After much debate, we settled on renting Anke´s underwater camera for a day so that we can 
take some pictures of all the marine life around Utila. There were no baliadas for breakfast, as the island didn´t have power, so we had to settle for sandwiches and coffee for breakfast. Once on the boat, we were happy to see Louis steer it towards the north side of the island, and after about a 25 minute ride we docked at our first site, the Pinnacle. This is a huge coral column, and most of the dive is spent spinning around it as we were slowly surfacing; there is always a lot of life around this site, and took enough pictures to illustrate several entries. We saw lots of juvenile spotted drums, creole wrasse, 4 eyed butterfly fish, even a scrawled cow fish (the first one we got 
to see so far), as well as trumpet fish and bar jacks. I was concentrating so much on photography and trying to get nice shots that I lost track of conserving my air and finished the dive sooner than I would have liked, though with lots of beautiful pictures with me. After the surface interval of about an hour, we moved to Spotted Bay, our second site on the north side of the island that day.
For the second dive I kept a closer eye on my breathing, since I didn't want the repeat of the first, shorter dive; almost as soon as we submerged, Sam used his shaker to attract our
attention and point out a huge turtle swimming below us. This caught me off guard, and by the time I had the camera ready the turtle was gone, only to reappear a few minutes later, apparently feeding under us. I tried to get as close as possible to try to get a picture, and at the time I thought nothing would come out, until a few days later when we got a chance to review the pictures on Anke's computer. While not perfect, the picture you see is enough to give you an idea of the turtle itself. We also got to see a smooth trunkfish (these guys remind me of the hovering spaceships in Star Wars), and we got to hold and pet a Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber (funny name 
for a funny looking animal). Sam also pointed out a number of Sea Pearls (not the precious ones), and while he was busy doing that we didn't even notice a huge Gray Angelfish swimming in his bubbles until it was right in his face, which caused him to be a bit startled. We later learned the fish is actually called Bubbles, since it loves to play with the exhales of all the divers. Towards the end of the dive, as we were at our 3 minute safety stop, we also got to see a big mature spotted drum, nowhere near as cute as the juvenile ones.
We got back on the boat, and quickly packed all our equipment before returning to Hotel Kayla,
as they were trying to leave as quickly as possible to return to Utila. This was the day of the big carnival parade, and virtually everyone left the Cays in time to watch it, though Josh, Marisa and I decided to stay behind, since we had no place to stay in the East Harbour, and everything had been booked for weeks, nor could we get back to the cays by the evening since no fishermen travel that way in the afternoon or evening because of the currents and high waves. So we ended up having the hotel almost just for ourselves, and we went for a snorkel in the afternoon, taking advantage of still having the underwater camera to take more pictures and videos of us skin 
diving. Josh saw a stingray right off the dock, as soon as he got into the water, but it was gone by the time I threw the camera at him (well, near him in the water). We got to see more stoplight parrot fish, 4 eyed butterflies, even a flounder (flat fish with eyes sticking out that likes to bury itself in the sand as a defence technique). We spent the rest of the evening fairly quietly, went for dinner and sunset watching at Cayview restaurant, and then watched movies until falling asleep.
take some pictures of all the marine life around Utila. There were no baliadas for breakfast, as the island didn´t have power, so we had to settle for sandwiches and coffee for breakfast. Once on the boat, we were happy to see Louis steer it towards the north side of the island, and after about a 25 minute ride we docked at our first site, the Pinnacle. This is a huge coral column, and most of the dive is spent spinning around it as we were slowly surfacing; there is always a lot of life around this site, and took enough pictures to illustrate several entries. We saw lots of juvenile spotted drums, creole wrasse, 4 eyed butterfly fish, even a scrawled cow fish (the first one we got 
to see so far), as well as trumpet fish and bar jacks. I was concentrating so much on photography and trying to get nice shots that I lost track of conserving my air and finished the dive sooner than I would have liked, though with lots of beautiful pictures with me. After the surface interval of about an hour, we moved to Spotted Bay, our second site on the north side of the island that day.For the second dive I kept a closer eye on my breathing, since I didn't want the repeat of the first, shorter dive; almost as soon as we submerged, Sam used his shaker to attract our
attention and point out a huge turtle swimming below us. This caught me off guard, and by the time I had the camera ready the turtle was gone, only to reappear a few minutes later, apparently feeding under us. I tried to get as close as possible to try to get a picture, and at the time I thought nothing would come out, until a few days later when we got a chance to review the pictures on Anke's computer. While not perfect, the picture you see is enough to give you an idea of the turtle itself. We also got to see a smooth trunkfish (these guys remind me of the hovering spaceships in Star Wars), and we got to hold and pet a Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber (funny name 
for a funny looking animal). Sam also pointed out a number of Sea Pearls (not the precious ones), and while he was busy doing that we didn't even notice a huge Gray Angelfish swimming in his bubbles until it was right in his face, which caused him to be a bit startled. We later learned the fish is actually called Bubbles, since it loves to play with the exhales of all the divers. Towards the end of the dive, as we were at our 3 minute safety stop, we also got to see a big mature spotted drum, nowhere near as cute as the juvenile ones.We got back on the boat, and quickly packed all our equipment before returning to Hotel Kayla,
as they were trying to leave as quickly as possible to return to Utila. This was the day of the big carnival parade, and virtually everyone left the Cays in time to watch it, though Josh, Marisa and I decided to stay behind, since we had no place to stay in the East Harbour, and everything had been booked for weeks, nor could we get back to the cays by the evening since no fishermen travel that way in the afternoon or evening because of the currents and high waves. So we ended up having the hotel almost just for ourselves, and we went for a snorkel in the afternoon, taking advantage of still having the underwater camera to take more pictures and videos of us skin 
diving. Josh saw a stingray right off the dock, as soon as he got into the water, but it was gone by the time I threw the camera at him (well, near him in the water). We got to see more stoplight parrot fish, 4 eyed butterflies, even a flounder (flat fish with eyes sticking out that likes to bury itself in the sand as a defence technique). We spent the rest of the evening fairly quietly, went for dinner and sunset watching at Cayview restaurant, and then watched movies until falling asleep. 
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