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Diving in Utila

18/04/2012

We have only come to Honduras for the diving. If we had more time I am sure we would like to explore the country much more but we don't and so we headed directly from Guatemala to Utila, one of the three main islands that make up the Bay Islands. The first day we arrived and found ourselves a great dive centre and made ourselves at home ready for the diving to start.

The first dive was beautiful, with the likes of parrot fish, tiny crabs and much bigger eels and eagle rays, and trigger, puffer and stone fish to see, and amazing coral all around. This pretty much set the scene for all our dives which have all been breath taking (literally in my case as I keep being the first to run low on air but I am slowly learning new tricks to increase my bottom time). When we boarded the boat after our first dive the captain was super excited as he had heard there was a Whale Shark in the area so we quickly secured all our gear and he got there is double quick time. A WHALE SHARK! We ACTUALLY snorkelled with a real life, 15 meter WHALE SHARK! What can I say? I jumped into water being told it was just below us, but I couldn't see it, then suddenly it was there, in all its splendour. Oh I wish my writing was better so I could try and explain it. We got to swim along with it for about 20 minutes and it still didn't dive - apparently it is normal for the sharks to dive as soon as the boats arrive and people start to jump into the water. Eventually I got tired before the shark did and I couldn't keep up so I got back on the boat and left Seth to take the photos. The boat captain took us closer to the shark and the people still following it (including Seth) and since it was still clearly visible we jumped back in the water and I caught up with Seth. Within minutes though I felt a sting on my hands and realised I had been stung by a jellyfish. Just for the record, that really hurts and unfortunately meant the end of our diving for the day.

The next day the poison had faded and we were back in the water. All our dives from now where different and beautiful, all about the coral and the colourful fish. Some highlights include a whole Eel swimming along (normally seen only in their holes in the coral), a big eagleray (twice), a school of Bermuda Chub swimming around a big top of coral, a tiny crab covered in coral, small puffer fish, a turtle and so much more. The coral was also incredible and made it like swimming around a magical garden.

The island itself was peaceful and a very nice place to spend the afternoons and evenings after the dives. We swam from the white sandy beach, and ate lots of seafood, tacos and nachos. It wasn't our most cultural experience of all the countries we have visited but it was well worth the trip from Guatemala.

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