After Utila, I took the ferry over to La Ceiba and headed up to the Jungle River Lodge with a mission to go rafting. There are two trips - half-day and full-day. The full-day costs about double the half day, but you're on the river about 4 times longer. Of course, I opted for the full day. However, I'd been warned the the full-day trip doesn't run very often and there's a minimum of two people.
Maya, a dive instructor at my dive shop in Utila (Utila Water Sports), used to work at the Jungle River Lodge, and her boyfriend Angel used to be a rafting guide (he's now a divemaster in Utila). And they were going to be there when I arrived. From the ferry terminal, it was about a half an hour drive up into the hills to get to the lodge. After leaving town, we were on a dirt road that followed alongside the river and big hills were on either side of the river. It was beautiful.
When I arrived to the lodge, I saw a beautiful wooden building that served as the bar, hangout area, eating area, and, beneath, rafting gear storage area. It was alongside the river, and you could always hear the roar of the water below. I was greeted by Maya and Angel who informed me that I had bad luck, as the full-day trip had just gone out that day. And the two of them were heading into La Ceiba to sleep that evening.
That didn't matter too much, as I wasn't very good company due to the amount of booze and lack of sleep from the night before. I did chat with some people who'd done both the full day and half-day rafting, and although everyone had a good time, the full-day trip sounded much better. I decided to wait around a day to see if anyone else arrived to do the full-day trip.
The next day, Maya got back early afternoon, and we had a good time chatting as we're both in similar places in our lives. That evening, everyone cleared out, and I was the only guest staying there. It was nice, though, because Angel and Maya were there, plus the owner Oscar, two of the rafting guides (Darwin & Roberto), Roberto's girlfriend Rosario, and a Guatemalan who lives in La Ceiba and sells jewelry and dream catchers.
As evening came, the tunes were turned on, and of all things, electronic music was pumping through the speakers. It was kind of bizarre sitting amongst 7 Central Americans (& one Dane - Maya) in a beautiful natural setting surrounded by beautiful green hills and a roaring river, encompassed by flickering candles and some beers and hearing electronic music at high levels. But fun just the same. While we were sitting there, the owner said that he'd run the full day trip the following day for just one person as a favor since I was friends with Maya and Angel. Yay! I went to bed at about 10 and could just barely hear the music for another little while from my bed, but I needed my beauty sleep before a long day on the river.
We left the next day at about 10am to hit the river. We drove about 30-45 minutes to get to the upper section of the river, and then Darwin gave Rosario and me some safety instructions and some info about the commands he was going to give. It was decided that he'd give the commands in English, but other than that, we were jabbering away in Spanish.
The river was pretty low, which meant that some of the rapids weren't as big as other times in the year, and we had to do a bit more maneuvering than usual. A couple of times, we got out of the raft, walked downriver a little bit to check out the next set of rapids, then we got back in to tackle them.... one time, we took a look at the rapid, which was at least a 4-foot drop, and I commented to the Chilean girl in the raft that sometimes it's better *not* to see what you're getting yourself into! However, we made it over safely with everyone intact in the raft.
Further down stream, we went over a rapid, and I swear I saw a body floating on the surface of the water. I looked at the other two in the boat, and they'd seen it too, but I was assured that it was a fisherman. Sure enough he resurfaced after about a minute. Whew! No dead bodies.
All in all, I fell out twice - once was mid-rapids and kinda scary, but I was back in the boat shortly thereafter (after freeing my leg from in between some rocks), and the other was not scary in the least. I've gone rafting at least 5 times, and I'd never fallen out in the past, so I guess there's a first time for everything.
We stopped mid-day for a lunch break, and while Darwin was out getting some food for us from the village up above, kids appeared and took over our raft while we munched on tortillas (still warm!) and guajada cheese. There were about 10-15 kids on the raft at any given time, with a tall and lanky boy at the back of the raft in charge. Somehow, they all managed to fall out once or twice, so there was always some little kid trying to get up the side of the raft. Pretty entertaining.
Near the end of the day, we went down a rapid and parked the raft to go down it just floating in our life jackets. I was give the instructions to "Close your mouth" as you went over because you're dunked for a second and then "Swim hard to the left" right afterwards. Scary at first, but fun in the end.
I'm not sure why, but Darwin decided that we wouldn't get out at the normal place - we would continue down another 5 km longer than usual and finish up directly at the Jungle River Lodge. What that meant is that I saw a helluva a lot of the river (cool!) and I finished up with some sore arms. We started off at 11am, and we arrived at the lodge at about 5pm. We had at least 5 hours of paddling, and I've found some mystery bruises and some scrapes and calluses on my hands and legs, but it was great!
I'd love to go back when there's more water!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Getting off the island
It's much easier said that done. Getting off of Utila. Yes, there is a morning ferry (6:20am) and an afternoon ferry (2pm), but physically getting yourself and your bag the 10 minute walk down the road to the dock is pretty difficult. Last time it took me 2 months to make the walk. This time I didn't have 2 months.
Initially, I'd said I couldn't leave the island until after I'd reached 100 dives and seen a whale shark. If you follow my blog, you'll know that both of these were accomplished by the beginning of the week. But I wasn't really ready to move on yet. So I said that Thursday was the day. I wanted to go to Bar in the Bush once before I left, and it's only open on Wednesday and Friday. So Thursday it was.
But Wednesday, I wasn't ready to leave yet. Thursday morning, after Bar in the Bush, I woke up fairly ready to go, but I wanted to dive before I left. No afternoon boat that day, so Friday afternoon it was. An Aussie couple at the dive shop (Chris & Kate) said that I should stick around until we had a BBQ with the dive shop folks, and that sounded like a good last evening, but it wouldn't happen until Friday. OK, Saturday afternoon it was.
Plans got modified, and the dive shop staff plus a few extras (I was half-staff because I'd actually worked as a divemaster two days) were all invited out to owner Troy's resort - Laguna Beach Resort - for its fourth birthday bash on Friday.
That afternoon, I went out for my last two dives with Mike, one of the DMTs (Divemaster-in-Training). The first dive was uneventful other than some underwater frisbee played at the end. The second dive was more entertaining and included a massive snapper with big teeth too menacing to go past, a big sea turtle, and some underwater cartwheels (much easier said than done, but definitely hilarious). Good final dive. I'm over 110 now!
