OK, so what is this fishin' then? No, it's also not "phising"! We are strapping on some tanks and going to get up and close with the marine life... Scuba Diving is a kind of fishin', isn't it?
Utila is part of the Bay Islands in the Caribbean; and, it couldn't be any more different from the rest of Honduras. Literally, only the fact that you can still use the same currency (Lempira) and that you don't need to show a passport when arriving, let's you believe that you are still in Honduras. Though you do have to show your passport to get on the ferry – we guess that this is mainly to make it easier to count casualties in case this shoebox sinks. But more about the ferry later.
Arriving in Utila is like entering a parallel universe (compared to mainland Central America). First of all the locals either appear totally Caucasian or African; Ladinos are as rare as a white face in downtown Guatemala City…
Then, there is the language: at first it sounded like gibberish. But after some concentrated listening and a good degree of imagination, it could be recognizws as a form of English but with a slang so thick that makes a Jamaican nearly sound as if he's speaking Cambridge English.
Just try to picture this: Imagine taking an hour's ride and arriving in a totally different world... Sounds like Buck Rodgers right? And that's exactly how we felt.
We arrived late and settled into the first acceptable hotel that we could find (called Bavaria, run by a German woman; adding a bit more to that parallel universe theory). For dinner, we indulged on two huge pizzas (first one in months which fit the current theme, especially since it was real pizza, not just a tortilla with cheese and ketchup.)
Patrick set off early the next morning to select a dive shop and find another hotel where we would be staying for a while. (To all skeptics out there: Yes, he also occasionally searches for places to stay!) He had to start early and move fast as the checkout time at the Bavaria is at 10am! How ungodly early is that, especially here in the Caribbean – in Germany too, actually!
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| Cross Creek: our home on the Bayou for the next few days |
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| Hammock lane |
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| Dive masters House? better treatment, than customers? |
We went diving the next morning... Or shall I say: "gone fishin'". It's nice to be back in the water: Simply relaxing, cooling, and easygoing. We really enjoyed being one with the water element again and simply letting marine life float by. What a nice break from the stress of backpacking.
This was the first time in many years that we dived with rental equipment; surprisingly, it only took a few minutes to get used to it. Probably the weirdest feeling was not having a dive computer or a watch. This is what's called a timeless dive. On top of that, the gauges were in Feet and PSI, not Meters and Bar as we normally use.
Despite just having a depth and pressure gauge (in unfamiliar units), we could roughly guestimate how much non-deco time we had; but being 'good divers' we made sure to stay at the same depth as our dive master – the guy with the computer - all the time. Anyway, we never really got close to the non-deco time:
We dived with a group of Danish Tweenagers on the first day. The all were certified advanced divers, with only ~ 12 dives total, go figure! Most divers in Utila are beginners and therefore can't go deep and suck air like a jet engine. Some of them were sucking so much air that they only had 400 PSI (30 Bar) left after 30 minutes of diving. That's an accomplishment actually ;-)
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| Heading out to the reef Fishin' time! |
Did I forget to write that Utila is THE place to get PADI certifications? It's apparently the cheapest place in the world to get certified – perhaps the world as defined by Americans that tend to forget that the world also includes the continents to the east and west of their homeland. Dive certifications in Southeast Asia are probably at the same or lower price. But there is no doubt that Utila is like a diver certification factory. In 2004, Utila Dive Centre (the sister shop of Cross Creek) issued the most PADI open water diver certifications in the world. Currently they issue about 1500 certifications a year, that's more than 4 per day, everyday!!!
This diver certification production line setup explains why we dived with a group of "Advanced" Divers that had only 12 dives ... At ~30min each, that makes for about 6 hours underwater! Very "advanced" indeed!
On the third day Patrick was diving in a group with a girl that had 16 dives total and was just about to get her "Rescue Diver" certification?!?
Why do we emphasize this so much? Because it shows how ridiculous the whole PADI certification can be.
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| The perfect private island |
A last thought on this topic: what is the meaning of PADI? Put Another Dollar In.
