patowmack divers
January 21 began inauspiciously with a phone call at 3:45 am advising me that our 6:00 am flight to Atlanta had been cancelled because of bad weather. A second phone call said we had been re-booked on an 8:30 flight. A third call said, nevermind the second call. That's 8:30 TOMORROW. Just as I was about to go back to bed, I got a fourth call saying we had been re-booked on American, leaving at 8:30 today, connecting in Miami. So off to the airport.
I greatly prefer Miami to Atlanta as a place to change planes because I prefer the food options. We had just enough time to buy a Cubano sandwich for the flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras (SAP).
Immigration and Customs at SAP was a mess because the people whose job it is to herd American tourists into the various resident or tourist lines spoke not a word of English. I'm not saying that everybody in the world has an obligation to speak English, but under the circumstances, it would have been a reasonable job requirement for these tourist-herders. BTW, all the tourists at the Utopia Village were Americans or Canadians.
SAP is quite large and modern by third-world standards. I was lulled into a false sense of security, and not wanting to carry a bag onto a small plane, I checked both pieces of luggage for our short flight to Utila. I figured that putting two bags on one airplane was a slam dunk. Unfortunately, only the large bag with my dive equipment flew with us. The small bag with my regulator, clothes, and toothbrush didn't arrive until the next day.
The flight to Utila was beautiful as we flew over an orderly patchwork of farms and banana plantations. From the air, Honduras looks like a peaceful and prosperous place. I was surprised to learn subsequently that Honduras is the second or third poorest country in the Americas (Haiti, of course, is poorest.)
The airport on Utila is a pretty casual place. We had enough time to grab a quick beer while waiting for our luggage. I tried the Barena, which comes in a clear bottle like a Corona, but tastes much better. I paid the airport price of $2.00 more expensive than in town ($1.35) but cheaper than at Utopia Village ($3.75).
The resort sent a van and a pickup truck for us and our luggage. There was not enough room in the van for all of us, so a couple of us rode in the back of the pickup through town to the boat docks, where we were met by the Utopia Village dive boat. The resort is about eight miles from town, and the only way to get there is by boat.
The resort itself is beautiful. One of the group of friends who built the place is an architect in my opinion, a talented architect. The rooms are clean and modern (built in 2006) and have user-controlled air conditioners that are capable of delivering an ice-cold environment, if requested. I chose the bed closest to the air conditioner, which was a mistake in hindsight. I had to turn it off during the night.
The common areas (dining room, bar, and recreation rooms) are also beautifully designed and have a hand-made quality to them. The design is modern but also warm and organic, incorporating native wood where possible.
We arrived the day before the NFC and AFC championship football games, and I was keen to watch the Patriots advance to the Superbowl. The resort has satellite TV and an HDTV, so I was able to watch both games after our morning dives. I was pleased that after broadcasting entirely in Spanish, ESPN International switched to English for the AFC game. Strangely, Fox switched from English to Spanish for the NFC game.
But we didn't fly all way down there to watch TV. How was the diving, you might ask? Overall, I'd put Utila near the middle for Caribbean destinations. Better than last year's trip to Turks and Caicos but not as good as Dominica, Bonaire, or Cozumel. I'd give Utila high marks for reef health. There were lots of signs of new coral growth and few signs of coral bleaching. Soft corals and hard corals were abundant: elkhorn corals, star coral, brain coral, lettuce coral, flower coral, sea fans. There were also a lot of healthy sponges of various kinds. However, there were not a lot of large fish. Fish life fell into the category of typical tropicals such as angel fish, squirrel fish, spotted drums, creole wrasses, sergeant majors, trumpet fish, barracuda, scorpion fish, and the like. Lion fish are taking over the Caribbean, so were plenty of those as well as plenty of moray eels (green and spotted) a few turtles, lobsters, and some spectacular spotted eagle rays. The eagle rays had brilliant gold markings, making them the most beautiful I've seen anywhere. I rate a successful dive trip, in part, on seeing things I hadn't seen before. One such thing was a kind of tunicate that looked like blue bell flowers. I looked it up on a book, and it's called a blue bell tunicate, naturally. The water was not quite gin-clear as in Cozumel, but I'd estimate visibility at 80+ feet, which is to say pretty good.
Of course, our main objective in going to Utila was to see whale sharks. Honduran law prohibits diving for whale sharks with scuba gear, so our encounters were with snorkel gear. Whale sharks are best seen near the surface and are scared off by bubbles and splashing, so our method was to drive up close to them and then to slide quietly into the water with mask, snorkel, and fins.
The most you can hope for is a quick look and maybe a picture. I personally saw 1.5 whale sharks. In my first encounter, I saw only the tail swimming away. I was in the second row of divers, so I didn't get as good a view as those in the first row. On our second attempt, I was promoted to the first row. I saw the whale shark swimming towards us from maybe five feet away, and then its whole body as it turned 180 degrees and swam away. This entire encounter took less than five seconds. Whale sharks are not the friendliest creatures in the sea. They don't hang around to socialize with divers.
