The next day the plan was to take the bus three hours to La Ceiba and take the only afternoon ferry at 4pm to Utila. We learned that taxis in San Pedro Sula are rude, unruly and hardly take you to the right place. So the nine of us got separated on the way to the bus terminal but somehow all reunited with in minutes of the ferry leaving in La Ceiba. We all survived "the vomit comet" to Utila Islandnand were welcomed bombarded with dive instructors from every dive center in all of Utila, and that's a lot of people throwing flyers in your face. When they learned we were traveling in a group of nine that attacked us with freebies left and right. Next thing I know we are at Parrot's Dive center being offered free accommodation, free t-shirts, free snorkels and a free night on one the cay's for a party night on our own personal island! We chatted about this over free beer of course. Lauri and I were planning on NOT scuba diving while on Utila, but snorkeling, hiking and other not under-water activities. Steph, one of our instructors to be, convinced us to try the first two days and if we hated it, we could drop out without paying. I agreed, hesitantly.
Ok, here's the low down on the ocean and I. I'm afraid of it. Something which I only realized in the last couple weeks. I thought I just didn't care for it, like I liked being around it but I could do without being in it other then a few minutes. It makes no sense seeming how I've grown up next to it. I mean, I was literally born somewhere with the word beach in it: Long Beach, California. My family was a typical southern Californian family with a pool that I basically lived in it according to my baby book. Which my parents even wrote "olympic swimmer" in the under the box that said "most likely will grow up to be..".
From there we moved to Oregon where we still lived by the beach coast. However it was also too cold and/or stormy to actually get in it, so lakes and rivers were the water source of fun in the summers. Then at age twelve, I moved back forth from Oregon to Orange County still enjoying both sources of water as a teenager. I really began to resent Orange County when I moved back for a year after high school, my friends were only concerned about how drunk they were going to get that weekend and when I started talking about my new curiosity in the world they gave me baffled looks. "Why? Why would you ever want to leave California?"
Maybe in turn I began to resent everything Orange County stood for including the ocean? Orange County is home and therefore the ocean is home. I'll always respect it in that sense, but there was so much more in the world, not to mention better beaches. This was around the time that shows like "Laguna Beach" and The OC" were getting super popular and the hype on Orange County skyrocketed and everyone who lived there felt more entitlement in the world than they already had. This made me feel more like I didn't belong and definitely contributed to getting the hell out of Orange County.
My mom said something interesting to me before I left on this trip, "Why do you keep going to places where the traveling is focused around the beach if you don't like the ocean?" I've been thinking about this a lot since I got here. Then when someone else made me realize I am in fact afraid of the ocean I put these two ideas together and started contemplating my newly realized fear. I consider myself someone who is not a fearful person and actually enjoys anything of the "adventurous" nature. So I decided to figured it out and stick with the dive course. Attempt to understand what it was that I had against the ocean by submersing myself underwater for five days and getting my open water diving certification. The first three days were awful, I was petrified the entire time. I dreaded the dives and was so happy to be done with them. I even got food poisoning in the middle of it and had to face scuba feeling like death. I had heard of people who go diving hung over and puking through their regulator, it's totally doable, so you wont drown. This is even somewhat of a positive being that the fish rush over to feed on last night’s rum consumption, grossly funny. However, I’m a secret puker no matter the circumstance, I hate puking in front of people. Vomiting underwater, through my regulator, in front of about 10 people would most definitely further my level of discomfort in the ocean and probably add a whole new level of traumatizing to the experience. Luckily the nausea pill a lovely Irish girl gave me kicked in and I wasn’t forced to share the bad pork with the fishes.
I think my fear and resentment for the ocean has been a combination of things. I think Orange County's attitude has a lot to do with it on the disinterest part of it all. The actual fear being how unpredictable the ocean is and the sole reason why most people have fear, the unknown. We know more about the ocean than we do space. That’s insane to me, and terrifying. But I do keep finding myself attracted to parts of the world that are focused around the ocean, suggesting it intrigues me, which is completely true. It may even be a whole new world of exploration in my story.
Overcoming fears, give you strength to conquer the next and then the next.
Empowering, nothing but empowering.
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