That evening at about 6:30pm, we met in the office and the rum started flowing. Everyone chipped in 50 Lempira (~$2.5) for some rum and mixers, and then we headed out to the front dock for a quick booze cruise over to the resort. Once there, we hung out laughing and drinking until the food was ready. At about 8 or so, we had an emergency! No more rum! One of the dive instructors, Kris, had a quick word with Troy the owner and came back gripping another 1.5 liter bottle of the yummy Flor de Caña. Whew! We had a nice dinner (they had BBQ lamb and shrimp, I had salads), and then we were shuffled back on board the boat to take us back to town. 20+ tipsy/drunk people on a boat = lots of fun, and I got some good pictures of the key players.
When we got back to town, it was only 9:30ish. What else to do but continue drinking? We all headed out to the bars and had a good night. I ended up at Bar in the Bush again. It was a late night that ended with someone from the dive shop doubling me down the road on his bike. (Bar in the Bush is a good 15-20 minute walk out of town.) I think Tomas' bike is the usual taxi service, as instructor Kris said that he hitched a ride with him the week beforehand.
And Saturday afternoon, I stopped by the afternoon boat to say good bye to everyone and took off on the afternoon ferry. La Ceiba HO!
Initially, I'd said I couldn't leave the island until after I'd reached 100 dives and seen a whale shark. If you follow my blog, you'll know that both of these were accomplished by the beginning of the week. But I wasn't really ready to move on yet. So I said that Thursday was the day. I wanted to go to Bar in the Bush once before I left, and it's only open on Wednesday and Friday. So Thursday it was.
But Wednesday, I wasn't ready to leave yet. Thursday morning, after Bar in the Bush, I woke up fairly ready to go, but I wanted to dive before I left. No afternoon boat that day, so Friday afternoon it was. An Aussie couple at the dive shop (Chris & Kate) said that I should stick around until we had a BBQ with the dive shop folks, and that sounded like a good last evening, but it wouldn't happen until Friday. OK, Saturday afternoon it was.
Plans got modified, and the dive shop staff plus a few extras (I was half-staff because I'd actually worked as a divemaster two days) were all invited out to owner Troy's resort - Laguna Beach Resort - for its fourth birthday bash on Friday.
That afternoon, I went out for my last two dives with Mike, one of the DMTs (Divemaster-in-Training). The first dive was uneventful other than some underwater frisbee played at the end. The second dive was more entertaining and included a massive snapper with big teeth too menacing to go past, a big sea turtle, and some underwater cartwheels (much easier said than done, but definitely hilarious). Good final dive. I'm over 110 now!
That evening at about 6:30pm, we met in the office and the rum started flowing. Everyone chipped in 50 Lempira (~$2.5) for some rum and mixers, and then we headed out to the front dock for a quick booze cruise over to the resort. Once there, we hung out laughing and drinking until the food was ready. At about 8 or so, we had an emergency! No more rum! One of the dive instructors, Kris, had a quick word with Troy the owner and came back gripping another 1.5 liter bottle of the yummy Flor de Caña. Whew! We had a nice dinner (they had BBQ lamb and shrimp, I had salads), and then we were shuffled back on board the boat to take us back to town. 20+ tipsy/drunk people on a boat = lots of fun, and I got some good pictures of the key players.
When we got back to town, it was only 9:30ish. What else to do but continue drinking? We all headed out to the bars and had a good night. I ended up at Bar in the Bush again. It was a late night that ended with someone from the dive shop doubling me down the road on his bike. (Bar in the Bush is a good 15-20 minute walk out of town.) I think Tomas' bike is the usual taxi service, as instructor Kris said that he hitched a ride with him the week beforehand.
And Saturday afternoon, I stopped by the afternoon boat to say good bye to everyone and took off on the afternoon ferry. La Ceiba HO!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Drilling on the ocean floor
Yesterday was yet another exciting day of diving. I was torn between a deep dive and heading out to a reef a bit farther out to help with the drilling of some holes for moorings. For both, I had to get up at the same time, and when i woke up, I decided to head out to the help out with Operation: Buoy.
We got our equipment together and loaded some tanks onto a cart to take over to the front dock because this dive would not be from the standard dive boats... it would be from a much bigger boat that's usually used to bring cargo to and from the mainland - the Big Time. (All boats owned by Troy, owner of Utila Water Sports dive shop have "Time" in the title... Bottom Time, Any Time, Over Time, Island Time.)
We got all of our gear and 21 tanks loaded and hopped on board. The group consisted of the captain, some deck hands to drop equipment down to the water, Fred who is the local expert on buoys, moorings and fishing, a photographer, four Divemasters-in-Training (Brock, Laura, Chris & Itai), an instructor (Kris), and myself.
The Big Time skirted the southern part of Utila, eventually heading a bit westerly once we passed the southeastern cayes. About an hour and a half after starting, we'd reached the reef. The dive shop owner Troy joined us out there with a much smaller boat.
Fred geared up, which was interesting in and of itself - he had a pretty loaded weight belt, fins, mask, snorkel, and a tank of air that seemed to be strapped to his back with weight belts. No BCD or floatation device. This dude was old-school. He was under with Troy for about 10 or 15 minutes before he came back up. They'd found a place for the mooring. Our mission was to get the holes dug and get some cement in there to hold down some peg-like things. They'll put the moorings in later once the cement has dried.
So, we were needed to help out. They lowered down a hydraulic drill and we kinda looked at each other trying to figure out how to get into the water. We weren't on a dive boat where you can put on your gear and basically walk or roll off of the back. We were a good 2 meters above the water. So, we got everything ready, put on our fins and masks and jumped in with someone throwing our gear in after us, and we put everything on in the water. And we dived down.
We were working at about 15 feet/5 meters the whole time. Fred and Troy basically worked the drill, and Kris wanted in on the action as well, so he helped to hold down the two of them as they needed it. The rest of us twiddled our thumbs wondering what to do until we noticed that when the boat gradually moves in the water (we didn't have an anchor down), the two 100-foot hoses connected to the drill get tangled up in the coral. So I busied myself with keeping everything as tangle-free as possible as I watched the guys with the drill make 3 holes on the bottom.
