Diving & Kiteboarding, Utila
Trip Start
Oct 06, 2006
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44
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Trip End
Sep 14, 2008
Utila, Honduras
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Alter a few days in Semuc Champey I headed south across the border to Honduras for the second time on this trip. The first time when I headed with Mariela in this direction we both got sick and could not do all the things we wanted to. My goal was to make it to the Bay Islands off the North coast of Honduras in the Caribbean Sea. On the way there I stopped in the lovely town of Copan, Honduras - for the second time as well - before I took a bus to La Ceiba. When I arrived in La Ceiba in the afternoon the winds were already blowing strong and I spent 3 days kiteboarding. It was the first time in a few months that I again went to kite and it felt sooooooooo..... good! You kiteboarders out there know what I'm talking about. I was really happy after 3 days of solid wind and then took the ferry from La Ceiba to the island of UTILA.
Utila is a diving mecca and is full of dive shops. Supposedly this is the cheapest and one of the best places in the world to learn how to dive so I went for it as well. I had a great time getting my Open Water Certification (around $250) swam in aquarium like water with sea turtles, spotted eagle rays, and thousands of colorful fish. Diving is an adrenaline rush as well as a relaxing activity in my opinion. I am excited to go diving with my brother Chris sometime soon!
After I completed the diving course I had a day to relax before the weather started to change. This was a bad thing for all the dive centers, but a great thing for me J. 4 days of pure kiting in casi turquoise water. The wind / storm was too strong at times for the dive boats to go out on their dives but when they did I cruised with them for while, ¨hucked¨ a nice 20 foot jump behind the boat, waved from the air, made everyone cheer, and sailed back the other way. Great times! After a day or two most people / dive shops on the island knew who the guy with the grey and yellow kite out there was and I got approached several times (and sometimes literally begged) to teach some people how to do this. While the conditions and launching / landing areas weren't perfect on Utila, there's lots of potential there, and right now there is no school, but I am sure there will be one sooner or later. While it is a bay the wind was slightly offshore so I was definitely a bit worried at times that if I missed the point where the beach ends, I would have to sail the ~ 20 km back to La Ceiba. I was pretty blessed when for some reason the wind on my last day changed a bit side-onshore instead of offshore and I actually had to self-rescue after my kite got all tangled up with my lines. That situation would have been bad news the days before where I might have floated past the point and nobody would have even noticed that I am having problems and floating out to the open sea. So ... this self-rescue operation meant for me that it was time to move on from Utila after 2 weeks.
I made my way back to Copan, Honduras, for the third time before finding another traveler named Jenny from England to go to El Salvador.
