Having finally caught up with posts on this blog - and after three
months of being here on our island paradise, Trav and I are preparing to leave once
more!
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| Our bags are packed... |
Our 90 day entry visa has
almost expired and the rainy season has begun so we are flying back to Glasgow
Scotland - for a period of just less than 48 hours in order to catch up with
our family - and then we are taking a flight from Edinburgh to Bangkok
Thailand.
We plan to follow the sunshine
and do some island hopping down the Andaman Sea on the south-west coast of
Thailand all the way down to Malaysia and from there we hope to fly on from
Kuala Lumpur to the Philippines. This will be a four month trip and our most
ambitious to date.
Here on the island of Utila it
is still incredibly hot - around 30 deg C most days - but the rain and the increased
humidity makes it hard to be outside as the damp weather brings out all the
biting mosquitoes and sandflies - and if the electric supply goes off as it did
this morning then not having the fans whirling overhead makes it hard to be
inside too.
So we are flying away and plan
to return to Utila directly from South East Asia at the end of February. When we
get back here we will be given another 90 day entry visa. It is possible to get
an extra month extension on the island - but most people who call Utila their
adopted home leave to do a ‘visa run’ to the USA, Mexico, the nearby Cayman
Islands, Guatemala or Belize and then come back in again to claim another 90
day entry. We'll plan to do a visa-run ourselves in 2016 as we hope to spend most of the summer season on the island,
right through until mid-September when we hope to return to Scotland
for a few weeks to catch up with family and friends.
This trip was our third visit to Utila and we have now spent a full
nine months here on the island. This
year we were here for the months of March, April and May and then we
returned for August, September and October. Last year, in 2014, we spent three
months on the island during July August
and September. Utila now feels familiar and like home to us.
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| Utila - an aerial view |
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| Back on Utila and on the dock at our beloved Gunter's Ecomarine Dive Shop |
We have made lots of friends here
from all over the world. Trav dives at a fabulous and fun PADI dive shop called
Gunter’s Ecomarine in the Sandy Bay area. We absolutely love the laid-back,
no-shoes, island-time lifestyle and we have at last, after trying out four
different rental properties, found a ‘casa’ that perfectly suits us and that we
can rent long term.
I have blogged extensively about the island of Utila and how much
fun we have had here but you might wonder what it is – when Trav and I have
travelled to so many other islands all over the world –what makes this small island so extra special?
On the website Utila Guide.com the island is described as ‘the Caribbean as
it used to be’ and ‘Key West of 20 years ago’ and I feel this is a true description
as it certainly feels retro and timeless here. But I’m sure that it is only a
matter of time before the rest of the world will discover Utila or Utila will
catch up with modern commercialism and it will change. There are already cruise
ships visiting the neighbouring and larger bay island of Roatan.
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| Happy to be back on Utila celebrating with our island friends |
Where is Utila? Utila is
the smallest of the three Bay Islands situated in the Caribbean Sea just off
the coast of Honduras in Central America. Utila is unique, quaint and
unspoiled, some may call it basic, with no chain stores or fast food
businesses. There are reportedly less than twenty cars on the island and people
get around on foot (bare or flip-flopped) or on a scooter or golf cart.
The
infrastructure on the island, electric and internet, is patchy at best and
fresh water is a precious commodity. We buy our drinking water every other day
in five gallon drums. Fruit and vegetables are brought to the island by boat
from the mainland (Honduras) on a Tuesday and a Friday and shops sell out
quickly so the advice is to buy a good-looking vegetable as soon as you see it
or it will be gone in the blink of an eye. There are limited health care
facilities on the island; there is a clinic and a pharmacy but anyone needing
hospital is taken to the mainland by boat or plane. There is opportunistic
crime here, just like anywhere else, so you have to be aware of it without
letting it make you edgy. The one small bank on Utila is visibly guarded by
armed police both inside and out but half of the time, just like the electric
supply, the banking systems are down and you can’t use your plastic to withdraw
money. Things happen. Things don’t happen. It’s all part of island life. One
thing, of which I am sure, is that there is nowhere in the whole world quite
like this beautiful crazy laid-back piece of paradise.
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| Laid back... no shoes... |
It is said that once you have
experienced life on Utila you may not ever want to leave. Sure, there are
nuisances, like mosquitoes and sand flies and power outages, but none of that stuff
can ever blight the bliss of truly living in the moment, of waking up to
sunshine every day, of not having to wear many clothes or worry about fashion
or hair styles. Erm… maybe that’s just me?! The scuba diving here is the best
in the world (Trav says so!) and there are many dive centers on the island. But
if you don’t dive then the snorkeling is fantastic because the water is warm
and clear.
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| The snorkeling and diving is fantastic... as is my new full face snorkel mask! |
There are lots of activities to get involved with on land too. Sun worshiping on the island and particularly on The Cays (tiny tropical islands
just off the coast of Utila) and relaxing in a hammock with a good book are
favourite pastimes of mine and so is yoga practice, which I discovered here for
the first time last year. There are also social groups that welcome people to
help with animal welfare, nature and wildlife conservation and beach clean-ups,
etc.
On Utila, the days pass effortlessly into evening but do be warned
(see the uTube videos I’ve suggested you might watch at the end of this post!) that Utila
has a bit of a party reputation with the young diver/backpackers that come here
and so Utila by night can be a noisy affair, as there are lots of bars selling
very cheap alcohol and playing music. But it doesn’t have to be ‘party island’
- if you prefer to watch the sun going down from a quiet chair with sea-view
and with a rum in your hand - you can certainly do that too!
Our last few days on the island
are about saying ‘bye for now’ to all the lovely people who make island life here
so special – until we return for the new season in 2016.
I’ve picked out a few YouTube videos you might be interested in
viewing as they show off this special island of Utila from the fun stuff to the
amazing stuff.
Fun video on why 'I Love Utila'
Dancing happy peeps on 'Happy Utila!'
Tiny tropical islands off the coast of Utila 'Utila Cays'
Craziness in this now famous Marty and Ginsky video! 'Come To Utila'
Take a look at Revolutionary diving with Gunter's Ecomarine Dive Shop - 'Revolution'
Fabulous Whale Sharks of Utila video by Dave Thatcher - starring Trav!
Gunter's EcoMarine Facebook Page
Do pop back again soon and do please consider leaving a comment as I love to
hear from you. Let me know if you watched the videos and what you thought of them? I promise to reply as soon as I get an internet connection. I'll leave you with our 'take off' and 'goodbye Utila' videos!
Love, Janice xx
