Meeting the mayor

After our Whale Shark experience, we knew that we couldn't possibly top off that experience, so we decided to head back to Water Cay for a full day of snorkeling, swimming and sitting on the beach. We hired a local fisherman to take us over with his boat, and asked him to return for us by the end of the day. We made sure that we brought enough water and food with us, and a few minutes later we were dropped off on the northern beach of the island. To our satisfaction, it looked that we were the only three people on Water Cay, and it felt great to have a private Caribbean island to ourselves. We settled on the beach, left our stuff there and grabbed our snorkels, mask and fins and headed to explore the south side of the island. As soon as we got in the water and geared up, we noticed not one or two, but hundreds of jelly fish all around us. After a few minutes we wisely decided to cancel our plan and return to the beach, since snorkeling was out of the question, since we would be covered in stings.

Then we were faced with another problem - we didn't have a ride back to the cays until late afternoon, no cell phone and no radio (not that you can receive cell phone service anyway on such a small island). Just as we were debating what to do, we spotted a dive boat from Alton's that was anchored nearby; Josh offered to swim over to the boat to ask if he can use their radio to call back to the cays and have someone sent over to pick us up. As he returned, he first told us the bad news: they wouldn't let him use the radio; we asked why only to find out the good news: we were invited aboard the boat and they would drop us off on their way back to Utila. So we packed up our stuff and walked into the water, holding all the important stuff (cameras and such) way above our heads. We made it onto the boat all wet but with the dry stuff untouched, climbed aboard and the captain came over to introduce himself.

"Hi, my name is Alton and in case you didn't know I am the mayor of Utila". That was one hell of an introduction, followed by an election speech about all his accomplishments for the last few years. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we were not eligible to vote since we were in Honduras on a tourist visa, but it was an interesting way of meeting the mayor of the town. We got dropped off at Hotel Kayla, thanked them for their kindness, and spent the afternoon relaxing before having to get ready for a night dive. Gina stayed at the hotel and she was our divemaster, leading us on a dive around Jewel Cay Lagoon, where we got to see the ilusive Large Eyed Toadfish and a Juvenile French Angelfish.

The next morning Josh and Marisa packed up their bags, as after the two morning dives we all headed back to Utila so that they will catch the ferry the following day. We got a place at the Bayview Hotel, fairly expensive for the size of the room - we were laughing that the bathroom was converted from their closet (giving a whole new meaning to WC - Water Closet). We had our last dinner together at Dave`s (by far the best value for the lempira), and we went for a few drinks at TreeTanic, where we met the rest of the Captain Morgan`s crew, so that they can all say goodbye to Josh and Marisa, as they were, sadly, heading back home, ending a month long trek through 3 countries in Central America.

Whale Shark!

Josh, Marisa and I had fallen into a pattern while we were staying at Hotel Kayla, alternating days between diving and snorkeling or relaxing, but for some odd reason, we all decided to hop on Miss Kary though we had already gone diving the day before. We had no idea what a great decision that ended up being in hindsight, but we were about to find out. It was an absolute perfect day, not a cloud in the sky, so after putting all our gear on the boat we headed towards the north side of Utila. For the first dive we went to the Pinnacle, an underwater sea mound that rises from 40m depth to just below the surface; we got to see a Hawksbill Turtle, a Green Moray Eel and lots of schools of different types of fish. We were really happy with what we got to see, and we got back onto the boat to head over to Raggedy Cay, the second site for the day. Along the way I noticed something odd a bit further out into the deeper water; I thought it was a school of flying fish passing by. As I pointed it out to others and to Captain Louis, he turns to me and says: "Those are not flying fish, that's a Whale Shark". I remember so clearly noticing Louis kicking into high gear; he is normally very relaxed and laid back, but as soon as we noticed that, he became so focused on what he had to do.

What I had spotted was what is called "the boil": as a whale shark rises towards the surface, it pushes up plankton from the bottom, which in turn attracts other fish to swim in the area, and it even attracts birds to feed on those fish. Within a few minutes, as all the divers got the great news, Louis steered the boat towards the open water and the chase began. Sam gave us all the Whale Shark briefing, asking us all to line up at the back of the boat with snorkels and fins, telling us to slide into the water (not dive), but only upon the captain's order. The adrenaline rush was so high we were giddy with excitement, we had heard about the Whale Sharks for so long, and here we were hot on one of their trail. I watched Utila shrinking before my eyes as we ventured further out into the ocean; just when we thought we couldn't take any more suspensful waiting, Louis gave us the order to jump into the water.

What happened next lasted for a few seconds, but it felt like a life time; as I slid into the water, I couldn't see anything because of all the bubbles from the others around me. I got kicked in the head at least a few times, and by the time the water cleared I had just a few moments to look in and see a huge dark shape sinking deeper and deeper, obviously disturbed by the intruders. I was a bit dissapointed I never got to fully see it, so I was thrilled when I stuck my head out of the water and saw Louis yelling and gesturing at us to get back on the boat as quickly as possible. I don't think I swam this fast in my life, but it goes to show what one can do when you have the right incentive. We quickly got everyone out of the water and the chase continued; we could even the shape of the Whale Shark as we were following it; we got back into our formation at the back of the boat, waiting for Louis to give us the order to go back in again.

This time around we had a bit of a better idea of what to do, so when Louis yelled "now!" we slid into the water splashing a lot less than the first time. Once there I remember looking at the boat and seeing the captain yell: "Don't look at me, look in the water". As I stuck my head in the water, I could not believe what my eyes saw: we were right over the shark, which was so big it rivaled the boat in terms of its size. Since we were more streamlined we did not scare it off right away, so we got a chance to swim with it for a few minutes, some of us ever free dove down to get a better look. My only regret about this day is not having a camera to capture the moment, but the image will live forever in my memory - for the record, the whale shark images in this entry are not mine, they belong to Captain Morgan's, but I wanted everyone to have an idea of what a Whale Shark is all about.