Tuesday 20th April
Cosy Travel!!

Due to sleeping on one of the most uncomfortable and lumpiest beds I have come across I didn't get much sleep the night before but we were up early as usual to catch our 9am bus to take us to the border. What we had expected to be a fairly short trip to the border turned out to be much longer than expected. What we had expected to be a fairly comfortable ride also turned out to be a false hope as soon we realised that we were going to be taking part in trying to squeeze as many people as possible into a bus. I have never seen so many people squeezed into such a small bus. After another hassle free border crossing we arrived at our hostel in Copan Ruinas. We found the hostel to be a real quirky little place, ran by a Belgian, with lots of funny little anecdotes and rules for the place.
We showered, cooked up some lunch and then headed off for the ruins. A one kilometre walk outside of town the famous archaeological site is home of the Mayan Ruins by the same name. Compared to some of the previous ruin sites we had visited such as Palenque and Tikal, Copan was much smaller in scale. But what it lacked in size it made up for in detail as the Copan ruins are home to some of the most intricate remaining Mayan ruins. Due to the detail, the site has been useful in establishing a lot of the history surrounding the local area which was interesting to discover. Having spent the afternoon exploring the ruins we headed out for a nice relaxing meal at a restaurant that was ran by the friend of our hostel owner.

Wednesday 21st April

With a 7am bus to catch we had another early start and a 3-4 hour journey to San Pedro de Sula. San Pedro is one of the main transport links within Central America with numerous flights and buses moving in and out of the city daily. After a short stop in San Pedro we caught our next bus which would take us on to La Ceiba. During this bus ride we only had a short delay on our journey. This short delay was provided by a blacked out 4x4 that was peppered with bullet holes and had clearly been involved in some sort of drive by shooting not long before as there were still a number of police at the scene...
On arrival in La Ceibas we went for a look around, it was the first time on our trip that we had been to the coast so we soon arrived at the beach. After a quick explore we realised there wasn't much to keep us there so we decided we would leave for the island of Roatan the next morning. That evening the Honduran National Football team were playing against Venezuela in a world cup warm up match so to experience the 'local culture' we headed out for something to eat and combined this with watching the game in the atmosphere of one of the local bars. Unfortunately the Hondurans were beaten 1-0 leaving a rather subdued feel as we headed back to our hostel but I was just happy to see some live football again.

Thursday 22nd April

The next morning we caught the ferry from the mainland out to the Caribbean island of Roatan which was about one hour by boat. It was a beautiful day and made for a stunning crossing with great scenery. Roatan is the largest and best known of the Bay Islands and is about 50km off the coast of Honduras. It is long and thin (50km in length by 2km to 4km wide) the island is all about diving and is surrounded by over 100km of living coral reef. We had come to Roatan as our trail leader, Mike, an American, actually now lives and works here in Roatan normally as a dive instructor so he knew the island. As well as this, he had friends here that were renovating a hotel complex so we were able to stay there at a reduced price while it was still being completed. It is a really nice place and will be absolutely stunning once complete so we were already enjoying our stay and I was looking forward to having a settled base for a number of days.
Having got settled in we took the 2 minute walk down to the sea front and went for a swim in the clear blue waters. Here we could cool off as the weather was hot as always and we were even joined for our swim at one point by a water iguana. One of the local children who was on the nearby jetty pointed it out to us and I managed to see it scamper across the seabed before it disappeared. After our swim we headed back to the hotel and cooked up some food before we were invited for some dinner with Mike and some of his friends. We were then told that it was one of the guy's Birthdays so we were quickly involved in singing happy birthday and the group tucked into a delicious cake. Unfortunately as it had egg s in so I could not eat it. Having enjoyed the birthday celebrations we hit the hay as we had our first day of diving to look forward to tomorrow.