The process was a pretty interesting one as well as slightly disturbing. It was disturbing for two reasons - first one being the coral that gets stepped on/grabbed/run over by the hoses during the process, thus killing it; second being the hydraulic oil that started to leak out of the drill later on in the drilling. When we came up to the surface, there was a very thin layer of oil there to coat our hair, masks, BCDs, etc. However, in the grand scheme of water pollution, the drill did very little damage.
The coral was more difficult to handle, especially because as divers, we're trained to be so cautious and respectful of the reefs. But I rationalized it by telling myself that many anchors over time would do WAY more damage that what we were doing. Which I think is very true and not just an excuse.
After bobbing up and down for an hour or so, the 4 DMTs (Divemaster-in-Training) and I got permission to poke around the reef, and we took off for a quick 10-15 minute poke-around. It was a very cool site... it's too far away for many people to dive on it, so I'm sure we were some of the few who have recently. We named it Kris' Dream (someone also suggested Kris' Wet Dream, although that might be taking it a little far) after the instructor with us, but I'm not sure if that's going to stick or not...
When we got back to the drilling area, they'd begun filling the holes with concrete. How does one use concrete under water? Well, I'm not sure what's normal, but here in Utila, Honduras, they filled PVC tubing with concrete and put in a styrofoam cork on one end. The other end you cover with your hand as you bring it down, and then you put the hand-covered end into the hole part-way. Then you take the cork out and shove another piece of piping (narrower than the concrete-filled one) and start to push the concrete out. You lose some of it in the process, but that's what happens. Stuff tubing, swim through water, shove into hole & repeat.
While the tail end of the concrete-fiilling process was going on (only 2 people are needed for it), all but Kris were back on the boat after about two hours in the water. Although we were cold in the water with our 3mm wetsuits on, once we were on board, things heated up quickly and Brock and Chris were soon giving us a show by jumping over the boat railing into the water. A quick swim took care of the heat.
After all of the equipment was loaded back into the boat, we started motoring to another part of the same reef. As a side note, getting out of the water was also a bit of an ordeal that involved taking off the equipment, tying a rope to the tank and BCD and letting someone from above hoist it up. They'd rigged up a ladder to the side of the boat to climb back up on, but it was about 10 rungs of skinny metal boards that you had to help you. Thankfully, it worked just fine.
When we got to the second site, we got in the water more quickly and all had a quick swim around. The floor was too soft, so we weren't able to do more drilling, so we swam around for about half an hour for a super chill and very slow dive.
We got back on the boat and three of us headed directly to the padded benches inside for a nap on the way back in. We got back at about 3pm and unloaded all of the gear.
It was nice to have a slightly different day of diving at a site that isn't dived very often. It's not every day you can say you assisted with a dive site mooring project.
We got our equipment together and loaded some tanks onto a cart to take over to the front dock because this dive would not be from the standard dive boats... it would be from a much bigger boat that's usually used to bring cargo to and from the mainland - the Big Time. (All boats owned by Troy, owner of Utila Water Sports dive shop have "Time" in the title... Bottom Time, Any Time, Over Time, Island Time.)
We got all of our gear and 21 tanks loaded and hopped on board. The group consisted of the captain, some deck hands to drop equipment down to the water, Fred who is the local expert on buoys, moorings and fishing, a photographer, four Divemasters-in-Training (Brock, Laura, Chris & Itai), an instructor (Kris), and myself.
The Big Time skirted the southern part of Utila, eventually heading a bit westerly once we passed the southeastern cayes. About an hour and a half after starting, we'd reached the reef. The dive shop owner Troy joined us out there with a much smaller boat.
Fred geared up, which was interesting in and of itself - he had a pretty loaded weight belt, fins, mask, snorkel, and a tank of air that seemed to be strapped to his back with weight belts. No BCD or floatation device. This dude was old-school. He was under with Troy for about 10 or 15 minutes before he came back up. They'd found a place for the mooring. Our mission was to get the holes dug and get some cement in there to hold down some peg-like things. They'll put the moorings in later once the cement has dried.
So, we were needed to help out. They lowered down a hydraulic drill and we kinda looked at each other trying to figure out how to get into the water. We weren't on a dive boat where you can put on your gear and basically walk or roll off of the back. We were a good 2 meters above the water. So, we got everything ready, put on our fins and masks and jumped in with someone throwing our gear in after us, and we put everything on in the water. And we dived down.
We were working at about 15 feet/5 meters the whole time. Fred and Troy basically worked the drill, and Kris wanted in on the action as well, so he helped to hold down the two of them as they needed it. The rest of us twiddled our thumbs wondering what to do until we noticed that when the boat gradually moves in the water (we didn't have an anchor down), the two 100-foot hoses connected to the drill get tangled up in the coral. So I busied myself with keeping everything as tangle-free as possible as I watched the guys with the drill make 3 holes on the bottom.
The process was a pretty interesting one as well as slightly disturbing. It was disturbing for two reasons - first one being the coral that gets stepped on/grabbed/run over by the hoses during the process, thus killing it; second being the hydraulic oil that started to leak out of the drill later on in the drilling. When we came up to the surface, there was a very thin layer of oil there to coat our hair, masks, BCDs, etc. However, in the grand scheme of water pollution, the drill did very little damage.
The coral was more difficult to handle, especially because as divers, we're trained to be so cautious and respectful of the reefs. But I rationalized it by telling myself that many anchors over time would do WAY more damage that what we were doing. Which I think is very true and not just an excuse.
After bobbing up and down for an hour or so, the 4 DMTs (Divemaster-in-Training) and I got permission to poke around the reef, and we took off for a quick 10-15 minute poke-around. It was a very cool site... it's too far away for many people to dive on it, so I'm sure we were some of the few who have recently. We named it Kris' Dream (someone also suggested Kris' Wet Dream, although that might be taking it a little far) after the instructor with us, but I'm not sure if that's going to stick or not...
When we got back to the drilling area, they'd begun filling the holes with concrete. How does one use concrete under water? Well, I'm not sure what's normal, but here in Utila, Honduras, they filled PVC tubing with concrete and put in a styrofoam cork on one end. The other end you cover with your hand as you bring it down, and then you put the hand-covered end into the hole part-way. Then you take the cork out and shove another piece of piping (narrower than the concrete-filled one) and start to push the concrete out. You lose some of it in the process, but that's what happens. Stuff tubing, swim through water, shove into hole & repeat.
