Utila Trip Report
Sixteen divers ranging from Hawaii to the East Coast met at the San Pedro Sula airport in Honduras to catch our plane to the tropical island of Utila. Not wanting to miss a minute of vacation we enjoyed the local beer, Salva Vida, at the airport bar and introduced our old and new diving friends.
The small plane was full, our group plus one couple. During our 40 minute flight we soared over vast fields planted with palms and giant emerald green mountain ranges, finally we flew over the sea. Utila came into view, we could just make out the colorful buildings lining the shore of the quaint little town and dive boats spotting the reef.. Landing brings us to the tiniest little open air shack of an airport that I have ever seen. As the lone immigration officer stamped our passports, we had another Salva Vida and were greeted by the Utila Lodge manager. We were shuttled to the lodge via golf cart convoy, Salva Vida bottles in hand.
After a brief welcome we were given a refreshing drink and keys to our rooms. Each room is oceanfront, as Utila Lodge is built over the water. Rooms are true rustic wooden lodge style, comfortable, with air conditioning. The screened porch is a nice touch with table and chairs, a hammock and pegs for hanging your wet gear or suits.
The food at Utila Lodge was great! The friendly chefs and cooks were kept busy feeding our hungry group three squares a day. Kitchen staff made sure you were eating. Upon finding out a few of our gang didn’t care for fish, these nice ladies made sure when fish was the dish, there was another protein ready for these two. One of the other nice extras provided by the kitchen was the delivery of coffee or tea every morning at the time of your choosing. Ah, this was the life!
Island Divers had the run of Utila Lodge. When we weren’t busy diving, you could find us out on the sundeck watching the stars while enjoying the skills of the bartender, playing board games, showing off photos and telling dive stories with our posse. Sometimes we left the lodge and went walking around the small town.
Along the streets, land crabs scuttled about their business, dodging the motorbikes, bicycles, golf carts and feet. Cars are few in Utila, lucky for the crabs.
One outing was to a crazy park-like lot of land with a bar called Treetanic. The word eccentric does not do justice to this place. (Put a treehouse, a trippy 60’s mixed media mosaic and Vincent Van Gogh’s mind in a bag and shake, what comes out is Treetanic.) We toured the grounds in amazement as we sipped our rum infused “milkshakes”. A beautiful tarantula even came out to say hello.
Utila is known to attract feisty young dive instructor hopefuls, so there were plenty of “activities” to keep busy in the evenings. Some of our more adventurous buddies explored these watering holes and rubbed elbows with the “temporary locals”. Plenty of loud music and dancing ensued. There may have even been some leaping into the ocean from a two story deck involved and more than one headache the next morning.
Our group had the “big boat” all to ourselves. The captain and dive masters were funny, laid back local guys. When the DMs spotted something under the water they pointed the creature out to every single person. There were some unusual critters. Tiny basket crabs that looked just like a wisp of algae, an octopus that walked upright on tip-toes, camouflage porcupine fish hiding on the reef, huge “friendly” green eels coming up to say hello, grouper following along hoping for a lionfish snack to name a few. A pod of dolphins was spotted as we motored to the dive site, they looked agreeable so the captain sent us in to swim with them. This was a first dolphin encounter for many of the group. Magical.
We saw so many cool things- but the whale shark eluded us. We did have an almost sighting, a bait boil that looked promising. Alas, it was not to be. To rub it in, the radio call came in as we were headed back to the tiny airport. Whale shark spotted.
