Diving Utila

The Friday morning ferry to Utila was a pleasant trip until near the end when it started pouring rain and we all had to crowd inside. However it stopped raining just as we were pulling in to the dock. I was greeted at the dock by someone from Alton's which was a bit different than my arrival in Roatan when I almost didn't have a roof over my head the first night because the dive shop was closed when I got there at 5:30 PM. Utila is a backpacker's haven so they expect to have people show up on the ferry routinely. As it turns out the dive shop office actually stays open until 7 PM because they have classes going on until after 6:00 sometimes, people arriving on the afternoon ferry that need to be organized, and the bar also stays open for post-dive drinks. I suppose I could have gone diving in the afternoon the first day, but elected to just take it easy and relax. So I pretty much whiled away the afternoon reading in the sun or the hammock on Alton's dock and doing a little swimming. They have a really great set up with a dock that has both a top deck (in the sun) and a bottom deck (shady with hammocks) at the end of it, a bar which also serves breakfast and lunch, 3 dive boats, a gear area, an office, and lots of dorms/rooms. We got stuck in a crappy room for some reason.. in a house which is off the water. Most of the rooms open right onto the dock which I am guessing means that they aren't as hot as our room! The three from the Jungle Lodge made it over on the afternoon ferry.

Saturday was my first day diving, and I made up for lost time by doing 4 dives. There is definitely less fish than in Roatan, but when you see stuff it tends to be cool stuff... like seahorses. Saw three on one dive!

Went for dinner Saturday night with a couple of Spanish guys (Borja and Yago) and a couple of English guys (Richard and Steve). We joined up with a German woman named Lisa that the Spanish guys knew because they had gone kitesurfing with her the previous day. This woman has been living on a boat in the Caribbean for 12 years!! She does kite surfing lessons and also rents out catamarans. Interesting life!! Apparently she doesn't like Germans so had to get away... We had a bit of a crazy night at a bar called Treetanic which is rather indescribable (you will have to wait for the photos). I won't go into details.. but I ended up losing my flip flops and having to hitch a ride on the back of a motorbike to get back to the dive shop in time to dive on Sunday morning... I was a bit hungover, but felt fine during the diving. We went to the north side of the island and it was quite rough... just as we were pulling back into Alton's after the diving was done, I lost it over the side of the boat. With the swells and everything we didn't do any searching for whale sharks. One guy (who was more hungover than me) actually spent the entire time on board getting sick. I have no idea how he managed to actually go diving, but he did! Hopefully we have better luck with the whale shark hunt tomorrow!