Adventures in Utila, Honduras (or) Fact: Scuba divers have more fun (or) I swam with a WHALE SHARK – have YOU??

Soooooo after a FANTASTIC and VERY tiresome week in Honduras I’ve FINALLY made it back to NPH in one piece! AND…surprise surprise…the reason for our impromptu trip across the border was…to get SCUBA DIVING CERTIFIED!

One of our fellow volunteers, Jonas, and some of his friends had gone to Utila to get scuba diving certified about 2 months ago and had HIGHLY recommended it. When Sam told me about it, it definitely sounded appealing, but also VERY expensive and SCARY! What to do, what to do? I thought about it for a solid 3 weeks before deciding it was something I shouldn’t miss out on.

We left for Utila last Thursday morning (the 18th) at 3 am to get to Antigua for our 4 am shuttle…that didn’t show up until almost 5 – hooray for Guatemala time! We boarded the bus and were literally on bus after bus after bus from 5 am until 10 pm, when we arrived at the coast of Honduras, a town called La Cieba. We spent the night there and caught the first boat out to the island of Utila at 9 am. I think none of us were too happy about catching the boat, as we could literally see the 10 foot waves crashing over the windows…luckily none of us got sick, but we definitely thought long and hard about it…

When we arrived on Utila, we knew exactly what we were looking for – someone holding a sign for “Cross Creek Utila” aka the dive center. We found them in a matter of seconds, they took our bags, and we made the pleasant 5 minute walk to the dive shop. From there, we were told to grab a quick lunch and put our suits on as we’d be getting in the water in about an hour. WHAT??!? AREN’T WE SUPPOSED TO WATCH VIDEOS OR LEARN SOMETHING BEFORE WE’RE THROWN INTO THE OCEAN WITH SCUBA TANKS?!??

We went across the way to “Big Mama’s House” to get the most delicious chicken wraps for lunch and then headed to our own private little house to get ready…


Our awesome little house (even if it was cockroach infested!)


Mangrove trees that grew at the back of our house!


The dive masters house at sunset – note the awesome paintings

Our instructor, Tina, (who was consequently from Huntington, NY, graduated the same year as us, AND we had friends in common on LI – go figure!?) assured us that it was perfectly safe to get in the water without first having the introductory lessons…so we thought – well, here goes nothing! We went out with 2 trained dive masters Tina – our instructor, and Steve – an Aussie who had just gotten certified and liked to play a LOT of practical jokes underwater, and then Isaac, who was in the middle of his dive master certification, as well as 3 others getting dive certified - David and Tonya, a couple from Switzerland, and Sam, a girl from London – overall a very awesome group of people :)

Me, Sam, and Carrie with Steve-O!


Me and Carrie in the water (I’m the idiot with the mask still on…) with Steve, Tina, and Isaac

The first time breathing through a regulator under water was well…scary…and new…and interesting…but mostly just scary! Our first 2 times out, we were in “confined water” (aka REALLY shallow) and we practiced all the basics such as: filling our mask with water and emptying it, breathing with a buddy, taking our mask off and putting it back on, taking our gear off and putting it on, taking out our regulators (what you breathe through) and finding them again, swimming without a mask, etc, etc. COOL STUFF.

Nicole, me, Sam, and Carrie ready for our first dive!

Over the course of the next few days, we went on 6 dives and became PADI Open Water Certified (which means that we can dive down to 18m). Not only that but we saw a TON of cool stuff! We saw: lobsters, crabs, a WALL of squid (seriously like 60 of them – think “Finding Nemo”-esque), lionfish (which was bad because they’re actually an invasive species that’s destroying the reef…booooo), trumpetfish, cowfish, drumfish, angelfish, parrotfish, Moray eels (SCARY looking fellas), an entire FIELD of garden eels (the little guys that look like snakes sticking up through the sand on the ocean floor), and TONS and TONS of beautiful coral. Utila is actually located in the Caribbean Sea in the middle of the Mesoamerican barrier reef system, which is the second largest in the world…that being said, I think it’s gunna be hard to go scuba diving after seeing so many beautiful things so clearly on our first adventure!

