satellite connection

We're hanging out on the tiny island of Utila, off the northern coast of Honduras. It's one of three islands called the Bay Islands; they are a mecca for scuba diving. Alan and I both have dived before and have bad ears that don't adjust to depth so we're just snorkelers. I've dived and snorkeled enough to know we're seeing the best stuff without the hassle and danger, but all the visiting gringos here and dive shops that make up more than half of what this little place is all about shed just a bit of scorn for our refusal to man-up to the real thing. Whatever.

Anyway, it's a lovely little island where everyone speaks English (or the language of their home country - hearing lots of French and German) or a strange and musical creole similar to other creoles I've heard, but also uniquely theirs. The snorkeling is divine. Two days ago I watched a jellyfish swimming majestically by, magical and scary both. A school of hundreds of shiny fish moving in perfect unison. Tiny flying fish on the water's surface, pelicans watching nonchalantly from tree trunks plunked out in the middle of the bay. Yesterday Alan and I found surely the best snorkeling on the island and saw a couple different kinds of stingrays, big, graceful, peaceful, soaring by at about 20 feet deep, the sun's rays gleaming through the deep blue and casting light on their big ocean wings. An unbelievable variety of coral, sponges, urchins, fish, crabs, starfish, and things I don't know how to name.

Between swims and dives, we watch the salt dry on our tanning limbs while sipping cold local beer and listening to exotic birds sing all around us from the tropical trees. Lively music always playing somewhere echoing across the bay. Pretty much paradise. So exotic. So warm. So beautiful. So far from familiar. So far from home.

Today we are taking a break from the sun. We were going to endeavor a brave kayak ride through a mangrove canal across the island, but my stomache has been hit by some impure water or something, and what with my cruelly limited diet, I'm living on not much food and feeling like I should stick close to my medication and the one clinic on the island. Also the heat and too many days without a desk is getting to Alan. So we're sitting in a coffee shop with wireless and tons of different accents all around us talking about whatever party they were at last night or dive they did last.

Everyone is talking about how the Internet is down all over the island. This place has a satellite connection, but the weather is cloudy so it comes and goes. Long loadtimes and people are here in paradise whining a bit. Over a week ago, Alan and I hung out in a place on the mainland called the Expatriate's Bar and Grill. Met a bunch of old business men with various investments in the country. One of them, Danny, owns a company called TTI, who apparently enjoyed a private monopoly on internet service on this island and elsewhere. He was drinking and swearing while the others were awkwardly trying to cheer him up because the government had apparently gotten tired of Danny's monopoly and shut him down. Destroyed all of his equipment and locked up his office. Nobody here on the island can understand why the net is down, but ironically we do. Strange story.

Anyway, while the satellite briefly connects us to home and I pathetically nibble on dry bread, I'm ever so happy to be in Caribbean paradise, but feeling just a bit homesick. Missing good food, pure water, brisk winter air, and all of you Minnesotans (and friends elsewhere) who never whine.