Apologies for going AWOL - some of you
might have thought I’d got lost in the Bermuda Triangle or something - as I’ve
been home from the Caribbean for almost three weeks and you’ve not yet heard a single ditty from me about our last month spent on the island.
My unusual lack of chatter (and it is unusual - just ask any of my friends) has been due
to many factors - such as extended jet-lag, a nasty jet-caught virus, dentist
appointments (for the awful reoccurring tooth abscess), important family events and looming magazine deadlines.
So yes, dear
reader, it does indeed seem like real life was waiting for me the very moment I got off the plane
in Glasgow!
A couple of months earlier when we first arrived on Utila, a tiny Caribbean island off mainland Honduras, it seemed as if we had endless
days of summer stretching out in front of us. Indeed, during the first two months we spent on the island, we felt like we were in some kind of time-warp. Then suddenly September arrived and the month sped by particularly quickly.
A
couple of months earlier we arrived on the island of Utila in a very
small airplane - which certainly ranked as one of the most exciting journeys Trav and I had ever taken!
September on Utila was an incredibly hot, humid and calm. As I
reiterated last month, Utila is known as the whale shark capital of the
Caribbean and so swimming with the whale shark is the hottest topic of conversation on the island. These magnificent creatures swim so close to the island on the very calm late summer sea. Going out on the boat looking for whale sharks is the number
one activity in September and spotting the characteristic ‘boil’ - an area of
sea rolling with tuna and other fish rising up as the whale shark feeds beneath
the surface - is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever witnessed. Rather than using diving gear and air tanks, you
simply use a mask, snorkel and fins to swim with these magnificent creatures - but as they come so close to
the surface to feed - that is all the equipment you'll need to fulfill your dreams
of swimming with the biggest fish in the sea.
This
photo, taken by ace underwater photographer Dave Thatcher, is of my husband Trav,
swimming with a whale shark off Utila in September 2014
swimming with a whale shark off Utila in September 2014
Other September Highlights:
Our
days on Utila began the moment the sun blazed through the windows of our Little
Yellow House at 6am and they were filled with an equal measure of work and play.
Except on a Thursday, which from our very first week on the island, was the day
that Trav and I had reserved to catch up with each other and relax completely. During September, lots of our lovely island friends managed to join us for a few
hours at the beach on ‘date day’, making Thursday’s a real highlight of our
week. The fun we had was in no short measure (he-he, see what I did there?) down
to the lovely bar staff at Neptunes at Coral Beach – especially Brooke and Jen -
who make us feel so welcome and kept the shots lined up!
Thursday 'date day' fun at Coral Beach and Neptunes Bar
So, except for Thursdays and our exciting
days out on the Caribbean Sea looking for whale sharks, while Trav was working as a Dive Master at Eco-Marine Dive Centre,I was busy
working on my new novel. I’m excited to tell you that ‘Castaway in the
Caribbean’ is now almost finished. The writing part is all done but I still have
a bit of work to do on editing my chapters and polishing my prose, in order to
make this book the very best it can be before it goes off to be professionally edited
and formatted for publication. Over the past three months, I have had so much fun
and inspiration writing this fast paced romantic adventure novel, which makes
this a story very close to my heart, and so I do hope that you will enjoy
reading it when it is published.
So what else did we get up to in
September on Utila…?
Mid Month Trav and I went along to a rock music gig on Bandu
Beach to support our lovely friend Dave and The Barefoot Band who headlined in the Utila Live Music Festival. They were fabulous and we rocked out all
night under the stars and had the most amazing time!
Rocking out under the stars with friends to The Barefoot Band
Utila Independence Day just happened to be on our ‘Thursday Date Day’. So we
met up with our friends and had lots of fun on the beach, swimming in the sea
and then sipping cocktails at the bar, all before hitching a lift back to the
dock at Eco-Marine on the dive boat (hence why it looked so crowded) while singing
our heads off and having a great time. As the dock at Eco had just had an
enormous rope swing installed - that also became the source of lots more crazy
fun, enthusiastic gymnastics - and wrenched arm muscles!
Crazy Utila independence day fun... yep, that's Trav on the swing!
The Biggest Surprise of the Month was getting news that our son James, who is an
English teacher and lives over in South Korea, was getting married to his lovely
girlfriend Sujeong - on that very day! We had been aware they were planning to get
married, as they had recently applied for a marriage license, but as it came
through much faster than anticipated they just decided to ‘pop over’ to the
registrars office and ‘do it’ straight away.
The official wedding photo of the newly married Mr and Mrs Horton
As
you can see, James and Sujeong didn’t bother with wedding tradition, favouring
the casual and unconventional. The groom wore his Cure t-shirt and the bride
carried a lollipop. Although Trav and I were sad that we couldn’t attend this very
special occasion in person, once the power came back on, we did manage to be
online during the registration of their marriage and so felt like we were there
‘virtually’. Then we raised our glasses to the happy couple to wish them every
happiness in their future married life together.
The Biggest Pain of the Month other than constant power outages that made keeping our
over-heated bodies cool and charging my laptop practically impossible – was me getting
an awful tropical tummy bug. I was really sick for a week before I eventually
went to the pharmacy for something to help, only to find that the cure also knocked
me for six with nasty side effects. I must admit to feeling pretty sorry for
myself for a good couple of weeks during our last month on the island and so,
once I felt I was on the mend again, I wanted to make the most of our last few
days there by taking some time out to join Trav and the crew on the boat searching
for whale sharks.