While the tail end of the concrete-fiilling process was going on (only 2 people are needed for it), all but Kris were back on the boat after about two hours in the water. Although we were cold in the water with our 3mm wetsuits on, once we were on board, things heated up quickly and Brock and Chris were soon giving us a show by jumping over the boat railing into the water. A quick swim took care of the heat.
After all of the equipment was loaded back into the boat, we started motoring to another part of the same reef. As a side note, getting out of the water was also a bit of an ordeal that involved taking off the equipment, tying a rope to the tank and BCD and letting someone from above hoist it up. They'd rigged up a ladder to the side of the boat to climb back up on, but it was about 10 rungs of skinny metal boards that you had to help you. Thankfully, it worked just fine.
When we got to the second site, we got in the water more quickly and all had a quick swim around. The floor was too soft, so we weren't able to do more drilling, so we swam around for about half an hour for a super chill and very slow dive.
We got back on the boat and three of us headed directly to the padded benches inside for a nap on the way back in. We got back at about 3pm and unloaded all of the gear.
It was nice to have a slightly different day of diving at a site that isn't dived very often. It's not every day you can say you assisted with a dive site mooring project.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Finally!
Yesterday the day finally came. I snorkelled with a whale shark!
After a day of doing absolutely nothing on Sunday (which definitely did not directly correspond to the amount I had to drink the night before), I stopped by the dive shop to send off a few e-mails before I called the day a complete waste. I found out the boat was heading to the north side of the island the next morning (that's whale shark territory), and when they asked me if I could work as divemaster for two Aussies I've gotten to know over the last couple of weeks, I agreed to it.
I got up bright and early and got to the diveshop at 6:10am to prep for the day's dive. At 7am, we took off. Our first dive site was The Maze, which was turned out to be a pretty good dive. We explored Willy's Hole, a small cave, and found a big green moray eel in the corner, followed directly by a large-ish spotted drum fish. About 15 minutes later, I saw a turtle and quickly got Chris & Kate's attention and we raced after it. After we caught up and had our share of turtle-watching, we turned around and headed back along the top of the reef to the boat, exploring a few smallish sand channels along the way. When all of the divers got back to the boat, we set off for our next dive site.
Not more than 5 minutes later, we spotted the first "boil," which is what you're looking for if you're whale-sharking. It's basically a bunch of activity on the surface where small fish are jumping up above the surface. Everyone scurried to the back of the boat to put on their masks, snorkels and fins, and we waited for the word from the captain. After about 5 to 10 minutes of circling around, he said GO! and I got my first glimpse of it.
Another guy (Brock) was just in front of me, and he got the best view, but I was probably second or third in the water. I basically made out the whale shark a bit ahead of us in the water but quickly going down. My first encounter lasted all of about 3 seconds, and then it was gone.
I disappointedly got back in the boat and we waited around for a bit to see if the whale shark would come back up to the surface again. Before long, we spotted a different (or perhaps the same) boil and headed towards it. This time, I was at the front of the boat and eager to get a better view. Well, I mis-heard the captain, jumped in early and didn't see anything... many others on the boat did see it, though. All I got was tired from having to swim so far back to the boat.
Well, we didn't give up, and by this time, another 5 boats had joined us in our search for the whale sharks. We waited. And waited. There were a few boils that we followed, but nothing. And then there was another boil. Fairly close to us. The captain maneuvered the boat into position and gave us the word. I jumped in and quickly looked around to see where it was because I couldn't see it from the boat. It was right underneath me. I could have touched it.
I yelped. It's not every day that there's the tail of a 7 meter/23 foot massive white-spotted black whale shark underneath you. And then I remembered that they eat plankton, not travellers, and I calmed down. It was swimming slightly faster than me, and I wasn't disappointed when it gained a couple of meters on me - it's still a massive creature and one wrong swing of the tail wouldn't feel very nice. I followed it for a minute or two from the surface with my snorkel, and then I decided to head back to the boat. I exchanged some "Awesome!"s with the Aussie fundivers and we slowly swam back to the boat.
Amazing. And the whale shark we saw is considered to be a smaller one!!!
After our swim, we headed back to the boat and took off for our next dive, which was fairly uneventful, but still good.
After a day of doing absolutely nothing on Sunday (which definitely did not directly correspond to the amount I had to drink the night before), I stopped by the dive shop to send off a few e-mails before I called the day a complete waste. I found out the boat was heading to the north side of the island the next morning (that's whale shark territory), and when they asked me if I could work as divemaster for two Aussies I've gotten to know over the last couple of weeks, I agreed to it.
I got up bright and early and got to the diveshop at 6:10am to prep for the day's dive. At 7am, we took off. Our first dive site was The Maze, which was turned out to be a pretty good dive. We explored Willy's Hole, a small cave, and found a big green moray eel in the corner, followed directly by a large-ish spotted drum fish. About 15 minutes later, I saw a turtle and quickly got Chris & Kate's attention and we raced after it. After we caught up and had our share of turtle-watching, we turned around and headed back along the top of the reef to the boat, exploring a few smallish sand channels along the way. When all of the divers got back to the boat, we set off for our next dive site.
Not more than 5 minutes later, we spotted the first "boil," which is what you're looking for if you're whale-sharking. It's basically a bunch of activity on the surface where small fish are jumping up above the surface. Everyone scurried to the back of the boat to put on their masks, snorkels and fins, and we waited for the word from the captain. After about 5 to 10 minutes of circling around, he said GO! and I got my first glimpse of it.
Another guy (Brock) was just in front of me, and he got the best view, but I was probably second or third in the water. I basically made out the whale shark a bit ahead of us in the water but quickly going down. My first encounter lasted all of about 3 seconds, and then it was gone.
I disappointedly got back in the boat and we waited around for a bit to see if the whale shark would come back up to the surface again. Before long, we spotted a different (or perhaps the same) boil and headed towards it. This time, I was at the front of the boat and eager to get a better view. Well, I mis-heard the captain, jumped in early and didn't see anything... many others on the boat did see it, though. All I got was tired from having to swim so far back to the boat.
