Utila, Bay Islands - Week 8

3rd to 10th November

We made our way up from Copan to La Ceiba on the north coast of Honduras on Friday and stayed the night in La Ceiba (the one night we decide to treat ourselves to a nice hotel with a pool and it's pouring with rain!).

On Saturday we were up early to catch the boat to Utila which is a little island off the coast famous for cheap and wonderful scuba diving!

We treated ourselves to a nice room at the 'Relax Inn' as it is really hot in Utila and the mosquitos and sandflies are really bad.

We had a brilliant time, James did his open water course and Katie did lots of fun diving until James got his certificate and we could go together for the first time. We're now both hooked so it was difficult to leave and can see this becoming and expensive hobby for the rest of the trip...

Our last dives on Thursday were absolutely brilliant. On the first dive (Don Quickset) there was a turtle swimming with us for 5 mins - they´re v cool close up and not itimidated by divers at all. Then between the two dives the boat was surrounded by a pod of dolphins so we all got in the ocean to swim with them. We saw a a group of 10 swim just a few metres underwater in front of us, two with babies swimming in tight formation and 6 others!!

Every night on Utila was party night. We met loads of people including a couple called Lucy and James who have very commendable, worthwhile careers - yes, an engineer and an accountant - spooky!!

One night, James got very drunk and told a girl that she looked like Fatima Whitbread. It started off quite innocently as she was aggressively throwing darts like a shotputter but she got very offended and James ended up telling her she looked like a man. V v funny for Katie but did think James was going to get a dart in his head.

Our last night on Thursday was drink as much you like and BBQ (150 Lempiras = 5 quid) at the dive shop which was very messy. Katie's first drunk night for a few weeks (yes, I have more or less been sticking to my no drinking rule!) and Friday on the boat back to the mainland was NOT funny!!

Books we read: Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke - a 'tour de force' as the Daily Mail would say - really enjoyed it.
The Fencing Master, Arturo Perez-Reverte - great story, very exciting.