How was the diving? Besides the abundance of beginners, actually not too bad, the waters around Utila are fairly clear and litter-free with 20+ meters visibility (65ft). The coral life seemed healthy, mostly hard corals and small sea fans. Temperatures were comfy at around 28°C (82°F) and almost no currents.
By the way, we don't travel with our underwater camera case, so the few photos here are from our previous dives (or the web). The fish life was very scarce though. We've only saw a few schools of Fusiliers, no Travellies, Barracudas, Surgeons, etc. Also small fish were few in numbers. The reefs actually felt a bit like many towns in Honduras after 6pm: deserted!
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| Juvenile spotted drum fish: source: Wikipedia |
We've also saw a turtle during each of the first two dives, and were later told that this is a total stroke of luck – really? No Nemo's (clown fish) though... Actually, we've hardly seen any soft coral or anemones and zero nudibranches. Seeing a Nudi is apparently also a trophy here – Boy, were we spoiled in Asia!
The most unusual and coolest thing about diving in Utila was being there for the first "Lion Fish derby"… what in the world is that?
Lion Fish are not native to the Caribbean and have only few natural predators here. Actually the native groupers would eat them, but they are now severely over-fished in the Caribbean.
Hence, the lion fish are a pest and harm the eco-balance by eating up the juvenile reef fish (is that the reason why there are no fish here... Not over-fishing or pollution?)
But seriously, the lion fish really are a pest in the Caribbean, something that we didn't know before.
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| Wanted: dead or alive!! |
We couldn’t go out and hunt. As we arrived on Friday night and did not sign up with a dive shop until the derby was in full swing on Saturday. Anyway, only Dive Masters and Dive Master Trainees' were allowed to go for the kill. Others were only allowed to act a spotters and watchers. I think this is a good idea as I wouldn't want an over excited advanced rescue diver with only 16 dives shooting a 3 pronged spear in my direction!
We also didn't sample the Lion Fish at the cookout either. The refrigeration on the dive boats during the hunt and the island, for 2 days of storing them, is sketchy and we just didn't feel like risking food poisoning by a poorly refrigerated poisonous fish.
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| Takin' it easy: Utila style |
WHY? Why did we come to dive in Utila? If you asked yourself this question while reading the above, then you are absolutely right to think that we just love to complain... We hear you.
Actually what got us interested to come here was two things. 1st, 2nd, 3rd... 21st is that the Bay Islands: Utila and Roatán, are well known for frequent Whale Shark sightings. And since it's been a while since we last saw Whale Sharks in Donsol (check out our Blog post about that) and the fact that we never seen a Whale Shark while diving (not even at Richelieu Rock), we wanted to try in Utila, especially since May is high season for them. Our excitement was stopped dramatically when we were told that divers are not allowed in the area where the Whale Sharks normally are sighted and that seeing one while diving from Utila is as rare as winning the lottery. Bummer!!!
Now that we are here, we might as well go diving anyway. Hey maybe we can sign up for a PADI course in Whale Shark spotting, even better a "advanced, rescue, master Whale Shark spotting" course ;-). Pretty much the only way to see them is to sign up for a special whale shark sighting tour, since we've done that in Donsol we figured that we'd just go diving.
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| Typical Utila house: is it still under construction or falling apart? |
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| Prime property: Can you believe that this place is on the main street close to the ferry dock? |
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| There are also a few nice places on Utila, but they are rare. |
Some of these shabby houses actually have a lot of character and charm. On the other hand, there are a few mansions that stand out like sore thumbs, in a grandiose kind of way. These are often built by the "retired" western expatriates.
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| Don't look at me like that, I'm still going strong! |
In the daytime, the town is very quiet, most people are out diving or hiding from the hot sun (Siesta) but at night it gets a bit busy, restaurants and street side food vendors open up to the hungry tourist crowd (which has an average age of about 25 years). We don't really know if there is a big party scene here but judging by the hangovers from some of the "advanced" divers on our dive trips, we think there must be. Actually we found it fascinating that many of the backpackers seem to allocate their daily budget as follows: 25% for accommodation, 15% for food, 50% for beer and booze, and the remaining 10% for either aspirin or more booze, depending on the daily headache situation.
