Utila Island

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Hey all,

We bussed from Copan all the way to La Ceiba 2 days ago which took 8 hours and then another hour for the ferry from La Ceiba to Utila Island. It was a pretty terrible day because although I never get car sick in Canada, here I am consistently feeling like crap in the buses and also seasick on the ferry because it´s a small ferry and it was pretty choppy. Another thing that made the day so crappy is that some asshole through a rock through the window on the bus right in front of us and glass flew right into our faces. We were okay but freaked out because at first, we thought we were being shot at. However, tonight I learned that on the same bus route from San Pedro to La Ceiba a grenade was thrown through a bus window and I feel lucky that ours was just a rock. So consequently, we are rethinking our original plan to bus all the way through Honduras, including the capital city, to Nicaragua. The elections are coming up this weekend and apparently shit could hit the fan.

Utila is a beautiful island where everyone is really chill and there are tons of scuba diving schools. When you get off the ferry here, they are all over you with pamphlets. We didn´t really have a plan getting off but heard that Gunter´s Dive Shop was good and ended up there. So far we really like it and would definitely recommend it! The people are very nice and we are feeling confident in the teachers. Yesterday was our first whole day here and we spent the morning going over theory and the afternoon, we took a trip to a pirate cave, viewpoint overlooking the whole island (Pumpkin Hill) and the beach. A lot of foreigners own beach houses here so it´s very multiultural but everyone seems to have have the same attitude - don´t work too hard or sweat anything. Apparently this island is also a refueling station for planes filled with coke heading from Columbia to the States. One crashed on the island just a few weeks ago.

Today we did our first dive which was in fairly shallow water and it´s a very strange feeling to be breathing under water. Tomorrow afternoon, we are diving deeper and learning some more skills. So far, it´s been a cool experience!

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