The Lionfish

One of the most impressive looking fish in my diving here was the Lionfish. Sadly, he is not wanted. Native to the Western Pacific, the Lionfish appears to have arrived in the Western Atlantic and Carribean as a result of hurricanes and tank releases in the early 1990's. Their impact is simply disastrous.

"Protected by venomous spines, lionfish are voracious and effective predators. When hunting, they herd and corner their prey using their pectoral fins, then quickly strike and swallow their prey whole. With few known natural predators, the lionfish poses a major threat to coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean region by decreasing survival of a wide range of native reef animals via both predation and competition. While native grouper may prey on lionfish, they have been overfished and therefore unlikely to significantly reduce the effects of invasive lionfish on coral reef communities." (http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/2009/articles/lionfish_invasion.html)

On one dive over on the north side of Utila last week (where people don't often go and haven't been for a while) we saw well over a dozen lionfish but unfortunately did not have the spear with us that day. Hunting here is very controlled, each spear requires a license and the only fish you are allowed to spear is the lionfish. Even then, the spear owner is very particular with who they give permission to.

There are so many beautiful fish here that deserve protecting so it would be good to see regular spearing trips to eliminate the population here.

Diving and Hurricanes

Well I'm still here in Utila... It has been a nice week with lots of diving and chilling out. The weather has been up and down, usually nice in the morning then rainy in the afternoons. On Saturday the weekly booze cruise at Altons Dive Shop was cancelled (again) and it was replaced with a dock party to celebrate Hurricane Dick which was meant to be hitting Utila around midday on Sunday. The weather was pretty rough on Saturday afternoon then it calmed right down in the evening. I learned later that the island had a curfew at 9pm because of the hurricane and the only place open on the island was Altons. Then yesterday there was not much to do while we waited out the storm so the debauchery started very early in the day - kind of reminded me of when we were snowed in when I first arrived in New York.

Hurricane Dick turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. After everyone on the waterfront evacuating their rooms and everything being locked down, he was nothing more that a rough storm for a few hours in the morning, passing about 90kms off Utila by lunchtime.

The plan was to leave this morning but it was all too hard, so, manana. Today the weather is perfect - the best weather since I've been here and the water is crystal clear. I'm heading off on the afternoon boat for what will be my final dives here in Utila.

Utila

Utila is a tropical island paradise with turquoise waters and beautiful sunshine. But not in the rainy season. It is still a nice place to be but the rain is annoying and the water is a kind of murky brown close to shore, but nicer further out. The diving is still pretty good most days.

The island is very much a party and diving island, with not much to do beside those two things. There is not much point to being here if you don’t dive and then afterwards, everyone hangs around for some beers or rums or whatever. I can see how people get trapped here for months on end, eventually becoming divemasters or instructors. The lifestyle is pretty good.

My first day was just for relaxing, getting over the Mosquito Coast.

Second day I started my PADI Open Water Diving course. The theory was easy and logical and most of the skills were okay but I struggled with one of them – almost throwing in the towel.

We did the skills in a pool at some guy’s house on the island. Two and a half hours we were in there and it was so cold by the end of it I was shivering, and that was with wearing a wetsuit.

The past two days I have been on four dives to complete the skills in open water. This afternoon I complete my theory and exams and then its all fun diving from here on in.

Back To Civilisation

We had to be up at 2.40am this morning to get the boat back to Batalla. We knew no-one would have told Eddis we’d be a day later and we were actually happy not to go with him again after last time.

As soon as the boat gets in at Batalla there’s eight or ten pickups there all trying to get you to go back with them on the return journey. Their cars are empty so it is a good chance for them to make money if they take passengers. We found the guy who was giving us his Guarita on the first night and went with him.

His driver was a legend. We tore out of the place as soon as we got in, not a second to waste. Half an hour in we got a flat tyre and I don’t think he had all the tools to change it. We got help from another pickup and before too long we were speeding off down the beach. This guy was doing speeds of up to 60kms per hour along the beach – and it was quite a high tide again.

We didn’t even go on the first pontoon. These guys drive further along and one gets out, walks through the water, if its not too deep, we drive through. It was pretty cool. The whole trip was fast and bumpy but he seemed to be a much more skilled driver than our first and that definitely matters out here.

By 10am we were back in Tocoa and I was hopeful I’d make it to Utila in the same day. We jumped on a chicken bus back to La Ceiba, happy to be on proper roads. Not too long into that journey and there looked like a problem with the bus, smoke was billowing out from the engine in the front of the bus. There were two conductors and they kept having to jump out every ten minutes or so to fill up containers with water to pour into the engine. They took it all in their stride and seemed to be having a bit of fun with the situation.

We got into La Ceiba in heavy rain and a bit later than we should have but that was fine, I would still make it to Utila.

The boat ride to Utila was pretty rough, at least it was a big boat so I didn’t mind too much being almost airborne on some of the waves. Apparently a lot of people get sick on this trip but I don’t think we had any, thankfully.

Raista

Today we were making our way back, going downriver to Raista, which is not far from Belen. It took about four hours in the boat, going back the same way we came.

