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Been another busy week here in Utila and has been very hot other than a couple of days when a storm passed over us, did not rain but was very windy. This meant that 3 of the volunteers who were due to leave were stuck here as the ferry was not running.


A new couple arrived this week, Dave and Ann from Liverpool (The Wirral) and the previous week Linus a 20 yr old German who is now my room mate. He speaks excellent English and walks around bare foot finding bugs and snakes!

He had a tarantula in his hand this week, he brought a surfboard with him too, though I don’t think there is anywhere to surf due to the reef!

We had finally completed the school house, looks pretty cool and so we had the opening of the school house on Wednesday, with 40 visitors including school teachers and principals etc the house was blessed and they were presented the history of the station and then cut the opening ribbon (hisbiscus flower chain! Nice touch Linus!) followed by some baleadas, salsa, sandwiches and fruity punch, some of us sneaked some vodka into our punch.lol

Glad it finished was getting fed up with the painting and be nice to do some other stuff around the station, me and Dave are going to have a “leaky week” and fix all the water leaks and also fix some of the push bikes.

On Friday we released some of the juveniles back into the mangroves.
We had 120 here and released 70 of them. Some school children came in the morning and watched us catch the iguanas from their cage and put them into bags.

We then (leaving the kids!) walked an hour and a half to the black mangroves where we released a few at a time onto the mangrove floor or onto trees, strangely they did not run off but just sat there, maybe a bit of a shock being carried there and the new strange, but natural, environment.


Of course Terry came as well following us over fossilized coral and into the mangroves (had to carry him over one bit!) he stayed with us most of the time but then disappeared but he was safe back at the station when we returned about 3 in the afternoon hot and tired, us that is.

He gave me a big hug when he saw me, he stand on his hind legs and puts his front legs around my leg, like they do sometimes and do sexual things to your leg (for those who have had the experience lol) but then snuggles his head into my leg weird!

He follows all of the volunteers if they go off somewhere, last week some of them went to the Freshwater caves and he followed them all the way and got thrown into the water for a wash.


Once we had released the juveniles we continued through the mangroves carrying out a transect (counting and indentifying iguanas in trees).


When we got back to the station we had lots of visitors so had to give a tour even though was knackered. Also had a television film crew here as we had found a snake in our botanical garden which turns out to be a brand new species for the island!

Discovered a new drink last week “giffiti” a blend of a sort of schnapps with various herbs and roots etc in it, some use 21 different plants including marijuana roots!

Tastes bloody awful but does the trick lol mind you Dave, Linus, Ann and myself have been buying bottles of Honduran vodka for 2 pound a bottle and seem to have gained a collection of empty bottles already!

Been looking forward to chilling on the beach this weekend to lose the t shirt tan as have either been diving, working or cloudy last few weekends, onlt to wake up this morning to see it cloudy again but hot.


Got 3 new volunteers next week, 2 blokes and a woman (2 brits and one Israeli).

You will be pleased to know no more dodgy hats as have been given a baseball cap to wear, hooray! Dave cut my hair the other night too quite funny as halfway through his clippers ran out so had half a hair cut until it could be charged up again, look a bit like a tennis ball! Gibbo haircut.lol

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