the story, in parts

After many months of preparation, including scuba training, 10 North Star travelers set off to Roatan, Honduras on March 11, 2009. Travel is always an educational experience, but this trip was especially so. We experienced a foreign country as any travelers might, gaining an appreciation for the many ways of life so removed from our own. This experience alone is not to be understated; stepping outside of one’s own insulated reality is incredibly valuable for personal growth. Simply traveling to a far-away place and seeing the differing people and ways of life there increases our understanding of this giant planet and its multitude of inhabitants. Our egos are faced with the fact that we are each just one individual among many, a truth that is both diminishing yet broadening if we can feel ourselves to be part of a greater whole.




All travel is educational, but this quality was multiplied several times in this trip by our scuba experience and by our work with the Roatan Marine Park. Our PADI scuba instructors, Jim, here in Westfield, and Jose and Tim in Roatan, were all very careful to teach us how to be safe in the water. This guidance was key. However, when it’s time to take your mask off when you’re 20 feet down, it’s all you. Each of us were challenged in varying ways by the training, and each of us overcame those challenges and went on to have meaningful experiences. We now have first-hand experience and appreciation of a precious and vanishing resource. Scuba diving on Roatan’s coral reefs was very much like visiting a tropical rainforest. This is a resource that is critical to our planet. During our studies before the trip and through our work with the marine park we learned that we can’t afford to lose our planet’s coral reefs. Like the rainforests, this specialized habitat is crucial to the overall health of our planet. As we destroy it, we destroy ourselves. This understanding was made real by visiting the reef in person and witnessing the vast array of life there.




Photos by Ben Rosser