Takin’ A Pre-Winter Break in Honduras
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008It wasn’t all about whale sharks. Winter in Alaska was just six weeks away and the summer here was wet and miserable, so we all needed some sun and fun before the darkness set in. Utila was our first stop, and after booking with Cap’n Morgan’s Dive Centre, settled in for the night. The island is fairly inexpensive there’s lots of 20-something europeans, americans, and aussies all about. Yep, there’s a fair bit of partying. At 6ish the next morning we boarded the Miss Cary and motored across to Jewel Cay and got our rooms at the Hotel Kayla. Nothing fancy, but more than adequate. Well, except when the commodes didn’t flush.
We did a 10-dive program and it was fairly first-rate. Good equipment, good boat, good crew, good guides. My lame pictures don’t do justice to the reefs, which were in surprisingly good shape. You’ll see better ones online. We did see whale sharks as we were cruising between dive spots and were able to jump in the water and swim with them a little bit before they sounded. Darn cool. Another day we came across a pod of over 100 dolphins and were again able to put on mask and fins and play around with them for some time. That experience is up there as one of the highlights of the trip and of my life- and I’ve done a few things over the years. The dolphins were jumpin’ and divin’ and whistlin’ and twistin’ and turnin’ all around us for about a half-hour. [read on]
I try not to have too many expectations in life – it’s too easy to be dissapointed if reality doesn’t quite match what you had hoped for. Often, by having expectations of how a particular thing should be, you become blind to what the experience does present, and that could be unfortunate if the experiences are valuable. But sometimes things are just plain crappy – and my dive/sail charter with 
I enrolled in a 5 day scuba certification class this last week. 2 days in a pool in Cairns, and then 3 days/2 nights on a boat out of the GBR. It was a ... 
jpb