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Published: April 17th 2011
Utila is a tiny island 29km off the north coast of Honduras and is home to around 2800 permanent residents clustered around a half moon shaped bay. Originally a British colony the local (largely white) Utilians still speak an English dialect with a heavy Caribbean twang; in 1859 Utila was ceded back to Honduras by Queen Victoria and the issue still occupies the local consciousness, my landlady asked me bluntly "why your queen give us away, we no want be given away. Fifty most important men on the i-land wrote to her - includin' my great gran daddy - but she no listen." I apologized for my former queen's lack of judgment & she seemed satisfied. The island is changing rapidly, Latinos from the mainland make up an ever increasing part of the population, probably drawn by the expansion of tourism over recent years, despite this the island has retained a laid back feel.
Utila is at the southern end of the Meso-American Barrier Reef and like much of the Caribbean coast offers spectacular scuba diving, the added draw of the island are the whale sharks which frequent the surrounding waters from Match to April each year (more on that
Pumpkin Hill
The view down from the only small hill on the island.later). I came to Utila primarily to complete a Dive Master, the highest level of Scuba Diving qualification below instructor; the course involved working in a dive shop as a kind of intern. As well as being taught a lot more in depth (pun intended) dive theory the DMT's (dive master trainees) are expected to help in the dive shop, look after customers and get the dive boat ready each day.
One part of the DM course was the development of both skin and scuba diving skills designed to increase ones skill and confidence in the water, a couple of these skills were particularly challenging. The first was called the skin diver ditch & don which involved diving down to three metres in snorkeling gear, removing the mask and fins, resurfacing for a breather then diving back down, donning the gear, clearing the water from the mask on the way up & surfacing with your face in the water while breathing through the snorkel; it may not sound like much but it was very tricky in practice (it took one DMT 2 weeks and 17 attempts to do it). The other skill of note was called the scuba bailout,
Head Stone
Walking round the coast I found this sea rock, looks like a head to me anyway. this one involved jumping off the end of the dock clutching your scuba gear with the air turned off, sinking down to three metres then putting on all the scuba equipment correctly underwater, the instructors were very scrupulous, anything out of place and you had to redo the whole exercise. The time between hitting the bottom and getting the air turned on was quite nerve racking, especially as the sand turned the water into pea soup on impact and you weren't wearing a mask. Overall the dive master course was great fun, I gained a lot of dive experience and met some really great people in the dive shop, plus I'm now qualified to work as a Dive Master anywhere in the world.
I should probably mention the final requirement to becoming a Dive Master; it's called the 'Snorkel Test' and was like a freshers' week initiation ceremony. I had to sit in front of the dive shop bar in my snorkel, mask and fins - looking like a bit of a plonker - with the instructor behind me; then for the first part of the test he poured beer into my mask so that I could demonstrate a
Ragged Cay
One of the many small cays surrounding Utila correct mask clearance, for the second part of the test I had to drink an irresponsible amount of alcohol through a snorkel modified with a large funnel, I assume I passed but in truth much of the evening that followed is still a bit of a blur.
DMTs could go diving whenever there was space on the boat, and as the whole circumference of Utila is dotted with 60 dive sites I was out almost every day finding some unoccupied spot to explore. Over six weeks I saw most of the varied reef that encompasses the island, the north side was typified by steep coral walls and the south by islands of coral interspersed over a sandy shore. Occasionally we would stop on one of the small cays surrounding the island for our surface interval (break between dives), one's was called Pigeon Cay and is completely covered by ramshackle houses on the water front, must be a very strange place to live. The reef itself was beautiful if a bit worn down by the dive traffic, much of the local corals are soft (so appear plant-like rather than rock-like) and move with the ocean swell, where large areas of
these soft corals grow together they look like a well tended underwater gardens. The animal life here is equally impressive, green turtles, moral eels, massive groupers and the occasional nurse sharks all inhabit the reef although my favorite must be the Eagle Rays, they appear to fly through the water and are covered in such a beautiful white dappled pattern that I could swim with them for hours.
Occasionally the larger inhabitants of the reef are accompanied by a smaller fish called a remora. These fish hitchhike a ride for safe transport and leftovers; whereas they usually favor sharks or rays, on one dive a remora decided I had sufficient proportions and adopted me as protector throughout the dive; the poor chap must have been a bit confused when I climbed back aboard the boat. Eagle Rays are a particular favorite for the ramora but sometimes they get so sick of their unwanted guests that they launch themselves by more than a metre out of the water in order to be free of them; it's quite a sight.
I had to complete several practical training modules as part of my dive master such as recovering objects from the
sea floor and learning how to lead divers, one of the modules was Hunting & Collecting. Usually this would not interest me on principle but Utila is a special case, lion fish are common here but are an invasive species and are voracious predators, as such they are fair game for target practice. I was taught to use a Hawaiian sling, a three pronged spear powered by a loop of rubber tubing, it's great fun. The technique I learnt was to swim slowly toward the lion fish without exhaling while holding the spear out in front fully drawn in one hand, once within a few inches of the fish I released the sling which shot forward with surprising power, I had a few false starts but soon got the hang of it and had a couple of tasty lion fish suppers.