Friday 23rd April

We headed down to 'Roatan Divers' and once we got going, we got cracking with our first day of diving at Roatan Divers. We spoke to the diving instructor Lars and told him of our plans.
Along with Andy, Izzie, Mary and Naseem who were part of our tour group, we were joined by an Austrian girl, Katarina who was also joining the group for the diving course. The 5 of them were completing their Open Water Dive Certificate which is the basic scuba diving qualification and takes around four days to complete. As for Paul and myself, because we had dived before and had a lot more diving experience, and were looking to complete our Divemaster during our time on Roatan which is a qualification that then allows us to lead dives and assist in the instruction of others.
Paul and I were planning on doing the Divemaster course.... in just 7 days which raised a few eyebrows as I think it has rarely been done is such a short period of time as it normally takes 1 to 6 months, and we will be assisting the rest of the group who were going to be doing the Open Water Course and be taught the basics about all the equipment and how it works. Normally when you learn, you have your 'Confined Water Dives' in a local swimming pool but funnily enough with such amazing beaches around, Roatan doesn't have any swimming pools so straight away the Open Water Group were learning in an absolutely beautiful little bay. The first time you go under the water using scuba gear it is a really strange sensation. Normally your natural reaction when going underwater is to hold your breath, but the most important rule of scuba diving is to 'never hold your breath'. Learning to rely on your breathing apparatus can be quite a strange feeling at first but as soon as you're used to it, it's a great feeling.
As the Open Water Group went off to do their first dive, Paul and I joined some other experienced divers to go to one of the dive sites around the area so that we could refresh ourselves with our own skills and observe a dive being lead by an instructor. We went to a sight called the "Blue Lagoon" which was pretty amazing. It was great to be back diving again and all the knowledge and skills that I had picked up from my first project in the Philippines doing marine conservation all came flooding back. The coral and the fish were much larger and I was surprised with how much light underwater there was and the visibility. After our first dive, we then went off to have lunch and were introduced to a fantastic Baleadas Stall which would become our regular lunchtime spot over the coming days.
That afternoon Paul and I went through some of the theory side to our Divemaster course which included completing knowledge reviews and plenty of reading.
The Open Water group having completed an afternoon of theory went out for a snorkel swim, exploring the clear waters, seeing lots of fish, crabs and such like.
After this we all headed back, cooked dinner again and then read some of the chapters we had been assigned to do as part of our theory work.

Saturday 24th April

For our 2nd day of diving, Paul and I went for a Wreck Dive which was truly amazing! We went inside the ship and it was like being in a ship wreck documentary you see on TV! The wreck had been there for around 50 years. It was a sunken cargo ship and we swam through 3 parts of it. We went through various hatches, masts, rooms and storage facilities all underwater inside the ship wreck! This has got to be one of my favourite dives! I kept on expecting to see a shark come out of the dark cabins as you see in the movies but this was not the case. We did see some rays, garden eels, black grouper, banded coral shrimp, yellow tail snapper, squirrel fish, tobies and Christmas tree worms! Great dive!
The Open Water Group watched some more videos and went through some knowledge reviews based on the reading we had been assigned the previous night. They then got back in the water and went down to about 12ft where they continued to practice the necessary skills they would need to pass the course. This included completely removing your mask, swimming without it and then putting it back on and clearing it so you can see clearly again. They also experienced what it was like to run out of oxygen which, I must say, was a very strange feeling when I went through my training in the Philippines for my first volunteer project with Coral Cay in October last year! This was simulated by Mike (who was the instructor as well as trail leader) turning off the oxygen tanks, you could then watch on your oxygen gauge as your last remaining oxygen empties out of the tank with your last few breaths, and then you're out of oxygen! This all before Mike quickly turns your oxygen tank back on and the simulation is complete. They spent the afternoon getting more used to such skills and generally getting more comfortable in the water. With a fairly large group everyone moved at varying paces and showed varying abilities, but they had a number of people teaching them which included Paul and myself so they were able to get plenty of support. We got back after our 2nd day of diving, thoroughly tired out, so grabbed some food, got some more reading done and then got an early night.

