More of Pigeon Cay.
As we pulled up to Pigeon Cay this small dot of an island was just off the coast of Pigeon Cay. You can't see it very well but that rundown shack is a family home. It has all of two windows and two doors. I think the family laid claim the whole island which was about an acre. I'm pretty sure if a stiff wind came by it would be a shackless island. Gives a whole new meaning to the word rustic. We saw some of the kids that lived there paddle over to the Cay, pick up some more kids, and proceed to sink the boat - bail it out - then re-sink it. Now that's better than kids parked in front of the TV any day. :)
Some days the boat was more full than others. This was one of our last dives of the week and we had quite the crowd with us. Australia, Canada, France, Uruguay, Honduras - it was quite the collection of people - but it turned out to be one of our best dive days there.
Fishes, fishes and more fishes. We saw some amazing coral formations and giant towers that started near the surface and continued out of sight below us - just walls and corals and fishes quite literally as far as the eye can see. We saw eels, a frog fish, gads of parrot fish, a couple of lobsters, an octopus and a zillion other swimming, crawling and crazy things. It was fabulous. This particular school of fish reminded me so much of Findin g Nemo I figured they deserved a spot on the blog.
Oh yeah, and did I mention shark? This was the second one we saw that day and it was awesome. We were a lot closer to this shark that it seems in the photo. I think he thought he was out of sight because he hid his head under the coral outcropping. I would say it was the coolest thing that day but oh boy it wasn't...
One big draw to Utila is that there is a great chance to see and swim with a whale shark. (Get your google on if you haven't seen one before.) The best chance is in the late winter/early spring, but occasionally you'll get lucky in September. As we were racing out to our next dive location, our captain spied a dive boat about a mile north of the island (that would be waaaaay out in the middle of the ocean, read: really freakin' deep.). All week we had been watching for whale shark signs (birds flocking and diving at the ocean far from land - feeding on the sharks "boil" of fish and such that he kicks up) and came close once but it turned out to be a big sailfish (looks like a Marlin)...still cool. It was September 25th and the last sighting had been in early September so there wasn't much hope. The dive boat was hanging out there for quite awhile and we decided to investigate. They won't talk about whale sharks on the radio because then all the dive shops will come out and scare the shark off. So your only choice is to potentially miss your afternoon dive and chance it. The yellow boat in the photo is the original boat that found the shark and that splash off to the right would be indeed a whale shark. You cannot wear your dive gear in the water with one of these so you have to snorkel it and slide into the water because a lot of splash will scare it away. Oh how I wish this had been a day with only four of us on the boat. We waited around to get the best position near the shark and then blammo...
Said whale shark. It was not a full grown one but still it was amazing to be in the water with something so large and graceful. This one even had a remora (cleaner) fish stuck to the bottom of it. Then after it swims away, it takes only a moment to realize that you're in really deep, vast water and talk about feeling very small in relation to the world. Yeoow. Talk about perspective. Awesome is definitely a word I would use.
There is something sad about a boat full of empty tanks, but dang, what a day. We only had one more dive left because you're not supposed to dive and fly in the same 24 hours. That night we went on a night dive to a place called moon hole. The only thing that makes me more nervous than really deep water with no bottom...is dark water. As a thunderstorm approached around us we leaped into the dark water and descended to the bottom. Now descending and ascending in pitch black water was scary stuff but I was glad I did it. We had big dive lights and set off exploring the bottom of this giant coral 'hole'. We saw an active octopus loping around (the one we had found earlier was hiding in a coral tree) and wow was all I could say. We cornered a squid that freaked out, inked and then shot off to get away from us...directly hitting our guide in the head. You can't laugh with a regulator but that is one time it was hard to hold it in. My favorite was the little shrimp that look like hundreds of little pink lights on the fringe of your dive light ring. It was a great ending to a great week of diving.
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