learned to play guitar.  Kala’s new roommate Joe let me pretend to play his guitar while wearing a cool hat and took a picture.  I make it look kinda good right?

The next adventures have been with boys.  Yay boys!  There’s Mr. 1, Mr. 2, Mr. 3 and Mr. 4 who are interesting, fun, I’m attracted to but maybe just as friends??  It’s the game, it’s the chase.  (Not to be confused with my friend Chase who loves Kala and she loves him... oh amor.)  Most importantly there is the mystery boy who I just learned his name this week.  He used to work across from us but now works at some dive shop with the name “Adventure” in it.  No dad, I’m not slutty just lustful.  I noticed "mystery boy" since I first got here, but, like all good things lets see if his personality matches his charming good looks.  If you are lucky or if I’m lucky, hell, if he’s lucky I’ll keep you posted.  It’s all adventure.