Sunday 25th April

On our 3rd day of diving I got to experience helping take out the Open Water diving group for their first 'Open Water Dive'.
During the group's first Open Water Dive we went down to about 30ft and got to witness some fantastic wildlife with fish and such like swimming right past you. During this dive they really began to experience the importance of 'equalising' as you descend. In the same way as when you fly, your ears pop etc it is the same when you descend into water. You must therefore descend at a rate that isn't too quick in order to allow your body to adapt to the changes in pressure as you descend. Helping the group with this dive and sharing their first open water dive with them was really good fun!
After the group's first open dive we had to return to our confined water dives in order to complete some of the necessary skill sets. Still everyone was moving at slightly different paces but they were all beginning to feel more and more comfortable in the water and were looking forward to more open water dives and it was great helping them to progress. This was all part of the Divemaster training that we were going through. That evening after our day of diving we headed over to another dive shop (of which there are loads on the island), called West End Divers where they were putting on a BBQ and it looked like a load of the island divers had headed down so we decided to get involved. Unfortunately there was no vegetarian food so I went to the trusted Baleadas stand, which was by far my favourite eating place on the island and had a quick bite to eat there before heading to the BBQ. At the BBQ our group randomly got speaking to a couple of Swiss women and started sharing stories as travellers normally do. We found that one of them had been travelling for over a month whilst the other had only arrived in Roatan a few days previously. This had been later than planned as apparently she had been in hospital after she had torn both Achilles Tendons, broken a bone in each foot and broken a shoulder. Having never heard of such a set of injuries I asked if I wasn't being too rude to ask how they had been sustained. She said it was fine and said that they had been sustained whilst taking part in snowboard cross. Now like most of you I am no expert on Snowboard Cross. All I did know was the basics, that it involved four athletes at the top of a course made up of jumps, turns, moguls and such, and the winner was the one to reach the bottom first. Aside from this Andy remembered one particular race that he had seen during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin during which an American woman had been winning the final comfortably, came to the penultimate jump, tried to perform a trick as a bit of a showboat, ended up falling, and eventually finishing 3rd and only taking bronze. He told this story to the rest of the group, and we were shocked with the response. The woman who had been travelling for over a month, pointed to her friend who had just got out of hospital and casually said "Yeh, she won the Gold". an American woman had been winning the final comfortably, came to the penultimate jump, tried to perform a trick as a bit of a showboat, ended up falling, and eventually finishing 3rd and only taking bronze. You can imagine our surprise as we realised we were sitting next to an Olympic Gold Medallist. Once the news had sunk in, we carried on chatting for the rest of the evening, talking about various different things, including how she had been meant to have been defending her title in Vancouver but for her injury. This was a real crazy experience and I was gutted when I realised I didn't have my camera on me to get photographic evidence of the event. But as we said our goodbyes later that evening, she asked us what our names were and until that point I realised I hadn't even asked her name. So having shaken hands as we said our goodbyes (and what a strong handshake she had) I was introduced to Tanja Frieden, Olympic Gold Medallist.

Monday 26th April

Today was the Open Water group's final day of diving and they had 3 dives to complete so it was an early start. The group's first few dives were mainly used to show that they could complete the necessary skills in order to pass their certificate. Paul and I who were doing our Divemaster training were also there watching the assessments. As the group were quite comfortable with these skills, they were fairly routine and involved a fair bit of waiting around as everyone had to show off all the necessary skills one by one. However their final dive was much more exciting and we went down beyond 60ft to the deepest any of them had been which was great and we got to see some great parts of the reef, along with fantastic wildlife. That evening after a busy day of diving we caught up with an English couple Lee and Nicole, we had met back in La Ceiba. They had also been doing some diving on Roatan and we enjoyed spending the evening comparing travel stories etc. After a relaxing evening, we headed back to grab food and then got some more reading done.

Tuesday 27th April

Our morning dive was with some recreational divers to a site called "Hole in the wall". I know, it does not sound like much but when we went down there was an amazing coral wall with several tunnels and caverns and holes in it and was incredible! We were going through and seeing some pretty amazing coral structures and having it all enclosed around you really added to the experience! It was a great morning dive!
The Open Water group spent the morning completing their final tests for the Open Water course, which was a multiple choice exam. Thankfully they all passed and Andy, Izzie, Mary, Naseem and Katarina were all now fully qualified Open Water divers.
That afternoon Paul and I had to go through and practice some skills for our Divemaster to be assessed the next day. This was pretty straight forward and involved going through and demonstrating the basic skills that we need to show new divers for their Open Water course.
We rounded the day with Andy, Paul and I doing some kayaking and we also went out for some snorkelling to finish off some mapping exercises for our Divemaster. That evening we just chilled out, played some cards etc.

