Honduras - the Bay Islands

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We hitched a ride with the French/Canadian couple, Pascal and Marie, who had embarked on a trip from Canada to South America in a customised four wheel drive Land Rover type thing. We left very early in the morning to try and catch the last ferry that same day from La Ceiba to the Bay Islands. We were now travelling in style: reclining on a double bed in the back of the truck. The journey was smooth but interupted by a very slow border crossing to Honduras and numerous police road blocks. The Honduran police seem totally obsessed with paperwork (or is that the bribes which result from having incorrect paperwork). Consequently we arrived in La Ceiba too late to catch the last ferry and had to spend the night there.

Early the next morning the four of us took the first ferry of the day to Utila and were pleased to be joined by Gal and Lee, an Israeli couple that Tina and I met in Lanquin (The underwater shots are courteousy of them). The ferry ride was terrible: the rough sea left the boat bucking around all over the place and there were a lot of green faces, mine included... On the way back Lee was prepared and had bought some seasickness pills, of which I took one and felt totally fine. I really recommend that you come prepared!

The Bay Islands, Utila in particular, are famous for diving and as the cheapest place in Central America to take diving courses. Tina was planning on taking her open water and Pascal, Marie, and I to do our Rescue Diver. The competition was pretty fierce so we shopped around, negotiated a little, and managed to get our courses with free accomadation, and four free fun dives each. We decided to go with Captain Morgans, as they seemed the most friendly and professional, had recommendations from other travellers, and were based on one of the small cays (islands) off the coast of Utila.

The action itself on Utila is centred around Utila town which is crowded with backpackers, polluted, and noisy due to golf karts and motor bikes screaming up and down the few small roads. There is, however, quite a party scene but as we were doing diving courses we weren't so interested in getting wasted every night. The six of us decided therefore to stay on the cay, which is quiet, less polluted, and free from sandflies (quite a problem on Utila). It was a good decision as the cay accomadation and the environment were much nicer. Snorkelling or diving from the dock there were coral, reef fish, barracuda, squid. There was a more intimate community of divers and more interaction with the locals.

The locals of the Bay Islands were an interesting bunch. Both English and Spanish are spoken on the islands as they formed part of British Honduras along with Belize. The English speaking residents are apparantly descendents of British pirate communities, who speak English with a peculiar Carribean accent with a twang of something like Cornish. Roatan, the larger neighbouring island to Utila has a large black population, forceably relocated by the British from San Vincente.

The diving courses were very good and I enjoyed learning how to retrieve divers from under the water, tow them to shore, do first aid etc. I enjoyed the fun dives that I did in Utila and saw some beautiful things and well preserved coral, but there was a distinct lack of fish. This may have something to do with the area surrounding the islands not being part of a marine reserve and the islanders traditionally deriving their main income from fishing. Unfortunately the fish are all on peoples' plates and not in the sea. This is probably the best first hand experience I've had of why we should take great care about what fish we eat, if any at all. The other reason why I wasn't as satisfied by the diving as I would have liked to be is that the previous diving I've done has been in areas with excellent biodiversity in some of the best sites in the world - Borneo, Malaysia, and Australia - and I was expecting something similar.

After our courses had finished, we spent a night on the main island so we could check out some of the bars. The next day we did a couple of fun dives in the morning and then sadly Tina had to leave to begin her journey back home to Germany. I stayed a final night on the island and then the following morning hitched a ride in Gal and Lee's car to Tegucigalpa to continue my journey alone....

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Comments

[Lesley Stableford]

lovely photos hun. You look so different with a moustache! Nice top, where did you get that? x