Utila - Part 1

I'm sorry that there hasn't been a post in a while. I've been incredibly busy since I arrived here on the island. Utila is one of the three Bay Islands of Honduras, located in the Caribbean, with beautiful sunny warmth and people that speak a difficult form of English. Its a mix of English, Spanish and the local Garifuna language, but when it comes out sounds much like a Jamaican accent but a lot less understandable at times It is a very big traveler stop and probably most famous for all the diving that can be done on the Meso American Reef which is the second largest reef in the world.
I took a ferry ride over to the island, which is the only real way unless you want to pay a stupid amount of money for a 15 min flight. The price of the ferry isn't much better ($23 for an hour long ride) When I got off and got my bags I don't think that I was quite ready for the madness that awaited me at the end of the dock. What happens is all of the dive shops on the island, of which there are probably 10 or 15, congregate at the end of the dock awaiting the new batch of travelers to try and sell them on their shop before they are picked up by another. So this means there is 20 or 30 dive shop employees trying to hand you pamphlets about them and why you need to choose their outfit. A couple times I just laughed because it was overwhelming all the commotion in the area. I decided to go with Alton's Dive Centre, because they offered me a free night to stay and a place to put my bags while I checked out the other shops of the island to choose which one I want to go with. So I set of and checked in at almost all the shops on the island collecting some information and prices, and they were all about the same. So I ended up staying with Alton's because it had a good friendly feel with a welcoming attitude. I signed up to do my Advanced Open Water course which would allow me to now max out my depth at 40m instead of 18m as well as get some practice in other areas of diving. The course was 7 dives in total. They included, peak performance buoyancy skills, navigation, deep, wreck, current, night and then a free fun dive at the end. In each of the dives we learned some basics about the specific type of dive. The reef here is incredible. I am really quite glad that I did my Open Water in Panama, because with a less impressive reef and terrible visibility it has made this time on the Meso American Reef even more mind blowing. The colour of the coral, visibility and abundant aquatic life has been truly amazing.
Another thing that makes Utila quite famous is the whale sharks that come around for a while in the month of April. They are the largest fish in the ocean and are remarkably beautiful, and so part of the reason for me coming to Utila was the prospect of getting to swim with these massive creatures. When I arrived there hadn't been any whale sharks sighted as of yet, which meant that they were a bit late. But after a day or two there had been a couple of sighting by some of the local fishermen, which got me quite excited. On my first day of diving, in between the first and second dives we were told that we were going to be going whale sharking! How exciting. The event of whale sharking is unlike anything Ive done and carries with it an incredible adrenaline rush. What happens is that the captain of the boat gets in contact with the other captains too see if there have been any sightings and where abouts they were. Then the go around and look for the boils of tuna. This is when the tuna swim in a circular motion trapping a bunch of tiny fish and force them up towards the surface. Once the tuna have reached the surface they all start jumping for the fish that they have trapped, ocean a look of boiling water. These are generally good indicators of where to find whale sharks because they eat the same type of small fish. When a boil is spotted we are all told to get down in two lines with our fins, mask and snorkel ready to go. Sitting on the deck in eager anticipation of what is to come we waited, and waited and waited, scanning boil after boil for a mouth of a whale shark as it goes vertical to eat or a dark shadow as it swims below. The silence is then quickly broken with shouts of GO! GO! GO! Its to the left! Everyone in the chaos pours into the water and starts swimming around trying to see it. The first one I saw was beautiful. I froze. This massive fish right in front of me, so calm and serene majestically moving through the water. I did no know what to do but sit and stare. I have never seen anything like that before let alone swim with it. After a bit of time with the whale shark it swam away and we were left floating alone in the deep blue of the ocean, as you look down and can't see a thing, but a deep and entrancing colour. That day we went for a few more jumps to try and see them and each time they blew me away. After getting in the boat we all recalled our personal experience and thoughts about what had just happened, all equally stunned. The next day when we went we had the same procedure. This time when we jumped in I didn't know where I was to be going and was left in s pile of bubbles. But when the bubbles cleared right beside me was a 40ft whale shark, had I reached out I could have touched it and actually had to move back so that I didn't hit it. The shark just sat there for a while with us curious as to his new visitors, even looking some of the people in the face as they had their cameras rolling and taking some incredible footage of these animals. Then again it slipped back into the deep blue and headed off on its own. This was probably one of the big highlights to my trip and something that I probably wont get the chance to do again.
Those experiences already made this tiny island an incredible stop for me but that wasn't the end. I have broken this up into two different parts and will post the rest in a few days. I hope that you have enjoyed and look forward to hearing from you

Thanks

Bye for now

Mike