Treasured memories

Things I don't ever want to forget...

The lodge:

• Having to use buckets of water to wash both ourselves & our dishes, as well as flush our toilets (will make me ever grateful for modern plumbing!)
• Sharing puddings from one bowl in order to save on washing up
• Drinking from bowls, eating from cups/measuring jugs - whatever happened to be clean at the time
• Not having enough forks, so having to eat with any available utensil
• Running out of coffee, jam, peanut butter, milk, cocoa & bread all in the same week
• Putting liquid cheese (i.e.sour cream) in most of our meals, along with ginger, soup powder, tomato paste, limes, garlic & complete seasoning
• Claire & Katie's truly inedible lemon cheesecake that took them four hours to make for Andy's birthday - caused much amusement & spoon-bending hilarity
• Baking a  cake for each & every special occasion
• Eating poorman's french test i.e. bread covered in sugar & cinnamon
• Making Xmas decorations, a plasticine nativity scene, & crackers to brighten the place up - Anne turned out to be the most creative by far
• Preparing a Secret Santa game for Boxing Day
• Painting the kitchen along with Andy & Lil on a rainy Friday
• Making costumes & decorations for out Saturday night themed parties
• Drinking Pina Coladas out of freshly prepared coconuts
• Drinking 40 Lempira ($2) plastic bottles of out-of-date rum
• Dancing behind the bar with Andy, & our special rendition of Pink Floyd's 'Wish Your Were Here'
• Dancing around the kitchen with Claire to Scooter's version of Billy Idol's 'Rebel Yell'
• Composing songs with Lil - one for every staff member, & singing them over & over & over again
• Chris running scared from me, Claire & Lil, & scampering up a coconut tree whilst shouting out 'help, help' in a feeble fashion
• Gorgeous Snickers & Trusty
• Lils's belongings being stolen & returned on a frequent basis, as well as being sold back belongings stolen from us!
• Watching sunrises/sunsets almost every day
• Lying on the pier watching fish  in the day & the stars at night
• Lil automatically being 'muppet of the day' unless someone else did something daft

Santa Helena:

• Caribbean Einstein Calix from whom I used to buy our beer
• Dancing to 'Burn It Up' & Akon's 'Lonely' in the disco pit with our glowsticks left over from a night dive
• Being asked by one of the local guys outside the club if he could give me a smack, & being relieved to discover that by this he meant a kiss!
• Going to The Bight to watch various sporting activities - both official (football & boxing) & unofficial (lynchings!)
• Katie informing Claire that the hedge wasn't in fact grunting, but that behind it lived a pig

Roatan:

• The one & only Post Office running out of stamps
• Having to pay for post that we receive
• The Friday trips into town - shopping for Havaianas, catching up on emails, carrying dive tanks in & out of Sol Caribe, helping buy the weekly groceries etc.
• Our weekend away - full of cocktails, dancing to reggaeton & shopping
• All the dogs having legs half as long as they should be!

Boats & diving:

• My 10 minute conversation with Lil regarding navigation/use of compasses for which we jointly won the 'muppet of the day' award (me saying something like, "but the arrow always points North"!)
• Killing safety stop time by playing games such as noughts & crosses, paper/ scissors/ stone, & charades (The Mask, Jaws, & Flipper)
• Our boat drivers getting more cheeky by the week - hiding our belongings, tying us to the boat without us noticing etc.
• Andy being Hugh Heffner on the boat one day & saying (aimed at me & Lil), "two divers & two blondes ready"!
• Medic Kate being ambushed by a HUGE Green Moray Eel
• Breaking down in Medusa in the morning, then being radioed by Tornado in the afternoon to say that they had run out of fuel & could we go out in Viper to rescue them :o)
• Making it to my 100th dive!