The weather was not as good today and we had a bit of rain on the way back so we huddled under a big bit of plastic to protect ourselves.

There were a lot of birds out on this trip and we were lucky enough to see a lot of toucans, they always sit really high in the trees but their profile is very distinct.

We got to Doña Elma’s at around lunchtime but she was expecting us yesterday – obviously no one was talking to anyone on this tour so I think we kept surprising people everywhere we went as we were a day behind schedule. Doña Elma whipped up a good lunch for us and got our rooms sorted. We were surprised to see other tourists here, as we hadn’t seen any in a week. There were three Spaniards and a Columbian.

In the afternoon we had guide come and take us on a tour of the community. This pretty much involved walking along the dirt road, he pointed out the butterfly farm, school and church, then we returned back along the beach.

The beach was a real disappointment, there was more rubbish then I’d seen anywhere before. The guide said it all washes up from the Bay Islands but I find it hard to believe that is the only source. But still, why doesn’t anyone clean it up – there is plastic everywhere.

When the “tour” was over we went back to the village to buy some cold beers, our first cold beer in days. They tasted fantastic! Doña Elma is apparently known for her good cooking and we weren’t disappointed at dinner. We also got to eat our first vegetables in a week – some raw cabbage and tomato.

After dinner there was a Mosquito Dance just for us. This was a bit cringeworthy as they set up three chairs for us to watch the three dancers. There was a bonfire and our guide from this afternoon was on guitar and vocals. Around the outside everyone else from the village and a couple of other tourists who were staying there watched. A few of the dances involved our participation and while it was quite funny, it was also pretty horrible with everyone watching. At one point the bonfire became a raging inferno scaring the dancers so the guitar guy got some water to splash on to calm it down then the whole structure collapsed - it was hilarious.

Las Marias

Today we were meant to do a trek but with everything still wet from yesterday we cancelled that plan and Mariano agreed to take us for a walk through Las Marias. It was a much nicer day today, in fact it was hot and really humid after all of yesterday’s rain.

Mariano showed us some more medicinal plants and took us to see the health clinic/hospital and the new tourist centre they’re building.

They have only around fifty to eighty tourists down here a year. I don’t know whether it used to be more and it has dried up since last year’s coup or whether they’re very ambitious. The new building will even have internet. I can’t imagine too much tourist traffic through here although you can fly in on light planes.

Given there aren’t many tourists, a few people thought we were a good opportunity to get some money which was a bit annoying, but generally the Mosquito people are very nice – quiet but friendly.

The Petroglyph

After breakfast, Mariano came to collect us to head of for today’s adventure. It was raining and we had our jackets but were hoping it would clear up. We walked through the village of Las Marias which is very spread out along small dirt tracks. The centre of town is about a 15-20 minute walk from Doña Rutilia’s place then we walked through more of the village down to a point in the river where we would meet our boats and guides. One of the guides was also the priest and he blessed our journey which did make me start to wonder what we had ahead of us.

The boats just kept getting smaller. We were in two dugout canoes which sat only inches above the water. I had my own canoe with three guides – the priest being one of them. Two of the guides were at the front of the boat, pulling us up river by sticking their long wooden poles down into the river floor and pulling. It was raining and that movement made the boat rock a lot, this was not going to be a comfortable ride. If it wasn’t raining and the boat wasn’t rocking so much I might have been game enough to get some photos or video but there was no way I was taking my camera out on this boat.

After about an hour or so we got to a point where we were going to walk through the jungle a bit. Valencia was our guide and she was pointing out all sorts of medicinal plants and how they use them. Most medical treatment down here uses plants for the first few days of illness, then if you aren’t better, you see a doctor or nurse. They really seem to have a cure for everything in these jungles.

Lunch we had brought with us, spaghetti with tinned sausages and bananas with some coconut bread. Can’t say I’m really enjoying the food down here at Las Marias and there isn’t a vegetable anywhere in sight. We ate what we could of our lunch then the guides finished it off – we were really embarrassed when they passed around our plates of unwanted food, there would have been plenty to share had we known.

We had an hour more upstream to get to the petroglyph and some of it was pretty hard going. The river was so shallow this whole time and we’d often scrape the boat on the river floor. Some parts had quite strong rapids and we just had to charge through them. These guys that work these boats have probably the strongest arms – it is incredibly hard work.

The petroglyph is a rock in the middle of the river that dates back over 1,000 years. It is unknown exactly what the picture depicts and who put it there. It is thought to have perhaps been Aztecs or Mayans or some other civilisation but no-one knows. We didn’t spend long at the petroglyph cause it was still bloody raining so we turned around for the cruise downstream which was a two hour journey.

For this part the guides used paddles to navigate the river and it was quite good fun and less scary than I imagined going through the rapids. By the time we got back, another half hour walk to the hospedaje, we were so cold, my hands and feet were blue. It had been seven hours of sitting and walking through the rain and everything was wet, despite my wearing a waterproof jacket. No hot showers here either, just a bucket and some cold water. Lourdes made us some coffee and before too long we started to thaw out.