Well, we didn't give up, and by this time, another 5 boats had joined us in our search for the whale sharks. We waited. And waited. There were a few boils that we followed, but nothing. And then there was another boil. Fairly close to us. The captain maneuvered the boat into position and gave us the word. I jumped in and quickly looked around to see where it was because I couldn't see it from the boat. It was right underneath me. I could have touched it.
I yelped. It's not every day that there's the tail of a 7 meter/23 foot massive white-spotted black whale shark underneath you. And then I remembered that they eat plankton, not travellers, and I calmed down. It was swimming slightly faster than me, and I wasn't disappointed when it gained a couple of meters on me - it's still a massive creature and one wrong swing of the tail wouldn't feel very nice. I followed it for a minute or two from the surface with my snorkel, and then I decided to head back to the boat. I exchanged some "Awesome!"s with the Aussie fundivers and we slowly swam back to the boat.
Amazing. And the whale shark we saw is considered to be a smaller one!!!
After our swim, we headed back to the boat and took off for our next dive, which was fairly uneventful, but still good.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
100 Dives!
Well, I hit 100 dives yesterday. 101, to be more precise. On the hundredth dive, we descended to 100 feet at a cool dive site called the Maze. We didn't see much, but the coral wall we were going along was quite impressive, and at the end of it, one of my dive buddies spotted a massive green moray eel.
Although tradition calls for #100 to be done naked, I decided against it and donned the standard wet suit to keep myself warm.
I nearly didn't crawl out of bed yesterday to do the dives (I had to be at the dive shop at 6:10am to set up equipment), but the lure of whale sharks and a calm sea after several days of rough waters got me up. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a whale shark, but hopefully I will before I leave. I'm still crossing my fingers that we'll spot some when I'm on the boat. In the mean time, I'm going to have to continue groggily making my PB & J sandwiches before dragging myself to the dive shop. Good thing that it's less than 5 minutes to the dive shop.
My beer & rum consumption has declined in the last few days, as some hardcore party-ers left the island on Tuesday morning. I've been enjoying good nights of sleep and hangover-less mornings.
Everyone, please think happy thoughts for those whale sharks!
Although tradition calls for #100 to be done naked, I decided against it and donned the standard wet suit to keep myself warm.
I nearly didn't crawl out of bed yesterday to do the dives (I had to be at the dive shop at 6:10am to set up equipment), but the lure of whale sharks and a calm sea after several days of rough waters got me up. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a whale shark, but hopefully I will before I leave. I'm still crossing my fingers that we'll spot some when I'm on the boat. In the mean time, I'm going to have to continue groggily making my PB & J sandwiches before dragging myself to the dive shop. Good thing that it's less than 5 minutes to the dive shop.
My beer & rum consumption has declined in the last few days, as some hardcore party-ers left the island on Tuesday morning. I've been enjoying good nights of sleep and hangover-less mornings.
Everyone, please think happy thoughts for those whale sharks!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Disappointment
Disappointment is having a great dive, then upon re-entering the boat and hearing over the radio that whale sharks have been spotted, the boat won't start.
Whilst getting slowly towed to the other side of the island, we saw about 3 or 4 boats around the same area snorkelling with the whale sharks, and we later found out that they saw not one, not two, but THREE of them.
It took us 2.5 hours to get back to the dive shop.
That's a disappointing morning. Especially since I've never seen a whale shark.
Whilst getting slowly towed to the other side of the island, we saw about 3 or 4 boats around the same area snorkelling with the whale sharks, and we later found out that they saw not one, not two, but THREE of them.
It took us 2.5 hours to get back to the dive shop.
That's a disappointing morning. Especially since I've never seen a whale shark.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Utila update
Imagine going back to some place you used to call home, and all of the things are the same, but the people have completely been replaced. That's what Utila feels like to me. I left here in June 2005, and this Sunday was my first day back on the island since then.
I went to the dive shop I was at before (Utila Watersports), and I found 100% new faces. On the island of Utila, your social network is generally formed by those at your dive shop. This island is full of drinkers with a diving problem, so it's only natural to finish off a couple of good dives by making plans to head out later on. So although I *knew* that basically no one from the old clique was here, it didn't quite hit home until I stepped through the doors and find a weird sense of familiarity in the surroundings, but no faces I recognized. I'd actually managed to have a pretty good friends network here when I was around the first time. Back to Square One.
Well, it happened fairly quickly. There are actually a few people around that I kinda knew before - the dive shop's manager, Kate, was doing some classes at the dive shop when I was doing my divemaster training, and I vaguely remember her. A couple of other people have been around for a while and know and were good friends with some of the same people that I was close to. And one friend is no longer on the island, but his sister is now here. Going out to bars, I've run into some people with familiar faces. In fact, one bartender recognized me the other night and greeted me with a "Welcome back!" and handed me a drink on the house. And the other day, I was sitting on a bench outside of the diveshop, and the owner's son drove by on his quad and was talking to some other people, then turned to me after a while and said, "Were you here before?"
So, my first night here was the Super Bowl. (This just shows how behind I am on my pop culture - I didn't find out that the game was on that evening until that same day...) When I re-introduced myself to Kate, the manager, at the diveshop, she promptly invited me out to a bar with her and some friends to check out the game. I got there a little after halftime and actually enjoyed a Super Bowl! It was a great game, and perhaps even better was a bet going on at the table... Kate and another guy agreed that if their team lost, the following Saturday (this coming weekend), they would put the winning team's name on their forehead in permanent marker AND they would drink a small bottle of some of the strongest and most vile booze on the island. It's something that sounds a bit like moonshine. As the end of the game neared, Kate and Roscoe traded off on squirming in their seats as each new goal was achieved. I'm happy that I'll be around this Saturday to see Kate with GIANTS displayed un-proudly on her face. Kate formulated and agreed to the bet because she didn't believe that her beloved Patriots could possibly lose to the Giants, and now she's gotten screwed. Anyway, it'll be entertaining.