Look at how CLEAR that water is :)


Me, Sam, Nicole, and Carrie ready to get in the water!


With my awesome new log book!

SPEAKING of…so while we were out, our AWESOME boat driver, Cookie, got a call to say that there were dolphins swimming around and did we want to go snorkeling with them. WHAT KIND OF A QUESTION IS THAT?? Even though at this point I was keeled over on the boat COMPLETELY seasick – how could I say no? I jumped in with the rest of them and got to swim around with some bottlenose dolphins for a bit :)


DOLPHINS!

After that, Cookie got another call – there was a “boil” in the water and people were looking for whale sharks. We proceeded to the boil (which is when there is a lot of plankton and krill on the top of the ocean, so lots of little fish come to eat it, which brings bigger and bigger fish, and eventually whale sharks…) after an unsuccessful trip, we were a little discouraged. Oh well, maybe another time…

The next day we went out for a BEAUTIFUL day of diving and in between dives, Cookie got another call – a whale shark had been spotted! We headed out to the boil and watch as its tailfin sliced the water and Cookie yelled “GET IN GET IN GET IN GET IN – YOU AIN’T GOT NO TIME TO PUT ON YOUR WET SUITS JUST GET IN GET IN GET IN!!” So here we were, scrambling on the bow of the boat to find our fins and snorkeling gear, so that we could jump into the ocean with a shark. Granted, whale sharks aren’t carnivorous, but still….WHAT WERE WE THINKING???

What were we thinking?? That this would probably be one of the coolest natural things we would ever get to do – swimming with the world’s largest fish in the middle of the ocean – a once in a lifetime experience. While I must admit that I was terrified, I wouldn’t have stayed on the boat for anything. Watching that beautiful creature (who was small for her size at only about 12-15 feet long) swim in the ocean was an incredible sight that I won’t soon forget. When we got back to the island after our second dive, Nicole and I headed to the whale shark research station on the island and told the guy what we had seen…I think he was more excited than we were! He also told us it was the first whale shark sighting in over 2 months on Utila (which is usually known for being a good place to see them) – and we were the lucky ones that got to spot it! How AWESOME!

WHALE SHARK (look at that tail slicing the water! CRAZY!)


Carrie and Nicole standing in front of a painting of a WHALE SHARK!

After coming back from our last dive, we headed out to dinner with everyone for some pizza and then the 4 of us went to a bar called “Treetanic” which Jonas had told us about…boy were we upset that we only got to see it at night. What Jonas described as a “really cool bar” turned out to be one of the coolest places I’ve ever seen in my life. It turns out that this tree-house bar was started by a local somewhere between 15-20 years ago, and he has just continuously built in and around it. You walk up a set of stairs and find yourself in a magical fairytale land where EVERYTHING has been turned into something sparkling and beautiful with seashells, colored glass, and recyclables – incredible….the pictures could never do it justice, but here’s an attempt…

Decorated stairs at “Treetanic”…


Sam and Carrie under a decorated archway at Treetanic :)

After a FANTASTIC, yet quite fun packed and incredibly tiring week, we slowly made our way back to the border (where we celebrated Thanksgiving (kind of) with pad thai and saying things like “I’m grateful we saw that WHALE SHARK” and “I’m grateful we didn’t die while scuba diving!” and “I’m REALLY grateful we saw that WHALE SHARK!”) and then back to Guatemala (with LOTS of return travel pitfalls – buses not running at the correct time, taxi drivers wanting to charge $70 more than they said, full shuttles that force us to leave HOURS later than planned). We arrived back in Antigua on Thanksgiving night around 8 pm. Having missed my awesome prize with my aniversario team (they had gone to see Harry Potter – and I missed it! Que lastima!) I was a little bummed, but we got a ride back with an NPH bus who had gone to McDonald’s with some of the other winning teams and enjoyed the adventure of watching all the teenagers sit wayyyy too close and having to have the volunteers sit between them :-P.

Through all of the terror, shock, awe, and crazy sightings, my week in Honduras turned out to be a fantastic adventure with some awesome friends :).

Sunset off Utila :)