Swimming with the Fishes in Utila

Utila in the morning

It didn't stay quiet for long - eventually the streets are full of pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, and 4-wheelers (the streets being all 4 of them) - but the morning is nice and exhaust free. Within the Bay Islands Utila was reported to have the  more backpacker vibe while Roatan is supposedly more upscale/resort (we didn't get to go, the catamaran between the islands wasn't running while we were there) so I was a bit surprised there were so many ATVs. Maybe I shouldn't be since it's developing quite a bit - much to the chagrin of some.

Fun animal spotting in Utila includes: cats at meals

Roosters

And someones pet monkey (who likes to chew on power lines....)

Perhaps it was this monkey that inspired the delicious Monkey Lala?

Our main reason for choosing Utila over other beach destinations within Central America was that it has one of the cheapest SCUBA certification rates in the world and we thought why not have an adventure!? We dove at Captain Morgan's which meant we could also stay at their hostel for cheap. Minus our roommates being hostel-awkward, the entire experience was amazing! (Also except for the part where SCUBA seriously freaked me out... but we'll get to that). Our days went something like: Breakfast at Ultra Light Cafe (they had the best fresh OJ), beach time (typically included some hammock time), maybe some snorkeling, lunch at the hostel (tasty lunch special that changed daily), scuba in the afternoon, town wandering/dinner/drinks. It was a pretty rough time.

Hammocking is hard

So SCUBA.... It was my idea to get our open water certifications and I have no clue how I thought I'd be able to do it without any issues. The ocean kind of freaks me out, as does the idea of not being close to the surface. Those two things are kind of a large part of the process which led me to being not very calm. Not very calm at all. Lets just say that on day 1 in the shallow/confined dive I didn't get through too many of my skills and thought very seriously about abandoning the course and sticking to snorkeling. Day 2 was shallow/confined part 2 to finish what I didn't get to the day before plus a shallow dive which actually made me feel much better about the whole thing. Once we were swimming around looking at things rather than kneeling and taking the regulators out it was much easier to forget the surface wasn't very close. (Sharks being able to come out of nowhere and eat me however was another issue. Focus on the coral... focus on the coral.) Long story short, I eventually made it through the 4 dives to become certified, plus we got extra "fun dives". I have to say I'm glad I didn't give up! It was so much fun. Being able to see the fish past the surface was spectacular. We saw quite a few great things but the highlights for me were the eagle rays, seahorses and the lion fish. I definitely hope to go again in the future. Plus they have some pretty neat sounding specialty courses like night and wreck diving.

Certified!

Our stay on the island coincided with New Years Eve which of course involved a beach party! We all went to Bandu Beach where a DJ was set up for the night. There were fire dancers and fireworks though we did miss out on the midnight countdown... no one did it! So sad. Also sad was that the sparklers I purchased for midnight would.not.light. They were the most ridiculously uncooperative sparklers I've ever met in my life. Boo. 

Overall Utila was fun, we completed an adventure, and it was time to move on to the next.