I passed up on diving on Monday so I could have a day of hardcore relaxation, but I was at the shop at 6:10am on Tuesday morning to head out on the 7am boat. We had 2 really good dives, but unfortunately, no whale sharks. We did, however, see a huge pod of dolphins during our surface interval. Captain John drove the boat over to them, and we enjoyed watching the dolphins race along at the front of the boat, occasionally jumping up. What was amazing is that in addition to the 10 or so dolphins up near the front of the boat, there seemed to be another 40 or so in the 30 meters behind the boat. On the next turn around, we all put our fins and snorkels on and hopped into the water to swim with them. You could here the high pitched clicks and screeches with your ears in the water, and after about 20 seconds of swimming away from the boat, I saw about 30 dolphins beneath me about 10-20 meters. Beautiful! Not my first time to swim with dolphins, but it's always magical to watch these beautiful creatures up-close.
Due to a lack of divers, the boat didn't go out yesterday, but I'm going out this afternoon and tomorrow morning for more dives. My goal is to reach 100 dives by the time I leave (definitely doable) and to see whale sharks (based nearly entirely on luck...). Let's see how I do! I'll probably be here for another week. With free dives, a bed valued at $3/night and beers at just over a dollar, this place is not doing much damage on my budget.... let's just hope I leave before the rum and beer do too much damage on my liver!
I went to the dive shop I was at before (Utila Watersports), and I found 100% new faces. On the island of Utila, your social network is generally formed by those at your dive shop. This island is full of drinkers with a diving problem, so it's only natural to finish off a couple of good dives by making plans to head out later on. So although I *knew* that basically no one from the old clique was here, it didn't quite hit home until I stepped through the doors and find a weird sense of familiarity in the surroundings, but no faces I recognized. I'd actually managed to have a pretty good friends network here when I was around the first time. Back to Square One.
Well, it happened fairly quickly. There are actually a few people around that I kinda knew before - the dive shop's manager, Kate, was doing some classes at the dive shop when I was doing my divemaster training, and I vaguely remember her. A couple of other people have been around for a while and know and were good friends with some of the same people that I was close to. And one friend is no longer on the island, but his sister is now here. Going out to bars, I've run into some people with familiar faces. In fact, one bartender recognized me the other night and greeted me with a "Welcome back!" and handed me a drink on the house. And the other day, I was sitting on a bench outside of the diveshop, and the owner's son drove by on his quad and was talking to some other people, then turned to me after a while and said, "Were you here before?"
So, my first night here was the Super Bowl. (This just shows how behind I am on my pop culture - I didn't find out that the game was on that evening until that same day...) When I re-introduced myself to Kate, the manager, at the diveshop, she promptly invited me out to a bar with her and some friends to check out the game. I got there a little after halftime and actually enjoyed a Super Bowl! It was a great game, and perhaps even better was a bet going on at the table... Kate and another guy agreed that if their team lost, the following Saturday (this coming weekend), they would put the winning team's name on their forehead in permanent marker AND they would drink a small bottle of some of the strongest and most vile booze on the island. It's something that sounds a bit like moonshine. As the end of the game neared, Kate and Roscoe traded off on squirming in their seats as each new goal was achieved. I'm happy that I'll be around this Saturday to see Kate with GIANTS displayed un-proudly on her face. Kate formulated and agreed to the bet because she didn't believe that her beloved Patriots could possibly lose to the Giants, and now she's gotten screwed. Anyway, it'll be entertaining.
I passed up on diving on Monday so I could have a day of hardcore relaxation, but I was at the shop at 6:10am on Tuesday morning to head out on the 7am boat. We had 2 really good dives, but unfortunately, no whale sharks. We did, however, see a huge pod of dolphins during our surface interval. Captain John drove the boat over to them, and we enjoyed watching the dolphins race along at the front of the boat, occasionally jumping up. What was amazing is that in addition to the 10 or so dolphins up near the front of the boat, there seemed to be another 40 or so in the 30 meters behind the boat. On the next turn around, we all put our fins and snorkels on and hopped into the water to swim with them. You could here the high pitched clicks and screeches with your ears in the water, and after about 20 seconds of swimming away from the boat, I saw about 30 dolphins beneath me about 10-20 meters. Beautiful! Not my first time to swim with dolphins, but it's always magical to watch these beautiful creatures up-close.
Due to a lack of divers, the boat didn't go out yesterday, but I'm going out this afternoon and tomorrow morning for more dives. My goal is to reach 100 dives by the time I leave (definitely doable) and to see whale sharks (based nearly entirely on luck...). Let's see how I do! I'll probably be here for another week. With free dives, a bed valued at $3/night and beers at just over a dollar, this place is not doing much damage on my budget.... let's just hope I leave before the rum and beer do too much damage on my liver!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Fast-tracking it
3 countries in 2 days = not bad! I've been on boats for the last 5 days in my travels... I've had all kinds. 1 sailboat, 2 long & skinny speedy boats and 1 ferry.
Yesterday morning, I decided to set off for Punta Gorda, where I was thinking I was going to spend the night. I hoofed it to a dock, took a 20 minute boat ride (with a welcome breeze), then I hoofed it to the bus station and waited for the bus to Punta Gorda. On board the bus, an Australian guy sat down next to me and told me about his plans to head to Guatemala by boat that evening. I decided that if Punta Gorda didn't pique my interested, I would join him and a Swiss girl he'd met the night beforehand at his hotel and head on over to Guatemala.
We arrived to Punta Gorda at about 3:15pm, which meant we had 45 minutes to make the ferry. I took a quick peek around and decided to head on. I'd be in the water and diving faster if I moved on. We took care of the immigration stuff and hopped on board after I found a woman to give me a plate of rice and beans to go before boarding the boat.
What a ride! I have been on rougher boats, but for the hour it took to cross the ocean over to Guatemala, most of us just braced ourselves for the next pounding by the waves.
We arrived safe and sound to Puerto Barrios, which is a sketchy town by an Guatemalan's standards. I wouldn't head there by myself and spend the night, so I'm glad I had the Aussie dude and the Swiss girl along. We found a hotel and decided on sharing a room and each forked over about US$6 for our beds. We settled in, then we were off to explore town! Not much going on around town, and we were back about 45 minutes later after sorting out bus tickets for the other two. As we'd gotten off the boat, a guy asked if any of us were headed towards Honduras because he was driving a van there at 7am the following morning - so I was already sorted with my transport.
