And two more dives have been done. Once again no larger marine life, just small fish. Well, not that bad dives anyway.
My hand also seems to look almost normal today and the itching is gone, so I guess I avoided the doctor visit.
It's a silent Sunday evening, so we had an another walk around the island, some photos below. I think we plan to depart Utila on Tuesday morning, so tomorrow we will try to find onward tickets, take two more dives and so on. I think I will also visit the Utila Community Clinic which is only open on weekdays, unless my hand is less colored and itchy tomorrow.. Got some allergic reaction from some stuff growing (coral or something) on buoy rope which I was holding onto while waiting on our Friday dive. Well, it seems to respond to antihistamine just fine.
Two more dives done. Still just coral and small fish, no bigger ones. I'm a bit disappointed with the amount of larger marine life around Utila. Belize is just a couple of hundred kilometers from here, and there was dozens and dozens of shark, big stingrays etc when we were snorkeling there a couple of years ago.
Not doing anything, just relaxing. We had a couple of kilometers walk to the airport though, to do at least something useful.
Walked a bit around the island, photos below. We also visited Iguana Station, a facility protecting the local Iguana species.
Second set of dives done. Bit more stormy sea, more nice corals and small fish plus some stingrays and a turtle. Not bad, and the boat was also way less crowded today.
It is just midday now and we don't have any dives planned until Sunday, so we are now figuring out what to do next. I guess some island exploring is in the program, getting either bicycles or some sort of motorized transport like scooters or an ATV to use.
First two dives done. Nothing special, just nice coral and small fish. The dive boat was a bit too full to my taste, as we had a full group of OWD course students on the same boat with us today. Well, let's see how it is tomorrow morning..
Otherwise it has been a lazy day, we just had breakfast, went diving and did not much anything else so far.
Iryna offered me a morning surprise though. I checked my phone 7am in the morning and saw some 10 messages from her about China Airways error fare and then "You owe me 280e now, you slept too long" and flight tickets in my mailbox. I actually had to google WHERE is Koror, Palau.. Obviously going there next November for some ten days.
Did some quick snorkling under the dock.. And oh boy it is good, we are in the Caribbean again. :)
Warm and clear water, loads of fish. Can't wait until the first dives tomorrow afternoon.
We reached our main destination in the morning, the paradise island Utila on Honduras Bay. It's a small island some ten kilometers off La Ceiba coast, home to one of the best coral reefs and biggest whale shark populations in the world. Everything on the island seems to be pretty much concentrated around diving, and that is exactly what we came here to do also.
Surprisingly Timo is again in trouble with his missing papers, as he didn't take his diving logbook with him and the deep diving specialty training is only indicated in the logbook. Well, nobody expected a Honduran divecenter to be so precise in checking all the licenses and papers.. Usually in the tropics they just don't care and Timo has his logbook in electronic format for normal use. That's not much a problem though, Timo emailed the Finnish dive center Koh Tao Divers in Thailand where we did the training and he will hopefully get a copy on email. Or, then he will just redo the deep dive training here, it's just an extra $50 expense.
We booked some dives for the coming days, and surprisingly started our Caribbean adventure the traditional way, by fetching a bottle of rum, and a bottle of coke and a lemon from the supermarket. :)
Time to go snorking on the reef a bit soon..
Arrived to our quite nice looking hostel after a bus trip spent asleep..
Here's the second helicopter flight video. My favorite is the low-flying part after about nine minutes: https://youtu.be/V0mIIFIPcu8