Ben Welsher | Writings

Day 34 - Utila The three lies of Utila are: 1, I'm not drinking tonight 2, I love you 3, I'm leaving tomorrow The last had proved especially apposite as we stood atop a water tower on a hill overlooking a more than familiar island where a 2 day jaunt had become a residency. Now of course we had to stay for New Year, where else would we want to bring in 2012? And since we were here we might as well dive eh? Dive we did, in torrential rain and with the Divemaster's cheery "you're gonna get wet anyway!" not entirely comforting despite its indisputable logic. Still, the view from below was an intriguing reflection, a bit like being in a big glass box during a storm. Diving in the morning, night swimming at...er...night, water bookended our days and filled our thoughts. Tania attempted an escape from this amenable Alcatraz post New Year, her trip to nearby Roatan Island lasting a few hours and costing more than a few dollars. As she strode back into Alton'...

Day 29 - Utila Diving in the morning conceded to pure recreation in the afternoon and evenings (for us at least, the truly hardcore dove morning, noon and night). Time we filled with large amounts of nothing, only the metronomic swing of the hammock marked its steady progress. Après-scuba indeed. Faces became familiar, familiarity became friendship. Nicola and Tania monitored our diving progress with enthusiasm, each success toasted with the clink of glass. We became part of a little community where, even if everyone did not know your name, they certainly knew your aim and common ground was reclaimed from treacherous waves. Life outside the island was fond but faded remembrance, what did we lack but the means to exist here in perpetuity? How long could a person spend in this permissive utopia where not a policeman walked the streets and resplendent stars lulled you to sleep under a haze of slumbering cloud. All writing ceased and it is only now nearly a month since arriving that I...

Day 26 - Utila Tanks were parked along the dock, we were about to invade a land that was not ours. A crash course in theory left disjointed terms floating around our head - regulators, pressure groups, equalisation, first stage, second stage, beans, rice, fish. The aquatic life below, I imagine, surveyed these nervous, rubberised humans with weary familiarity. We were being thrown in at the shallow end but fears were nonetheless for it. Certainly strapping on 14 pounds of iron before swimming would seem counterintuitive at the least. Fins on feet I staggered to the edge like a drunken clown. Below, the sea, above, the sky, the thin sliver in between where we live our lives. Perhaps I dramatise but, with the intonation 'continuous breathing so your lungs don't explode' ringing in my soon-to-be squeezed ears, mistakes would be costly. At least there is a slight affinity with the water in my person, my amigo had no such love. From anti-aqua to nascent snorkeler and now wannab...

Day 23 - Utila Rain lashed our island paradise, the waves tossed the boat nauseatingly from left to right. Passengers doubled over the side and we questioned our judgement. It wasn't like this in the brochure so lasciviously flicked through in my head. A sodden golf cart whisked us through the weather to a striking white wooden structure jutting out into the Caribbean sea. The verbose landlady (perhaps a better term should be invented for an island hotelier) delivered a filibuster of a welcome talk while previous recipients looked on with amusement. A piece of advice she did give was to acquire supplies lest Santa enforce a shutdown the following day. In need of personal hygiene but finding deodorant priced the same as a bottle of wine it was clear that that night would be spent stinking drunk (I already have my coat on). Walking back along the main street we dodged children on quad bikes and spied building after building flying the red and white flag of scuba. On Utila a driver...