The three of us settled in at our hotel's restaurant for some grub, then we went back to the room. It was only about 8, but we were tired. We put on a movie (40 year old virgin) and I think I was passed out by about 9. I needed some good sleep!
This morning, I did some bus surfing (van, border, bus, mini-bus, bus, taxi) and then arrived at the ferry station in La Ceiba, Honduras about 10 minutes before the ferry took off for Utila. Whew! I went to my old dive shop (Utila Water Sports) to see if the old deal of free diving for 7 years if you'd done your divemaster with the shop, and it is indeed! In addition, my bed only costs $3 a night, so you can't beat that! Hopefully I'll get my own room in a few nights, but for the moment, I'm sharing with someone else.
That's all for now - I'm hoping to go out diving tomorrow afternoon. And I hear that they've spotted whale sharks in the last few days on the North Side of the island, so I'm very excited about the possibility of maybe seeing them! I missed them by a day the last time I was here about 2.5-3 years ago.
Yesterday morning, I decided to set off for Punta Gorda, where I was thinking I was going to spend the night. I hoofed it to a dock, took a 20 minute boat ride (with a welcome breeze), then I hoofed it to the bus station and waited for the bus to Punta Gorda. On board the bus, an Australian guy sat down next to me and told me about his plans to head to Guatemala by boat that evening. I decided that if Punta Gorda didn't pique my interested, I would join him and a Swiss girl he'd met the night beforehand at his hotel and head on over to Guatemala.
We arrived to Punta Gorda at about 3:15pm, which meant we had 45 minutes to make the ferry. I took a quick peek around and decided to head on. I'd be in the water and diving faster if I moved on. We took care of the immigration stuff and hopped on board after I found a woman to give me a plate of rice and beans to go before boarding the boat.
What a ride! I have been on rougher boats, but for the hour it took to cross the ocean over to Guatemala, most of us just braced ourselves for the next pounding by the waves.
We arrived safe and sound to Puerto Barrios, which is a sketchy town by an Guatemalan's standards. I wouldn't head there by myself and spend the night, so I'm glad I had the Aussie dude and the Swiss girl along. We found a hotel and decided on sharing a room and each forked over about US$6 for our beds. We settled in, then we were off to explore town! Not much going on around town, and we were back about 45 minutes later after sorting out bus tickets for the other two. As we'd gotten off the boat, a guy asked if any of us were headed towards Honduras because he was driving a van there at 7am the following morning - so I was already sorted with my transport.
The three of us settled in at our hotel's restaurant for some grub, then we went back to the room. It was only about 8, but we were tired. We put on a movie (40 year old virgin) and I think I was passed out by about 9. I needed some good sleep!
This morning, I did some bus surfing (van, border, bus, mini-bus, bus, taxi) and then arrived at the ferry station in La Ceiba, Honduras about 10 minutes before the ferry took off for Utila. Whew! I went to my old dive shop (Utila Water Sports) to see if the old deal of free diving for 7 years if you'd done your divemaster with the shop, and it is indeed! In addition, my bed only costs $3 a night, so you can't beat that! Hopefully I'll get my own room in a few nights, but for the moment, I'm sharing with someone else.
That's all for now - I'm hoping to go out diving tomorrow afternoon. And I hear that they've spotted whale sharks in the last few days on the North Side of the island, so I'm very excited about the possibility of maybe seeing them! I missed them by a day the last time I was here about 2.5-3 years ago.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Blue Hole diving and sailing to Placencia
I've found wireless! I'm writing from Placencia, Belize. We just arrived here last night after three days of sailing. More on that in a moment, but first to wrap up my time in Caye Caulker...
I enjoyed my time there, but it's so easy to spend money there! As it's an island, everything's a bit more expensive than the mainland, and Belize already has the reputation of being basically the most expensive Central American country. That means that a beer costs about US$3-4, as opposed to Nicaragua's $1 beers and Costa Rica's $1.5-2 beers. I had my own little cabin for my time there (at Ignacio's), which was one of the best deals on the beach, and I managed to score it for less than US$15/night. It just meant that I had to walk 10-15 minutes to get anywhere I needed to go in town. It was slightly run down, but I had my own bed, a bathroom, and a fan, which is really all you need.
So, the Blue Hole! I really didn't have any major expectations for the Blue Hole dive itself, but I was pleasantly surprised! It was one of my shortest dives ever, with a total dive time of 22 minutes, and it probably was the longest/roughest rides out there (2 hours) that I've done for a dive, but I'm glad I've done it once. It was quite cold, but once we got down to the 130 feet, it was one of the most unique environments I've dived in. Stalactites and Stalagmites covered in colorful lichens and things. There weren't many fish, but at the top, as we were doing our decompression stop, we saw some reef sharks not so far away. After that dive, we did two more dives - the first I thought wasn't so great, and the second was pretty decent, although I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed by the visibility here. Perhaps it's just the time of the year.... but at any rate, I love being in the water, so I enjoyed the dives. Another 2 bumpy hours later, we were back in Caye Caulker.
My last night on the island, my tour leader friend Ellis cooked me and a few friends dinner, and it was excellent! Fresh barracuda in a tomato, onion and pepper stew with lots of spices. Afterwards, we had a night out on the town with his sister and a few other friends. It was good, but probably not the best idea right before my 3 days' sailing trip. Oh well.
On Wednesday, I boarded the sailboat with 9 other people plus two staff. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best of groups... most people kept to themselves and didn't mingle all that much. And we were on a small boat.... there was Cheryl and myself who spoke English - she's a Canadian chick i shared my tent with and is a little annoying but overall bearable. There were 4 Norwegian guys who seemed cool enough, but they just sat around speaking Norwegian to each other all the time and didn't mingle much. Then there were 2 fantastic older ladies (late-40s, 50s?) from Italy who seemed like lots of fun, but there was a huge language barrier. And last but not least was what we though was a Czech couple, but they turned out just to be friends... she seemed like she was maybe fun, but she hung out with him all the time and he was BORING. I think he said like 5 words to me the entire trip. (No, it wasn't against me - he didn't talk to anyone.) Last but not least, we had the two crew members - Patrick was the captain and Dice was his crew. They were very cool and a lot of fun.