We were on Utilia January 21-28. Whale sharks usually appear in February and peak in April. We were lucky to see any at all. Personally, I like going scuba diving in February (late January is good too) because the weather is usually settled and dry in the tropics. It's also cold and miserable back home, so it's great to get away for a week. We had seven perfect days of sun and daily highs in the low 80s. Water temperatures were about also about 80. The official reading was supposedly 79, but I recorded temperatures up to 82. I used my 3mm suit instead of the 1mm suit I usually use. I think the 1mm would have been fine, but I was quite comfortable in 3mm and didn't feel the need to switch down.
Honduras has a reputation for being buggy We were advised to bring large pump bottles of Deep Woods Off I never used mine (but one day I used a squirt of somebody else's). We were blessed with brisk on-shore breezes almost every day. The breezes had several implications. Of course, they kept the bugs away. But they also kept the dive boat from docking in front of the resort. We departed from another dock maybe a half mile away that was sheltered from the wind by a series of small islands. We also did most of our diving on the sheltered north side of the island.
Boat rides were on the order of half an hour each way. The boat is a purpose-built dive boat with room for around 20 divers. A canvas cover shielded most of us from the sun. Our party included 16 divers, two dive-masters, and an instructor (for a pair of divers being certified for the first time). The boat was comfortable with this group, but could not have accommodated many more.
Utopia Village is an all-inclusive resort. In general, I steer away from places like that because I like to eat out at different restaurants especially if the place where we are staying is not good. For example, when we stayed at Buddy Dive in Bonaire, we ate most of our meals at the Lion Resort next door. However, at Utopia Village all our meals were superb. I rarely cook fish at home, but at Utopia I had fish every day. All the fish was fresh and covered a number of types: wahoo, tuna, mahi-mahi, butterfish, and others served up in lots of interesting ways. At one point, we had tuna burgers for lunch in home-made burger rolls. For the non-fish eaters, there was always a tasty alternative of meat or chicken. Breakfasts tended toward American-style breakfasts. We usually had eggs with bacon, ham, or local sausages and fruit with some kind of bread. The last day, we had Hondo which is to say a Honduran breakfast with tortillas, black beans, eggs, and salsa.
Feeling a bit isolated eight miles from town, I organized a trip into town on Wednesday afternoon. Most, if not all of the guests at the resort came along on two water taxis. Downtown Utila is a fairly small place that features a bunch of dive shops, several mom-and-pop grocery and souvenir shops, a few backpacker hotels, and some bars. I wouldn@apos;t want to spend a week there if I was a non-diver, but it was enjoyable for a few hours.
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The boat drivers wanted to get us home before dark, so we did not have time to stay for dinner. However, I did have time to buy some rum, cigars, and a souvenir fish for my collection of dive trip fish that hangs on the walls of my upstairs bathroom. While waiting for the boat back, we had time for a couple of beers.
The resort features unlimited shore diving on the reef out front. I did just one shore dive on Monday afternoon. The reef is quite lovely, and I made another attempt Tuesday night for the scheduled night dive. Unfortunately, the surf was quite rough and after our party got knocked down and scattered, we decided to call it off before anybody got seriously injured. Those in the party wearing shorty wetsuits sustained lots of cut knees, and I got a hole in my 3mm jumpsuit after falling on sharp coral.
Thursday, after our morning dives, we went across the water from our boat dock to a small, densely populated caye for lunch. There is a restaurant there owned by our boat captain's mother where we all had lunch. If this sounds to you like insider influence, you might be right. However, most of us had lobster platters for $7.50 with a $2.00 beer, so you can't complain. After lunch, we took a walk around the island. On an island maybe a half mile long, there were at least three churches: Baptist, Church of God, and Pentecostal. No Catholic Church. BTW, I observed the same thing in Utila town. The reasons for this appeared clear at the airport on the way home. About every other American in the airport was on some kind of religious mission. The Catholic Church seems to be losing market share in Latin America.
Our last day at the resort was Friday. Because we could not dive within 24 hours before flying, we had the day off from diving. So Utopia Village organized a little BBQ picnic lunch for us on a small island nearby. I spent the day laying in a hammock, reading some magazines I didn't to take home with me. And drinking beer. Others, who were a bit more energetic did some snorkeling and swimming. The younger members of our party spent the day in the water working on their sunburns. After a week together, there was a great camaraderie among all the guests and staff. The staff said it's not always like that, but they could feel it too. It felt like one big happy family at the end.
Utopia books only weeklong stays starting on Saturday. It helps build frendships with the other guests that we were all on the same schedule. Also, the resort sends its dive boat into town to pick up everyone, so that works out nicely for everyone.
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