Wednesday 28th April

Unfortunately today didn't have a great start as we awoke to experience the darker side of travelling. During the night, Andy (who I was sharing a room with) had his IPod, which had been charging next to his bed and had been placed on his pillow next to his head, stolen without either of us even waking. Thankfully nothing else was taken and we were both left untouched but we were both absolutely gutted to find that someone had come into the room and had stolen his IPod but we were both thankful that we were both safe. This meant that Andy then had to spend the morning at the local police station, filing a police report where he got to see what Central American prisons were like and he said that it was not a pleasurable experience, and they are certainly not places you would want to end up in.
The whole group were gutted that this had happened and this was a real downer to start the day. Once this was all reported, Paul and I spent the rest of the morning diving down to the "Lighthouse" site and finishing off our mapping exercise whilst Andy went for a mammoth bike ride, virtually around the whole island!
That afternoon Paul and I had our skills assessment for our Divemaster which we passed and then we had the infamous equipment exchange exercise where Paul and I had to exchange our flippers, weightbelt, buoyancy control device (BCD) and mask all whilst buddy breathing which is where we have to share one regulator between us whilst we are around 5 meters underwater. Ok so if that was not tricky enough we had Mike the instructor and Brad one of the Divemasters throwing up sand in our faces so we could not see. They were also ripping our masks off at random moments and on top of that, they also kept on turning off the air to our tanks so we had to always be vigilant and be ready to swap the regulators with the tank that was still giving air. I gotta say that this was probably one of the most challenging diving exercises that I have done as it really involved you staying calm when everything around you is not, but it was one of the most fun! During our equipment exchange Paul and I were just about to do our final swap by swapping our masks and we were told we had run out of the 10 minute time limit. We got to the surface and after finding out we were only just out of time, we were ready to do it again. This time we were much more efficient and got through most of the exchange pretty fast and when Mike and Brad turned off the tank the first time we were ready for it. However, they forgot to turn that tank back on…….
As our tanks were also low on oxygen they were extra buoyant and we were fighting to keep them from floating up. Just as we were in the process of exchanging our BCD's, which was hard enough as it is, they proceeded to turn off the other tank without realising they had not turned the initial one back on, so we found ourselves in the middle of our equipment exchange with no air coming through. I gotta say, we were really not expecting this and at this point we had to breath through the offered regulator of Mike and Brad so unfortunately this meant we had to do it again, even though it was not our fault in this case, but none the less I have to say that it was a lot of fun and both Paul and I were in fits of laughter at the surface as we both saw the funny side of it. As we were low on air, we could not attempt it again so we called it a day and headed back.
The reason for this exercise is to see how we handle the stress as this is in effect a stress test to prepare us incase there is an emergency whilst diving and what we have to do.
For our final task for the day, as part of the Divemaster, was to go to the other dive shops in the area and ask for information on their emergency equipment and procedures so we were aware of what other resources the other dive shops had in case of an emergency. As soon as Paul and I entered each dive shop, they knew exactly who we were, as they had many Divemaster trainees before us asking for the same information. It was also a great way to get to meet the people at the other dive shops.
We then headed down to West End to play some pool. We also experienced our first tropical storm which came upon us pretty quickly. The claps of thunder, flashes of lightning and torrential rain soon resulted in the whole island losing power. After this we thought it would be best to head back to the place we were staying.

Thursday 29th April

This morning as there were a fair few customers booked for different dives, Paul and I each lead a group with an instructor with us to supervise. Paul lead the fun dive with divers that had already achieved their Open Water Qualification whilst I lead one of the customers on a "Discover Scuba Diving" course. This was good fun and it basically involved showing all of the basic skills that we had been assessed on for our Divemaster such as regulator recovery and clearing your mask. The customer was pretty happy with the dive and her husband, who had gone on the other dive with Paul, was really impressed with how well she picked up scuba diving.
That afternoon we went to a dive site called "Canyon Reef" which was really cool. Saw a sea turtle eating and managed to get pretty close to it before it swam away.... Awesome! This ended a really cool day of diving. As soon as we got back to our accommodation Paul and I started hitting the books as we had our final Divemaster exam the next day! We were up pretty much all night revising for this exam as there was so much to cover!