Night diving is an experience apart from diving during the day, the underwater scenery and animal life looks and behaves quite differently. For me the best part is the bioluminescent plankton which is only visible at night and which emits a wide range of phosphorescence; every movement underwater is traced by a shower of small lights produced when
'The Canal'
The water was so still the mangroves formed a very pretty tunnel of greenery. the plankton are disturbed, swimming backwards you can see a trail of lights spiraling off the tips your fins. On one night dive I was swimming without a torch and noticed something different, in the distance a few plankton were falling gently though the water flashing a bright vivid blue, moving closer the slow moving rain of lights multiplied until they were falling by the hundred all around me in a dazzling display. Floating weightless in a pitch black ocean surrounded by such an astounding natural wonder gave me a sense of complete serenity, as my friend Hutch would say "it rebalanced the ch'i".
Occasional the dive shop organized trips beyond the local reefs, one such trip was to Cayos Cochinos; two tiny islands two hours by boat east of Utila. The reef surrounding these two small islands is protected from commercial fishing and exists in a strict marine reserve, as such the reef teems with life, every surface was covered with large healthy corals and the schools of fish are of a size and number unlike anywhere else on the bay islands, it was a wonderful place to visit, it's only sad to think that the reef around
Utila was probably once as beautiful. After the reef we visited the nearby islands only inhabitants, the Garifuna, they all live in an idyllic fishing village called Chachauate right on the beach. The Garifuna are the descendants of thousands of black Caribbean dumped on Roatan by the British following a rebellion on St Vincent in 1797, the decedents of these original castaways have spread up the coast of Guatemala and Belize where i had previously encountered them. The 100 or so residents of the Cayos treated us to a performance of traditional dance and music which was great fun.
Having so much time on a small island I had lots of time to explore all the sights. Much of the island is covered by savanna and thick mangrove swamps but there are also areas of pasture and hardwood forest. Around the main town there are several lagoons which lead into the mangroves, one called Oyster Bay Lagoon narrowed into a channel through the mangroves known locally as 'the canal', this man made route cut straight across the island. My dive shop offered free kayaks for staff so one morning I got up before dawn and set out with a
fellow Brit exploring. After crossing the main bay we found our way into the lagoon and eventually the 'canal' which was really a bit of a misnomer, it was very narrow, only 6' wide in places and a few inches deep, the mangroves lined both sides of the waterway and if we weren't getting tangled in the branches we were grounding ourselves on the sand, all great fun. There was not much bird life on the trip but we did see hundreds of hermit crabs and a few iguanas lining the surrounding branches. One of the nicest parts was that the water ahead of us was like a mirror and formed a perfect reflection of the overhanging mangroves, this gave the illusion of paddling through a circular tunnel of greenery. 'The Canal' delivered us into Rock Harbor on the north side of the island after an hours paddling, accessible only by bike or boat this part of the island is completely uninhabited & had lots of secluded beaches, covered in plastic obviously but still nice.
Over my many afternoons off I visited most of Utila's attractions including an iguana breeding station, freshwater springs buried in caves beneath a raised
Sponge Bath?
The sponges round the island are usually tall tubes like this one.
field of dead coral and of course Utila's highest point, Pumpkin Hill. The hill is an almost circular bump of rock on the east end of the island, it's covered in thick trees and meadows and while its not much of a climb it did afford great panoramic views across the island. My best excursion was out past the airport to the wrecked carcass of a drug smugglers jet which crashed into the forest fourteen months ago. The tale goes that some smugglers had 2000kg of cocaine aboard the jet and were being pursued by the coast guard, so rather than risk loosing the cargo they were flying low and without lights, unfortunately for them the plane clipped the tree tops and crashed into the forest breaking into three pieces on the way. It was great fun crawling over the fuselage and getting a good look at the mangled jet engines. The plane is hidden well in the forest and its only because successive dive masters have shown each other the location that anyone knows where to find it, apparently the police found the smugglers alive in the wreck and told the press they burned the cocaine on site however
Tower Coral
Very impressive coral formations, like underwater skyscrapers one of the instructors went to have a look a couple of days after the crash and found only a small scorch mark on the earth, hardly enough to get rid of two tonnes of cocaine???
So, Whale Sharks, biggest fish in the sea, everyone comes to Utila to see them, one of the main reasons I chose to do my Dive Master here. I had six weeks diving in the peak season and managed to see... not a sausage. It's not as if they weren't around, almost everyone else saw at least one, one bugger got in the water with them on three out of his four boat trips, I just always seemed to be on the wrong boat, by the end of my time on the island I was known by the captains as the Whale Shark Repellent and customers were asking to go on the other boat to increase their chances, oh well, such is life...
I greatly enjoyed by time on Utila but it's a very small island and I still have a long way to go. I'm quite looking forward to getting back on the road, especially as Rachel's coming out to see
me for two whole weeks!!
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George
non-member comment
well done
This is a blog and a half, very interesting, sorry about the Whale shark disappearance, at last a fish of your size and no success. Must look up the lion fish.