GETTING CLOSE: Today I assisted one of the divemaster with a small group of DISCOVER SCUBA DIVING students. He is new to the dive shop and really appreciated the help. He was very complementary of the help I provided and the students were very appreciative. It was probably the only time I've felt like anyone cared thus far. It made for a really nice morning. One of the students had a huge barracuda come right up to her face and stared her down. I've never seen anything like it. The lady just stood still and was shocked. Later she said she was pretty scared but really enjoyed the experience.

A group of us went out for lunch at a place called COCO LOCO. It only serves sandwiches a bit like a Utila version of a Subway. Its popular, not very expensive and pretty darn good. Its right out on the water which explains one thing. They only have one restroom and at night its for ladies only. Men go to the end of the pier and do there thing. Women use the really crude restroom that dumps directly below the pier. Pretty gross. I've been wondering about a sign on nearly every restroom that says don't throw paper into the toiler. I could never understand what they meant but they really mean used toilet paper. GROSS. I do it anyway and plan to continue to do it. This place can really be pretty crude. In addition many don't have working sinks or soap or anything to dry your hands with if you can wash them. Sometimes I wonder why I chose this place.

I took class this afternoon that showed us how to take apart and put together the regulators we use. Its all lot of trouble and a little complex but it was fun to see how they work. The class was fun for about 1 hour but it took us about 3 hours to get everything apart and back together. We all celebrated by going out for ice cream afterwords. We all love this little home made ice cream parlor. I had a huge banana split with peach yogurt and chocolate ice cream. It was yummy.

I was suppose to night dive but I"m too tired and lazy. I'm going to get to bed early I hope. I dive the wreck twice tomorrow to get my certificate in wreck diving.

I finally got a committment from one of the other trainees to work together on a map. Hopefully we'll work on it on Saturday. That's all I have left to do to become a Divemaster. I'm having second thoughts about becoming an instructor just because its not that much fun. You have to rush around too much and you rarely dive for fun. It does make you easier to employ however. I have another week or two to decide on that.