Dancing the Punta and the Keyhole rope swing

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long lapse of time between posts. The last week has been pretty low key - once Eric and I finished our scuba diving certification we went on a night dive as well as a ship wreck dive. Both were pretty amazing. The night dive was great because at the very end of the dive, you turn off your underwater lights and get to see what they call the "string of pearls." It looks like you are swimming through a starry night sky and it was absolutely beautiful! Then we swam back to the boats without our lights. It must be the closest possible feeling to what astronauts must feel like when floating in space. The ship wreck dive was neat as well - it was a huge steel ship that sunk about 100 yards off the coast of Roatan. On our way out to the wreck dive we saw a pod of about 8-10 dolphins, so the boat turned around and followed them for awhile. We even got to jump in and swim with them briefly - one swam about 2 feet in front of Eric.

This past Saturday Eric worked on some things for his residency applications so I went with some volunteers on the island tour for my second time. Once again we stopped in Punta Gorda for lunch, but this time our tour guide had called ahead and they were ready for us! They had prepared a whole song and dance performance and even wore costumes. It was absolutely amazing to see - I even got to get up and dance with them for a bit! Another neat thing was they gave us a brief presentation this time on the history and culture of Punta Gorda, which I think I mentioned in a previous post is a former slave colony from centuries ago. They have a drink that they make out of herbs and plants (with added rum) that used to be bush medicine but now they used it as an alcoholic drink as well. The locals call it Gifity. We got to try some of that although I thought it tasted closer to rubbing alcohol than a delicious cocktail :) Some pictures of the dancing are below.

 Last Monday we went to a pool party at Lands End, a resort that is near to our apartment. While we were there we got one of the best sunsets we have seen yet on this island. Often times the sunsets are blocked with a haze because the sun sets near Belize which apparently always has a slight fog around it (I don't know how accurate/true this is, but this is what the locals told us). Anyhow, these are some pictures Eric snapped of the sunsets.

Last weekend we also went to a rope swing that is on the far West side of the island in a little area called Keyhole. To get to the rope swing you have to cut through a small forest, go under some barbed wire, and walk across a vacant field. It's a bit of a trek but once you finally arrive it is absolutely beautiful! The rope swing is huge too - It's about 15-20 feet high. We went with a local boy who volunteers at the clinic - he gave us all "instructions" before we went and helped the girls get out of the water once they jumped because it was a bit wavy. After some major persuasion I did finally jump - it was a lot of fun and not nearly has hard as it looks! Below is a picture of Eric out over the water, as well as one of me getting ready to jump (and Eric looking on). The third picture is our friend Tyler after jumping, hanging on to the bottom of the rope.

 Yesterday we went to West Bay again as we usually do on Sundays, and Eric and I went snorkeling in the afternoon. After weeks of searching, Eric found his first lion fish hiding underneath a rock! He had to dive down to get to it, but he was able to spear it on his first try! We brought it back up to the beach so we could get a few pictures of it, and then Eric took it back out to the ocean so a grouper or another large fish could eat it. The snorkeling in West Bay is absolutely phenomenal - you can see almost 20 feet down to the bottom and there are reefs everywhere! It is amazing how clear the water is on that part of the water. Below is a picture of Eric with his first lion fish kill :)

We are hoping next week to go to a place called Frenchy's, which is really inexpensive to visit for clinic volunteers. They have baby jaguars and cheetahs there that you can play with (which seems odd to me) as well as monkeys and other animals. They also have great snorkeling and a nice little bar and restaurant there. It's located on an island off the island of Roatan, so we have to take a boat to get over there. If we are able to go I will be sure to post pictures right away!

We miss all and talk about you guys often. We walked past a TV the other night that was showing the NFL preseason game of the Dolphins vs. the Cowboys and I thought Eric was going to faint with joy! He also found a bar that was hanging a Greenbay Packers game so we will sure to check that out for the first game.

Talk to you all soon!