Despite the lack of interesting people, it was an amazing trip! The company really has a fantastic trip planned out (Raggamuffin Tours)... each day basically entailed a fantastic breakfast, sailing for a bit, snorkelling stop, snacks & sailing, snorkeling stop, lunch, sailing, snorkelling, arrive to an island, rum punch, set up tents, etc, dinner, more rum punch, hang out, sleep in aforementioned tents. Sailing was anywhere from 5-7 hours in one day. We had fantastic weather the whole time, and I've got a decent all-over tan now!
The first night, we were on a tiny island with nothing more than a few palm trees and a couple of palapas. Bathrooms didn't exist (they were called bushes), and it was reallly windy. That plus the fact that the crew forgot the tent pegs to hold down the tents meant a not-so-refreshing night of sleep, seeing as the tent was trying to blow away despite me and a Canadian girl inside of it!
Second night, we were on an inhabited island (English Caye) that had houses, hotels and even 2 bars! It was still tiny, but I really enjoyed that island - probably one of my favorite places in Belize that I've been to so far.
Yesterday, we arrived into Placencia at about 5pm, and I shared a room with the Canadian girl for the evening. We caught up with the two crew members for dinner and some drinks, and then the boys headed back home at about midnight. They had about 12-18 hours of sailing in front of them, poor guys! Long night, I'm sure.
Now I'm going to be heading down to Utila in the Bay Islands of Honduras, which means that first I'm going to go to Punta Gorda here in Belize, and then I'll hop aboard a boat to Guatemala, which should be about an hour or so. Placencia is quite touristy and pricey, so I'm excited to see how Punta Gorda is - i think it's a bit less touristy and it's got more Garifuna culture. I'll probably only be there for a night, but you never know!
Check out the pix I just posted from Caye Caulker on my flickr site. That's all for this time... you'll probably hear from me next from Utila!
I enjoyed my time there, but it's so easy to spend money there! As it's an island, everything's a bit more expensive than the mainland, and Belize already has the reputation of being basically the most expensive Central American country. That means that a beer costs about US$3-4, as opposed to Nicaragua's $1 beers and Costa Rica's $1.5-2 beers. I had my own little cabin for my time there (at Ignacio's), which was one of the best deals on the beach, and I managed to score it for less than US$15/night. It just meant that I had to walk 10-15 minutes to get anywhere I needed to go in town. It was slightly run down, but I had my own bed, a bathroom, and a fan, which is really all you need.
So, the Blue Hole! I really didn't have any major expectations for the Blue Hole dive itself, but I was pleasantly surprised! It was one of my shortest dives ever, with a total dive time of 22 minutes, and it probably was the longest/roughest rides out there (2 hours) that I've done for a dive, but I'm glad I've done it once. It was quite cold, but once we got down to the 130 feet, it was one of the most unique environments I've dived in. Stalactites and Stalagmites covered in colorful lichens and things. There weren't many fish, but at the top, as we were doing our decompression stop, we saw some reef sharks not so far away. After that dive, we did two more dives - the first I thought wasn't so great, and the second was pretty decent, although I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed by the visibility here. Perhaps it's just the time of the year.... but at any rate, I love being in the water, so I enjoyed the dives. Another 2 bumpy hours later, we were back in Caye Caulker.
My last night on the island, my tour leader friend Ellis cooked me and a few friends dinner, and it was excellent! Fresh barracuda in a tomato, onion and pepper stew with lots of spices. Afterwards, we had a night out on the town with his sister and a few other friends. It was good, but probably not the best idea right before my 3 days' sailing trip. Oh well.
On Wednesday, I boarded the sailboat with 9 other people plus two staff. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best of groups... most people kept to themselves and didn't mingle all that much. And we were on a small boat.... there was Cheryl and myself who spoke English - she's a Canadian chick i shared my tent with and is a little annoying but overall bearable. There were 4 Norwegian guys who seemed cool enough, but they just sat around speaking Norwegian to each other all the time and didn't mingle much. Then there were 2 fantastic older ladies (late-40s, 50s?) from Italy who seemed like lots of fun, but there was a huge language barrier. And last but not least was what we though was a Czech couple, but they turned out just to be friends... she seemed like she was maybe fun, but she hung out with him all the time and he was BORING. I think he said like 5 words to me the entire trip. (No, it wasn't against me - he didn't talk to anyone.) Last but not least, we had the two crew members - Patrick was the captain and Dice was his crew. They were very cool and a lot of fun.
Despite the lack of interesting people, it was an amazing trip! The company really has a fantastic trip planned out (Raggamuffin Tours)... each day basically entailed a fantastic breakfast, sailing for a bit, snorkelling stop, snacks & sailing, snorkeling stop, lunch, sailing, snorkelling, arrive to an island, rum punch, set up tents, etc, dinner, more rum punch, hang out, sleep in aforementioned tents. Sailing was anywhere from 5-7 hours in one day. We had fantastic weather the whole time, and I've got a decent all-over tan now!
The first night, we were on a tiny island with nothing more than a few palm trees and a couple of palapas. Bathrooms didn't exist (they were called bushes), and it was reallly windy. That plus the fact that the crew forgot the tent pegs to hold down the tents meant a not-so-refreshing night of sleep, seeing as the tent was trying to blow away despite me and a Canadian girl inside of it!
Second night, we were on an inhabited island (English Caye) that had houses, hotels and even 2 bars! It was still tiny, but I really enjoyed that island - probably one of my favorite places in Belize that I've been to so far.
Yesterday, we arrived into Placencia at about 5pm, and I shared a room with the Canadian girl for the evening. We caught up with the two crew members for dinner and some drinks, and then the boys headed back home at about midnight. They had about 12-18 hours of sailing in front of them, poor guys! Long night, I'm sure.
Now I'm going to be heading down to Utila in the Bay Islands of Honduras, which means that first I'm going to go to Punta Gorda here in Belize, and then I'll hop aboard a boat to Guatemala, which should be about an hour or so. Placencia is quite touristy and pricey, so I'm excited to see how Punta Gorda is - i think it's a bit less touristy and it's got more Garifuna culture. I'll probably only be there for a night, but you never know!
Check out the pix I just posted from Caye Caulker on my flickr site. That's all for this time... you'll probably hear from me next from Utila!
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