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| Sunset cocktail time |
After 5 days, it was time to head back to "real" Honduras, actually we are pretty much going straight to Nicaragua, an 810km (503 miles) road trip, with two overnight stops. First, we have to show our passport again to board the Ferry to La Ceiba. This ferry is the only option to get to and from Utila (besides chartering a plane or private boat or losing the dive boat and floating to mainland) so it's basically a monopoly and it shows. The ferry is called "Utila Princess"…sounds nice, eh!
Look at the picture to form own opinion. But we think it looks like a fishermen's friend tin box with two pontoons. And it certainly is a fishermen's friend. Many passengers feed the fish during the passage (hint: they did not plan on feeding fish). Note: Passengers are given nice empty plastic "lunch" bags upon bording.
This tin box does the ~1 hour crossing twice a day and charges 400 Lempiras (USD 22) for one way, making the "Utila Princess" worthy of the name...
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| The princess is arriving |
Just to give you an idea how expensive this boat is: An average Honduran earns about 6500 Lempira a year (that means he has to work for 4.5 days to spend 1 hour with the Princess) a big Tipico Lunch or Dinner costs ~80L and a room in an nice local business hotel ~300L.
But what we loved most was that the Princess has strict rules. "We don't wait for anybody, also not friends and family" was printed in large letters at the ticket booth in Utila. OK, fair enough she likes to leave on time. But shouldn't that go both ways? Can't passengers expect that she leaves on time then?
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| Inside the "royal chambers" |
Oh, I forgot, she's the Princess... Probably needed her royal beauty sleep.
The trip back to La Ceiba was 30 minutes delayed, hot (A/C still not working) and plenty of fish food was produced. We're back in real Honduras now and happy that we took a trip to Utila. This was actually the highlight of our travels through Honduras, Copán being a close (very different) second. Third was... hmmm let me think... hmmm... the food maybe?
From La Ceiba, we took a direct bus to the Capital Tegucigalpa (Tegus, as the locals call it). Fortunately, it was a rainy day and our 8 hour bus ride was for once comfortable, in temperature at least.
Tegus is a dangerous city, tourists are advised to be cautious and not walk on any streets after dark, and robberies at gunpoint are unfortunately not unheard of here. We stayed the night near the various Bus depots' area since we only came to Tegus to connect to a Nicaragua-bound bus the next morning. The area of Comayagüela where all the bus depots are has the following introduction by Lonely Planet: "Comayagüela is where the most of the bus terminals are. The area can be dodgy during the day and downright dangerous at night!...Comayagüela, which the US embassy portrays as only slightly less dangerous than a dark alley in Baghdad... "
If that doesn't give an uneasy feeling stomach, then the recent news that travel acquaintances of ours have been robbed at gunpoint during broad daylight in Panama City will do the rest. You can probably understand that we were "concerned". When we arrived in Tegus, we checked into a secure hotel near the Tica bus terminal from where we would leave in the morning and focused on getting two important tasks accomplished: Get the details on the Tica Bus to Nicaragua (schedule and cost) and get just enough Lempira out of the ATM to pay for the room, bus and dinner. ATM in an area like that? Yes, we know it's not a smart thing to do. But we had no choice. Neither the hotel nor the bus company would take credit cards. Actually the area didn't seem so bad. No bums or shady characters, enough hotels, a normal amount of armed guards, etc., but better safe than sorry.
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| Last night in Honduras. Back at the safety of our hotel |
We leave mixed feelings behind. Honduras has not quite been able to excite us as much as Guatemala did. The people here are very friendly and more approachable than the Mayan indigenous communities in Guatemala, but the country and landscape did not quite stack up to the WOW effects of Guatemala. We also have not seen the colorful clothing or diverse handicrafts or artistic ability here. Somehow it was all a bit faded and monotonous.
Many Travelers skip Honduras or go straight from Copán to Nicaragua, we understand why. If you are tight on time and budget it may be a good idea to focus on Guatemala and Nicaragua? (We don't know about Nicaragua yet, but heard only great feedback)
Goodbye Honduras!
