A long awaited dive trip to Utilla and Roatan Honduras is finally here! Bob and I flew out of Boston VERY early Nov 17 bound for Honduras. Other than our ride failing to pick us up at 3:30am (luckily Bob was awake enough to drive himself!) the trip went pretty smoothly. We were greated in Honduras by members of the Aggressor staff who quickly wisked us through the airport and onto the rather small commuter plane (8 seats, plus pilot) that would take us another 20-some miles to the island of Roatan. A small van ride then took us the short distance over rather bumpy roads to the boat that would be our home for the next week.
We have a small group of divers. While the boat can accommodate 14 guests, we number only 9. Geoffrey and Patricia from Columbus, Ohio; Gary from New Jersey; Bob and I, then 4 rather wild men from Montreal. Our crew consists of 6 staff from various locations: Captian Troy is from Utila. 1st Mate Nestor, and cooks Candy & Marna are from Utilla. Our 2 dive masters consist of Courtney from Australia and Sasha from England. A rather mixed crowd that will keep us fairly entertained and well-fed during our stay.
We spent the first few days exploring off the small island of Utila. The island itself is quite small, approx 10 miles in length, very flat, yet quite green and lush. There are some lagoons in the island, and while they must be careful with their water, I do not think they have the water shortage issues many other Carribean islands face.
The reefs and dramatic sheer walls were incredible. While the water was a bit murky from recent (and current) rains, the reefs were spectacular. So very colorful, healthy and bountiful. An amazing collection of sponges and corals. One of our favorite 'treats' to see are the blue-bell turnicates that look like an amazing underwater flower. And we have never seen as many as in the reefs around Utila. At one point I actually complained that it was hard to know just 'what' to look at as there was so much to see. Bob got some fabulous photos throughout the week.
We saw a wide variety of fish - most of our favorites including many of the Angel fish, Durgeons, file fish, Ocean and queen triggers. One deep wreck dive was highlited by the crew feeding several huge groupers and a good size green moray eel. We 'heard' many of the toad fish on the twilight and evening dives... spent a good 10-12 minutes searching high and low on one dive to spot the critter to no avail. Guess that leaves us something to find on a future trip. One night dive treated us to a great view of anoctopus rolling over the sand, changing colors as he quickly tried to escape. Our very last dive gave us the opportunity to see sea horses! And YES to our non-diving friends, these are real creatures that live within the sea. So delicate and magical. This final dive also featured a group of 15 squid, a bat fish (sadly we missed him), silly-looking pipe fish, and many more of our lovely blue-bell tunicates.
2 interesting dives took us further off shore to a site called Black Hills. This is a sea mount located off Utila’s Pumpkin Hill on the Eastern point. Here divers had an amazing time with turtles, (both Hawksbill and Green), Ocean Triggerfish, Queen Triggerfish, schools of Horse-eye Jacks and Atlantic Spadefish and to top it off found a very photogenic Green Moray.
We dove several sites off the larger island of Roatan as well. This island is approx 17 miles long, with some good size hills/peaks. Again, very lush landscape and some beautiful resorts. Roatan is more largely populated and I expect much more of a tourist destination than Utilla.
Did I mention we ATE about as frequently as we dove?? The crew's tshirts said it all: DIVE....EAT....SLEEP We thoroughly enjoyed a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Turkey and all the fixings. The captain's wife and 2 sons were able to join us which was quite nice. His wife also brought some food: pork roast, incredible sweet patato casserole like pecan pie, and a few other treats. I've always said that I eat less in warmer weather, however this trip blew that theory.
The last afternoon we were able to take a tour of Captain Troy's resort on Utilla. This was currently closed for slow season, but expecting to open early December again. Here they cater to divers, and have several bungalos allowing for maximum of 40 guests. A very relaxing and lovely spot with the ocean to the front of the resort, and a large lagoon to the back side. This is how I envisioned a shore-based dive resort to be.
Back to the dock Friday afternoon and we had a bit of time to walk the streets in Utilla. Quite surprised to learn there are 12 dive shops on this small island. Our dinner with Gary, Jeff & Patricia was delicious. And we were beyond shocked at the LOW price. There are almost as many internet cafe's / services as dive shops. Few restaurants, grocery stores, retail shops. Very small town, narrow roads. Some vehicles although many seem to drive golf carts, ATV's, dirt bikes/scooters.
Airport on Utila: Must use the term 'airport' loosely. There is a runway. There is a 10x20 foot concrete slab with a roof over head (no walls). You get to airport, stand on slab if it is raining, and wait for plane to land. Most luggage gets loaded onto 2nd plane, then we jump into our little plane for take off. No tickets, no stewardess, no inflight beverage service!! Flight is only 25 minutes. Captain Troy kept us company waiting for the plane and ensured all went smoothly on getting loaded up. Rather amusing. Although there are signs of a 'real' terminal building being errected. This will be larger and actually appears to have 'walls'.
Couple of quick side notes:
--broken mooring! One day was rather windy, etc. During briefing, they had said if we hear a 'banging' to come back to boat quickly. If we hear 'engines' do NOT come back to boat as it means mooring line broke. So on this rather windy day, 4 of us are near the anchor line about to head up. We hear a loud noise, see some chain coming down (actually just about 'on' Bob, luckily it wasn't too much or too
fast). The line had broke and the big boat was now drifting away. We were with one of the dive masters, she wrote us a note on her board, and we just hung out for a bit giving the boat time to get things together. We then surfaced and they came back for us. Pretty windy/wavey at this point but we felt that our Galapagos experience made us feel pretty comfortable in those conditions. Made for a good story anyways.
--bomb scare Honduras airport! As we are lounging around in the main airport area (before security) waiting for our flight we are asked (in spanish) to 'move' from our seats. We keep getting 'moved' further back every few moments, and then finally motioned to go outside. We see someone with camera and think perhaps a dignitary is coming through and for security reasons they want space. Well it turns out to have been a bomb scare HOWEVER -- the suspicious package once opened was a menacing underwater camera. Some returning tourist somewhere will be unhappy to arrive without his camera. The airport was actually quite organized - we were comfortable during our long wait for our outbound flight to the states. Wendy's and one coffee/bakery kiosk was the bulk of the food in the airport, but we managed quite well thanks to good company with Jeff/Patricia and Gary, not to mention 'wireless' internet and some electrical outlets.
--stupid dive trick
Guess I better also admit to practically running out of air on a dive! My ears were so sensitive so I kept focusing on my depth gauge. Especially since I kept coming up from dives with usually about 1200 in my tanks. So on one dive as I am starting to feel rather bouyant, I look beyond the depth gauge to see that I have about 50 psi left! Bob was close by and gave me his octopus and we acending right away. We were not too deep, and came up right at the bow of the boat. So quite 'convenient' given the circumstances, and obviously I will never forget to look before and during.
Other familiar favorites, plus some new ones:
spotted drums
trunk fish, cow fish
(very!) juvenile trunk fish
something new: Cryptic Teardrop Crabs
Also searched out more of the decorator crabs
flamingo tongues
Spotted Quilfin blenny
Several Scorpion fish - one actually swimming
HUGE channel crabs
arrow crabs, cleaning shrimp, banded coral shrimp
spawning sea slug