made it to Utila...

[mitsuguy]

Alright guys, we made it to Utila, and I wanted to post some pictures we took along the way... Everything is going great here - we start diving tomorrow, and our plan is for the north side of the island... It was kinda a pain getting here, but all is well... all of our connections were timed ok and it really went as smoothly as I could imagine... Think we even found an apartment to rent already too...

Anyways, on to the pics....

Here's everything we have - the two large ones have dive gear, everything else is our clothes, some personal items, laptops, instructor manual, OW, AOW, Rescue, DM manuals, and other miscellaneous needs...


This is the plane that will take us to Fort Lauderdale for the first leg of the trip, an Airbus A319 (same type of plane from Fort Lauderdale to San Pedro Sula, Honduras)


Room service / restaurant menu for the ApartHotel Villanuria in San Pedro Sula....


The wife and I in that hotel room (more of an apartment)


Same...


This place was quite nice, surrounded by high brick walls and guarded by steel gates with armed security....


Our flight from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba was on this plane:


Some of the awesome scenery flying through Honduras

[mitsuguy]

San Pedro Sula, from the air...


The Utila Princess 2, ferry to the island from La Ceiba:


Looking back at the mainland from about 8 miles out:


another...


The pool at the Mango Inn, on Utila


A Macaw we say while walking around:


Random dive boat we saw from the shore...


the bar at the Mango Inn


This is from the western most part of town looking across the bay at the eastern most part of town....

[Charles R]

Thanks for the update and congratulations on finally making it to fulfill your dreams. keep us updated.

[Foo2]

Very cool! Have fun!!

[Drewskey]

I've been enjoying reading your updates. I pray all goes to plan!

[mitsuguy]

Alright, well, two days of diving out of the way, and we are definitely in heaven here... we've been staying in a private dorm style room, but using shared restrooms... not horrible, but definitely not the way we want it... today, we found a small apartment, 1 bedroom, with a/c (though we probably will never use it), and cable tv for $400 a month, US dollars. It's been weird here with the different currencies... they (now we) use Honduran Lempiras... the exchange rate is $1US to about 18.7 Lempira. I withdrew 2000 Lempira the other day and the thing gave me 3 500 and 5 100 bills... Most everything is cheap here, some things cost the same as home, but lots of things are cheaper... For example, I had a Super Baleada the other day, which is really a huge taco (think, full plate), Diamond had pancakes and we both had sodas... total bill 100 Lempira. that's just a little over $5 US.

here was my trip report from yesterday, along with some pics I am sending home as well:

Saw a good amount of fish, couple barracuda, etc, nice, fun dive, but on our surface interval, we were on our way to the cays for a quick snack - they have amazing burgers out there - anyways, we saw dolphins, got a little closer to them and it was a pod of about 50 or so dolphins, including some very young ones, a couple were only 2 or 3 feet long... amazing! after hanging out with them for a while, we continued on, had our snacks, and went on to a second spot where we saw a bunch more fish, this time, we saw a shark, relatively small, resting underneath some coral... he didn't come out even with us around, and we didn't want to disturb him...

[navyhmc]

Glad to see things are going well for both of you. Hope things continue to go your way.

Keep safe and stay happy!

[CamaroChick]

great pics! We visited Roatan last year and liked it, but I'm anxious to hear more about Utila. Keep it comin...

[navyhmc]

Hey Mitsu!!!

Where'd the dive pictures go????

[Vercingetorix]

Cody,

Great story. be sure to update your blog-site as well. I haven't seen the dive pics you refer to because they're either moved or deleted (as navyhmc already pointed-out).

I especially like the first photo of everything you own in the world in a few suitcases standing by the door. Kinda makes you think.