More Roatan, More Fun

Continuing with our trip to Roatan.... You might be wondering what Jen has been doing while I was off diving. Jen has come out on the boat a couple times, to snorkel and to sit. For those of you who don’t know one of Jen’s small imperfections, she has a plastic eardrum, and diving involves equalizing the pressure of air spaces in your body with the pressure in the water. One of those air spaces is behind your ear. This makes Jen understandably nervous. Perhaps now that she’s seen more of diving, we’ll consult a doctor to see if scuba diving is something she can try some other time.

In the meantime, Jen has checked out our little town of West End, and walked to the resort area of West Bay. Over there, you find the all-inclusive resorts which, while nice, trap you and your tourist dollar. But the beaches over there are incredible.

Also, I haven’t been diving the entire time. Jen and I have visited the Butterfly Sanctuary with a newlywed couple we met at the hotel. Shannon and Christian are from Charleston, SC and are both in the restaurant biz. The Butterfly Sanctuary surprisingly impressed us all. They had a wide array of unusual butterflies and also a very cool collection of tropical birds. See the picture of the Owl Butterfly below.
It’s also rained quite a bit. This is the rainy season, although it’s been sporadic. It did rain for about 36 hours in one stretch and at one time there was seven inches of rain in about three hours. So, there was more time in the room than we would have preferred. I’ve read nearly a whole collection by mystery and crime writer Lawrence Block and Jen did not feel Cintra Wilson’s pain and did not enjoy her novel. (If you read The Examiner in the 90s, you know what I’m talking about.)

Besides the couple at our hotel, we’ve also met some great folks through the dive shop. I've mentioned Andrea, my funny and charming instructor. She and Ryan run the shop, with help from two dive slaves. Byum and Tom are two young guys from Scotland who are training to become Dive Masters before starting college. A Dive Master can lead dives; it is an essential step to becoming an instructor. Ryan’s wife Val works at an English-speaking school on the island. They are both from Winnipeg. We also met Val’s sister Laurie Ann. She, like many others, has several jobs on the island to make ends meet.

A day before Halloween Byum and Tom had all of the above folks to their apartment for movie night, which turned into reruns on TBS and lots of quality drinking. We also met up with everyone on Halloween and, while we did not dress up, we helped with costumes and consuming adult beverages. Check out the picture with Tom dressed as Laurie Ann, whom he resembles, and Byum wearing a kilt and a palm leaf sporran. So sexy! Unfortunately, neither of them got any snogging for their efforts.