Utila Diving

Utila is a major diving hotspot and is world renowned for it’s cheap diving courses. We decided to spend a week here doing our Advanced Divers license ($260). The boat trip there was the worst possible design for a speedboat - you can't get fresh air or see the horizon and is aptly named off the 'vomit comet'. Go onto the docks just in time to avoid seeing some people chundering. Were completely bombarded by dive schools trying to get you to see their place. I love it, being African has completely prepared me for hoards of people begging and hassling you. It’s a great way to get good deals if there’s so much competition! Unfortunately Utila has pretty much standardized diving prices, so we went to Parrots as the girl spoke Dutch and we were talking Afrikaans to her. Lovely place, great atmosphere!

Parrots in Utila...

Signed up for our Advanced, but needed a stupid medical certificate to get my asthma checked out, I hate that – R200 wasted! Stayed at the nicest place on the island: Ruby’s Inn ($20/room) with an incredibly kind owner, Tony Ruby. Met two beautiful Canadians – Haley and Niki, whom we immediately befriended and celebrated being on a beautiful island together having sundowners watching the huge red sun in the distance. Yes, life was great…

Haley and Nikki, our lovely Kenuks!

That night we had a great party – everyone was in a great mood. Haley & Niki were starting their divers and were so excited. We partied with them, drinking at a few pubs – one in particular is worth mentioning; The Treehouse/ Jade’s Seahorse Garden. It was beautifully decorated with bottles and had a fantastic psychedelic feel to it. Afterwards we went to a few other bars where Niki, Haley, Rob and I danced like freaks , good memories were made.

Hundreds of colourful bottles decorating this lovely Guest House.

 Woke up the next day, went for a refreshing swim off the docks at Ruby’s and went back to sleep. Walked around the island and met a nice girl whom we had met the night before  – black eye, bloodshot eyeball looking shocked. Oh my god, what happened? Someone followed her home that night, waited until she was asleep, opened her door (she left it open for her friend to come home), took his shirt off and strangled her. Thankfully she is alright, shaken up, but she is one brave cookie: she fought him off and he made a run for it. That poor girl, she got a huge shock and was understandably frightened. We are so proud of her for fighting for her life and being so brave about it. All the best to her, we wish you a speedy recovery and you should be proud of yourself for turning a dangerous situation around – you are a trooper.

We were all shocked about this news, of course. Tony Ruby was amazing, he hired a guard to watch the premises and especially her door, changed the locks and was really supportive. Sunday was a crap day, just feel bad for letting our guard slip because we are on holiday. Shit happens, even in paradise.

Monday we started our divers! Yay! Walked into the office to have a pre-dive tutorial with our awesome Dive Master Javi from Spain. And guess who we saw? Our favourite Dane – Michael. I think he’s stalking us :P This was the beginning of the rest of his travels in Central America with us, and we have had tons of awesome stories. First dive Night Diving. It was full moon and really beautiful. I felt like there were too many people and we kept bumping into each other, otherwise it was fun and we saw bioluminescent plankton.

One of the many fish we saw during our dives on Utila island.

Had a lekker braai that night that turned into a bit of a party. Took half a bottle of terrible booze and a can of lighter fluid to start the coals! No wood on this island...Spatchcocked a chicken and had a fantastic dip with all of us joining in. The water is warm and beautiful.

Woke up late for our diving the next day - Deep Dive & Peak Performance Bouyancy Dive - very fun. Saw an egg float like the death star at 30m deep. Fun stuff. Enjoyed the coral here - it's a wall dive and we saw tons of types of coral, all colours and a span of fish. Really stunning. Relaxed all day and went for two more dives the next day - Wreck Diving & Navigation. Great fun the wreck diving was fantastic! As we jumped off the boat into the deep blue water, we couldn't see anything below us - just sheer blueness. Then the outline of the ship appeared and it was like discovering it for the first time. Amazing, wreck diving is probably my favourite after wall dives. We could swim through the Captain's bridge. They had cut the cargo ship's deck off so we could swim inside - wow! Can't believe how quickly the coral has grown over the ship, it's minimal now, but give it another 20 years and hopefully it'll create a wonderful ecosystem.

A stunning cowfish swimming amongst the coral.

 Spent a wonderful night with our mates, "watched" hockey. Rugby is better. Spent the last night with two extra fun dives which were the most enjoyable. Michael was on our little diving exhibit and we saw 3 beautiful turtles, one when we were snorkelling during our surface interval. On our last dive my weight belt fell off and I almost shot to the surface - not cool. Swam down and managed to get it back on with the help from my Buddy Rob!

We spotted this little guy during our SI, watched it swim, feed and come up to breathe. Stunning!

An interesting point to note of Utila was the awareness of the invasive Lion Fish that have colonised and completely taken over in the Atlantic/Caribbean. I knew about the lion fish, and how their population has exploded much to the detriment of the endemic fish species. Posters and flyers were everywhere raising awareness of these (and other) invasive species. Lion fish are endemic to the Pacific coast, but have been introduced (e.g. people flushing them down the toilet when they don't want them as pets anymore) into the Caribbean. They are predators, and the local fishes lack the natural 'fear' to evade them, so all local fishies get eaten by the fat invasive lion fish. They are decimating the indigenous population, and management efforts are trying to find an effective way to decrease their population. But sofar, the easiest and most efficient method is through manual removal. Die lion fish die!

Lion fish are invasive and must be removed to conserve the ecosystem, Headshot!

The last day we went snorkelling around the island, free diving down to check out what creatures live in the airconditioners, tyres etc that is rubbish at the bottom of the ocean. We found a whole population of Lobsters! We thought about catching one and eating it, but that was quickly forgotten as they are so beautiful and their population is being severely over-fished. We kept the location a secret and hope that no-one will find them and eat them! 

Met Michael the next day and we went to La Ceiba together to couchsurf at a girl named Andreas house for Carnival.

We saw a pub with the SA flag (upside down though!) and were super excited! Our mate Rick from Oz..

Rick, Chissie and Nikki with the delicious coconuts we opened to make a snack and juice for Rum!