Saturday, December 27, 2008

Utila - Getting There and the Diving

Utila is one of the Bay Islands of Honduras which sit in the Caribbean off the mainland town of La Ceiba on the east side of the country. Utila is a small island with a scrappy little town containing a strange mix of Islanders, Hondurans, expats (from all over the Americas and the world), and backpacker-type tourists. The draw is diving. Utila is reported to be the cheapest (and funnest) place to get certified in SCUBA and boasts the largest barrier reef in the world after Australia's great barrier reef. There is superb snorkeling and diving all around the island, many reputable dive companies, and for about $275 US you can leave the island PADI certified to dive in open water anywhere in the world. Getting There For me, this adventure started with the usual early morning van pick-up at 4:00am in Antigua, getting to the Guatemala City airport about an hour later. Unfortunately, there is no direct flight to La Ceiba and I was required to take three flights (via San Salvador and San Pedro Sula) to get to the coast (a direct flight would be less than two hours, instead I spent the better part of a day travelling). The last flight from San Pedro Sula was in a stuffy little prop plane which flew low and I got a nice view of the lush Honduran country side and the Caribbean as we flew over the mountains, jungle, and into La Ceiba. I arrived in La Ceiba at the tail end of a huge storm that precipitated massive flooding in the city. The mountains sitting tall to the west feed many rivers that flow to the coast and in the cab ride from the airport we drove across the bridges and saw the swollen rivers below. I met my friend Andie (from the States) at a hotel in La Ceiba where we hung out in the bar for a few minutes watching the local news coverage of the floods. There was footage of men standing next to their homes in chest-deep water, people in boats in the middle of flooded streets, and rivers swollen and cresting. The ferry to Utila had not been running for two days because of rough seas. We had lunch at the hotel and prayed the seas would calm so we could get to Utila the next day as planned. Luck was with us and the morning ferry was running on time although the seas where not exactly calm. I sat on the port bow and got splashed as we crashed into the waves until I finally hunkered down, sitting on my backpack behind a bench for shelter (see pic of me peeking into the cabin as Andie snapped this shot). A young brown-skinned girl, about 12 years old, sat on the bow, head down, holding a plastic grocery bag which she periodically vomited into. Andie went inside the ferry cabin and later shared that many folks inside were also vomiting. I loved the salty spray and the smell of the sea and the feel of the Caribbean under the bare-bones barge-like ferry. I am very thankful that in all my years spent on boats I have never once been seasick. At the municipal dock on Utila we were greeted by the lovely Vicki and Jim, two retired corporate execs from the states. They manage the little house I rented (among many other more grand properties) and were incredibly sweet as they put our bags on their golf cart and drove us through the dirty little town and situated us in the "Boat House" at the end of the main street. The house was adorable and built over the water, on stilts, with a dock and steps to the sea. Vickie and Jim offered advice on where to eat, drink, snorkel, etc. Andie and I lounged on the dock and started to better acclimate to the tropical heat and humidity. I unpacked, but Andie did not, since her bag had been lost in a debacle that precipitated her own little Central American adventure. Andie had been scheduled to arrive in La Ceiba a day before me but was stalled by a freak snow storm in Houston. She eventually made it to San Pedro Sula but the flight to La Ceiba was cancelled and she found herself stranded in this scrappy Honduran City. It is not exactly a tourist destination. On the flight to San Pedro Sula Andie had met a nice Honduran man who worked in the states quite a bit but lived with his family in La Ceiba. After landing, the sweet man took pity on Andie and offered her a ride to La Ceiba as his wife had driven, with their 3 kids, to San Pedro Sula to collect her husband. After about 3 hours of driving, and a quick stop at the store to buy Andie a toothbrush, the family made Andie comfortable for the night in their back-house apartment. Andie met me in La Ceiba on time but her bags took 3 more days to make it to Utila. I lent her some t-shirts and underwear and we spent a couple days walking the island and exploring (see pic of me standing by the tree unknowingly being voraciously eaten by sand flies)....waiting for her bag which contained our masks, snorkels, and fins. At last the goods arrived, Andie rejoiced in having clothes, and we grabbed our gear and hit the water. Diving What a thrill! Andie and I signed up with Cross Creek Diver Center and started our classes in a little wooden classroom watching videos and taking quizzes on the rules and equipment. Our instructor was an adorable little French Canadian man nicknamed Bisquit. He has logged over 800 dives and knows his stuff. And he was just so cute and funny making even the tedious parts of the class entertaining. We assembled and inspected and worked our equipment on the dock while Bisquit made hilarious little sound affects as he demonstrated how stuff worked. We picked wetsuits and made up weight belts and packed our gear onto the stocky bright yellow dive boat. Mer plus the sea plus a boat plus the tropics equals one happy Mer. Standing on the toe rail holding onto the side of the cabin, half hanging over the sea, salty wind in my face...I was a happy gal as we punched through the waves towards the dive spot. Once tied up to the mooring buoy we donned our gear which was incredibly awkward with the BCD (buoyancy control device) vest, a heavy weight belt, air tank, mask and fins. An instructor helped us stand and walk to the back of the boat which was a low platform for "easy" entry. We were instructed to just take a big step off the boat holding our regulator, mask, and weight belt. Sounds simple but ones center of gravity is grossly changed with this gear. I was a complete spaz the first three times falling in at odd angles completely out of control....once doing a face-flop and losing my mask and snorkel. My fourth entry was good. My last four entries were perfect and I am sure I was the picture of grace (well, sorta). We spent time in the shallows practicing skills including breathing slowly and deeply with our regulators, clearing our masks, taking our masks off and swimming around blindly then refitting them, clearing our regulators, buddy breathing, and the most challenging of all, managing our buoyancy using our BCDs and our breathing (see pic of me trying to breathe my way off the sandy bottom). Our dives had us swimming over unending reefs with the occasional patches of white coral sand. We saw tons of fan coral and brain coral and tropical fishes. Highlights included seeing a green moray eel, two large rays (one of which I swam behind for a bit) and a large spiny lobster nestled into the reef. The air was always tropical warm and the water was relatively warm so we wore only shorty wetsuits and waiting to get into the water we heated up requiring a dousing with a bucket of sea water. Two of our dives got us to 60 feet...a very strange feeling indeed. It is a wonderful world that ultimately felt quite familiar. Over the years many people have told me, given my passion for the sea and snorkeling, that I should learn to dive. They were right. And all I can say now is, better late than never. NOTE: We had a sweet Japanese man in our class (just the 3 of us and Bisquit). See pick of me, Japanese guy and Bisquit. I have more pics (these are Andies) but I can't seem to download them from my camera. Will post more when I figure it out.

No comments: