A Few Perfect Days At Sea

After a few hour bus trip / another 4 hours of lunch and lazing around in La Ceiba we were sitting on the Utila Princess, the ferry to the Bay Islands diving capitol of Honduras, Isla Utila. We arrived at sundown and headed to Alton's Dive Center, to whom I'd been talking via e-mail for a few days. They gave us a splendid deal, 265$/10 dives, including accommodation in a private room. And the best thing is that their housing is right on the pier; less than 30 meters to walk to reach the dive boat from our door. Not to mention the awesome bar & hammocks facing the direction of the sunsets!



They advertise trips to Cayos Cochinos - or the Hog Islands - and we're lucky enough to join a boat going over already on our first day. The islands are slightly remote bunch of sand and rock with a few Garifuna people inhabiting them. The trip included two dives on a pristine reef 1.5 hrs away from Utila, meaning we were the only divers present and the reef was pretty much undamaged and teeming with marine life. After the dives we'd open a few cold beers and head to the shore where we had a fish & gallo pinto lunch and enjoyed rum from coconuts right on the beautiful white sand beach. The trip ended with a whale shark hunting session, but no luck that time. On the trip we had two fun guys filming Adrenaline Movement, some kind of a Madventures style travel show.

Diving has been seriously nice. The diveboats of Alton's are top notch with dedicated water tanks for cameras, a marine toilet where you can stand up (!) and floor material that prevents slipping. The sites on the north side of the island are amazing and closer sites on the south side are not too shabby either. While the amount of fish is not on par with Indian ocean and the water temperature is only 26-28C, the crazy visibility of 30-40 meters or more on almost every site makes up for it rather nicely. On the dives we've encountered a spotted eagle ray, stingrays, hermit crabs, a baby nurse shark, countless angelfish, lobsters and other crustaceans and seen two wrecks - and that's in 5 days of diving. And at the time of the writing we have 4 more days to go before having to leave for the mainland.

And then on to the whale sharks. The largest (known) fish on our planet is somewhat sacred here on Utila, and they are easier to spot here than almost anywhere else, and they're seen on a regular basis. And since you already looked at the picture, you might have guessed right: yes, we did see one. What they do here is during the surface interval of the north side dives they look for signs of a whale shark, which means looking for the surface "boiling", ie. tunas jumping on the surface. And thanks to our keen eyed captain, we did get to swim with a 7-8 meter shark for almost a good minute. And, last but not least, we got to take a picture most divers will never get to take in their lives.