Friday 30th April

In the morning Paul and I were pretty tired, as you could imagine from a night of revising, and straight away we were assisting a group of fun divers at the "Canyon Reef" dive site. Unfortunately one of the divers had real issues with his buoyancy and could not control his ascent while he was diving so I had to dive with him and make sure he was at the correct depth which meant that I had to push him down at times as well as help him control the air in his BCD as he was having difficulties with it. It was a different experience for me as I was pretty much looking after just one guy and making sure he did not do anything silly. At the end of the dive he really did appreciate the help and told all his friends that I helped "save", him but all I did was help him out now and then when he was having some difficulties and kept an eye on him. I was really surprised when I got my first tip out of the blue. I said he did not need to give it but he was thankful for the help whilst he was diving.
In the early afternoon Paul and I had another go at the equipment exchange and this time we got it all done, within the time limits as well as all of the antics that Mike and Brad were giving us. It got to a point where, when the tanks were being turned off, we were so familiar and vigilant with it that we were able to turn them back on as soon as it was closed which resulted in Mike having his hands on both tank valves just to confuse us and keep us on our toes.
Later that afternoon we went for our final dive for our Divemaster where we saw another sea turtle and this time I positioned myself just infront of it so when Paul and Mike went to swim towards it, it swam to me and as it passed me it gave me a great look as if to say, "What are you doing there?". That really was an experience as I got to see the level of consciousness in the eyes of that sea turtle up close. It also hung around and I could swear it liked the air bubbles coming from our regulators and it swam over the bubbles multiple times.
After that dive Paul and I had to sit our final Divemaster exam which was a multiple choice exam covering a wide range of topics, from, assisting dives and helping customers to the physics of diving when dealing with varying pressures at different depths as well as health and safety to name but a few. We both passed and after completing the drawing for our "map", that was it..... we had completed our Divemaster!! Whoop! Whoop! We were now Divemasters! Be that very tired Divermasters.
That evening we headed down into West End to celebrate completing our Divemasters in record time and we also had to undergo our initiation into the Divemaster club. This involved a snorkel mask, funnel and concoction of various different ingredients which then had to be drunk through the snorkel. As I do not drink, the guys made me a non-alcoholic concoction of milkshakes, fruit juices, tabasco sause, tomatoes, fruits, pasta, beans, chocolate, crisps and potatoes. Lumpy would be an understatement! Yum Yum!
Having completed the initiation we enjoyed the rest of the evening, meeting other travellers and enjoying the atmosphere of the island.

Saturday 1st May

This morning Paul and I went for our final dive at Roatan with Brad and Lars. It was really cool to go back to diving and really being able to appreciate what we are seeing when we are down there without worrying about any of the Divemaster stuff and a big relief to have completed it. Whilst on the dive I saw my first sting ray in Roatan waters which was incredible as it really got close to me and it was a great experience swimming with it. What a way to finish our diving!
Unfortunately we were having a few further issues with Frontier, the organisation we were travelling with and earlier this week we had been informed that we were waiting on the arrival of a Frontier Member of Staff who was travelling up from Costa Rica to help get things sorted and until they arrived we would be staying on the island.
So the afternoon was spent just chilling on the beach and enjoying our last days on the Island.

Sunday 2nd May

Claire, the Frontier staff member that we had been waiting on arrived early in the morning. Apparently she had arrived on the island the previous day but hadn't been given a specific address so had struggled to find us straight away. This in itself highlighted how unorganised some elements of the trip had been so far. For someone who normally like to have things well organised this had not been ideal but with Claire's arrival we all sat down as a group and discussed through various issues and came up with a plan of action. It was then decided that we would be leaving the island on the 2pm ferry and that Claire herself would be taking over from Mike as our Trail Leader.
So following our meeting, we got packed up, said our thanks and goodbyes and headed off for the port. We had another pleasant journey back to the mainland and arrived in La Ceibas just in time to catch the last bus to San Pedro de Sula. We arrived in San Pedro fairly late so booked into our hostel and got straight to bed as we had a long day ahead of us the next day.

Monday 3rd May

Today goes down as one of those inevitable days that you experience when travelling. A day of buses, waiting around, and snacking ... yep, you guessed it.... Cocacola and Oreos! We were up at 4.30am to catch the first bus out of San Pedro de Sula heading south towards the Nicaraguan Border. We took various different buses, going first to the capital, Tegucigalpa, before heading onto Choluteca and then crossing over the border into Nicaragua. Once again we found a relatively straight forward border crossing before squeezing into a minibus en route to Leon. We arrived in Leon at around 8.30pm and booked into a really nice hostel that seemed to have plenty of character and then sat down for something to eat. I tucked into my Burrito as I was extremely hungry. Days on the road can be tricky, as it can often be difficult to get proper meals in and you often find yourself snacking a lot so it was good to sit down to a proper meal and enjoy the atmosphere of being back in a hostel and among travellers again.