Birthdays and Bliss in the Bay Islands

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After hitching a ride to the Honduras border from El Salvador, it took a few hours for another vehicle to come through going our way. Finally a nice pickup pulled up and the customs officials arranged for us to drive with them to the next big city, about 3 hours away. Once we were in the truck we noticed a suspicious amount of guns. Not only were all four men toting pistols, but one of them stood seemingly on guard in the box holding a rifle. Apart from Britt being convinced we were in a drug smuggling truck, the Hondurans were very friendly to us as well as soccer obsessed. About 30 minutes in, the driver picked up two Honduran soldiers, each armed with a machine gun and pistol, making this the most heavily armed space we have ever been in. The good news, we figured, is that whatever was up, at least the army was on our side.

The following day we bused for many hours and swore we´d prefer anything at that point but being on another bus. However, 15 minutes of being on the ferry to the Bay Islands quickly changed our minds. The realization of what all those plastic bags they were handing out were for quickly dawned on us, along with a great desire not to have to use them. A very rolling 1h30min later we were on still ground in Utila, the smaller and cheaper of the three Bay Islands.

After shopping around at all the different dive shops we finally chose Captain Morgan´s dive shop because it was found on a nearby, quieter caye (Jewel Caye), away from all the crazy golf cart and scooter drivers on Utila.

Our week on Jewel Caye was wonderful. We dove everyday, sometime twice a day and did a fair bit of snorkling as well. Britt got the best deal around by ending up being the only one in her PADI Open Water class, so had one-on-one instruction the whole week. Andrew completed his PADI Advanced certification and enjoyed his dives as well. One dive was made especially memorable when the instructors of our two groups secretly arranged to have our groups intersect underwater and held up a slate with ¨Happy Birthday¨ for Britt and took birthday pictures of the two of us under water. Apparently the first rule in diving (never, ever hold your breath) doesn´t apply when taking pictures. They kept having us retake the pic as the bubble were ¨getting in the way.¨

Our week of spotting beautiful underwater ocean life, almost seeing a whale shark (so close!!), sampling the local cuisine flew by and we were quickly on the bus again on our way to Nicaragua.

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Photos

Happy Birthday!
Britt´s 23rd, underwater.

A good bike goes down with its ship
Every ship wreck needs its bicycle.

Getting the Low Down
Andrew getting instruction for his first official deep water dive.

Jewel Caye Home
Our home for the week, conveniently included in the dive package.

An Island, Anyone?
The island on the right (Sandy Caye) is availble to rent for only 80$ per night. Spring break trip anyone?

Go!
Britt´s first suba entry.

Down Under
The ship wreck Andrew explored on his deep water dive.

Why hello geourgous!
A nice big grouper.

Jesus Was A Pirate?
Decoration in the Bridge
Also written:
If you swam through here you pay a price. Leave an offering to the sea, make the Haliburton nice.
Apparently vegemite is an adequate offering.

A Fairy Basslet Fish
Sought after for salt water aquariums. Britt´s favorite!

Parrot fish
These guys were everywhere.

Whale Shark Watch
This was a boat nearby ours, scouting out a whale shark. You can usually spot a whale shark by first spotting the ´boil´--where birds are flying around and tuna are jmping all over eating the small fish that eat the plume of plankton. Whale sharks also eat the plankton and are often found in these ´boils.´ We were in the midst of the boil (tuna were jumping up everywhere) but no whale shark was spotted.

Little Ray
Andrew chased this guy around while snorkeling.