I'm out on the boat with the Eco-crew looking for whale sharks with Dive Master Dave
Utila in retrospect: what is it about this small island that makes it feel
so unique? Trav and I have been lucky enough to have visited over a dozen
islands in the Caribbean and yet I still cannot quite put my finger on what
makes Utila so special. On the website Utila Guide.com
the island is described as ‘the Caribbean as it used to be’ and ‘a Key West of
20 years ago’ and I feel this must be true as it certainly has a ‘trapped in
time’ appeal. It feels retro. Timeless. I fear that one day the rest of the
world will discover Utila or Utila will catch up with modern commercialism and
it will be spoiled. There are already cruise ships visiting the neighbouring
bay island of Roatan so it really is only a matter of time.
For
us, on our first night here, it was undoubtedly the orange-fire sunset on the sea
that made it so special. The next day it was the blue sky and sunshine and
white sand beaches. Then it was Trav discovering Eco-Marine Dive Shop at Sandy
Bay, run by lovely Tara and Steve (Daddio) and meeting the wonderful and
generous ‘family’ of people who work and dive there. Then it was going out on
the boat to dive and snorkel on the most amazing coral reef in the world in water
that is as warm as bath water.
Visiting
the Cay’s – tiny tropical white sand palm tree filled islands off the coat of
Utila for lazy Sunday picnics was pretty special too and so was spending our
evenings in fun company at some fabulous bars for drinks and dancing. The food
on the island is really good too and the fish and seafood is undoubtedly the
best I’ve ever tasted. All so very very special.
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 (I only ever saw one or two) 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
bought 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 and it is so very very addictive.
It is said (see the crazy ‘Come to Utila’ song on UTube!) that once you have
experienced life on Utila you may not ever want to leave. We had to leave after
our visa expired after ninety days, but Trav and I are already making plans to
return as soon as we can, but next time we’ll get a visa extension or we’ll plan
to do a quick visa run to Mexico or the Caymans and back again (lots of residents who don’t actually have a
residents visa do this) so that we can stay on Utila for longer. I plan to
write another book and to submit my regular magazine features via the internet but
I’ll plan to take my time next time around. I totally underestimated how much
there is to do on Utila so I’ll be sure to leave more room in my days for the
time-consuming task of sun worshiping, swimming in the sea, yoga (which I
discovered for the first time on Utila) and generally chilling out – if
chilling out is at all possible in 38 degrees C?
So
is it the simple lifestyle that makes Utila special? No modern day stresses? Sure,
there are nuisances, like sand flies and electric outages, but none of them can
ever compare to the bliss of truly living in the moment, of waking up to
sunshine every day and not having to wear many clothes or worry about fashion
or hair styles (the latter two items could just be me..?)
Our
final week on the island was an emotional one because Trav and I have met some
truly lovely people on the island whom we hope will remain our lifelong
friends. Utila is an amazing place, but actually, it really is the people we
met who made it feel so special and so much fun.
So
our final few days were about saying goodbye and promising to stay in
touch or saying ‘see you next year’ to those who remain on the island or have promised
to return, too.
On
our last night on Utila, our host for the evening was the enigmatic ‘Papa’ who travels
to Utila from Germany to dive with Eco-Marine every year for several months. He generously invited
Trav and I and the whole Eco ‘crew’ to join him as guests at his home where he
cooked his special garlic shrimp recipe for us all. It was a fabulous evening
of wonderful food, drinks, enthusiastic conversation and laughter. And
although Trav and I knew that we were saying a fond farewell to our lovely
friends, we also knew that just like Papa, we had a reunion to look forward to in
2015.
Early
in the next morning, we were given a lift in our landlady’s golf cart to the
air strip on Utila, where we waited for just forty minutes before boarding a
small aircraft to mainland Honduras. During that time we were eaten alive by
mosquitoes and I sincerely wished I’d chosen a good squirt of Deet over my Coco
Chanel perfume that morning. What on earth was I thinking?
For
two nights we stayed at a hotel in San Pedro Sula. The city is reported to be
the most dangerous city in the world (outside a warzone) and it has been so for
the past two years running. Consequentially, we stayed inside our hotel’s
luxurious walls for the entire time we were there, taking advantage of the room
service, the sumptuous bathroom, the hot water and air con, before we traveled
back to the airport to head for London Heathrow via Miami USA.
We
then flew from London up to Glasgow. It was a bit of a shock for us to go from
38 degrees C to whatever it is was in Scotland that day and then there was the
seven hour time difference to adjust to - but we were home and my thoughts were
full of seeing our lovely sons and our friends in Scotland and cuddling my
little dog, who may or may not have missed me as much as I missed her!
BUT A NEW ‘Snap Gap’ adventure begins very
soon…!
During
the first week in November - Trav and I are heading off on another exciting
‘snap gap’ adventure and to a very different part of the world this time. We
are travelling to the Persian Gulf and visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain. We will
be flying with Emirate Airlines from Glasgow to Bahrain via Dubai and Trav will
be celebrating his birthday during our time away. We are incredibly excited to
be seeing our lovely friends Sue and Pete once again!
Between now and then I will continue to work on editing and polishing my
new novel ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’ as well as putting together my exciting new
monthly ‘Bookshelf’ features and ‘Snap Gap’ travel features for
Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine. I’ll also be updating this blog with any other
news about my writerly progress, the ups and downs of our life back in Scotland,
and what I might be thinking of packing in my suitcase for our next trip. So please
come back soon and do feel free to leave a comment - as I do love to read them all
and I promise to reply.
Love,
Janice xx
