Utila - preparation for diving tomorrow

Up late today after about twelve hours sleep. I didn't mean to sleep that much but I can't do a fat lot about it now. I saw the Euro 2008 game between Germany and Portugal with a German guy in the corner of the restaurant, though restaurant is a little complimentary on the whole for what the place was like, cheering his team on. Ballack appeared to push the marker in the back to me before scoring the third German goal though this is to be forgotten about as soon as the next game kicks off.

I've booked myself onto a refresher diving course tomorrow and I hope to do a couple of dives the day after. I've been given a PADI text book which is about two centimetres thick and a diving chart which means nothing to me at present. I can't even remember what the equipment looks like at the moment.

There's a private beach a few hundred metres away from the backpackers I'm staying in and I assume there is going to be reasonable snorkelling just off the coast. From what I've heard the visibility is pretty good and hopefully I'll be able to get used to the PADI information pretty quickly this evening.

The island is quite nice on the whole though I haven't done any significant exploring. I woke up during the small hours and took a walk for an hour or so during the night and it did seem very much like I was on my own the entire time. There's one main road which is very patchy, it has golf buggies and mopeds zooming up and down it during the day, and there's the same sort of tropical feel that I found in Caye Caulker though with much less of a Carribean feel to it. There are dozens of bars, restaurants, hotels and hostels and small supermarkets along this main street and planning of development doesn't look like it's been controlled which is also something that may be shared with Caye Caulker.

The shot above is of the place I’m staying in and the main street that everything is off. It’s reasonably priced even though I have a room to myself now, it’s still only $5.00US a night. The room is dingy to say the least and if I’m saying that then there’s a good chance that it’s one of the worst around. There does tend to be a rather forlorn appearance to much on the island, most places look quite shabby though there are a few which are really quite tidy. Supermarkets here really aren’t cheap for anything so I imagine it’s quite a pricey place to live. There are dozens of diving schools here and too many to really suss out in order to get the cheapest deal. I guess they all tend to charge around the same sort of prices, they normally do in this type of location. It will be good to get underwater tomorrow. Maybe this sort of opportunity comes along only Once in a lifetime.