Utila Diving

The last couple of days have been busy ones around here. Since, obviously, working most nights every week and starting the daytime turtle projects isn't enough to keep me busy, I also have been doing some diving, which is the thing to do here in Utila.

The whole economy of Utila relies on the dive industry. There are 10-15 dive operators on the island and they all do a thriving business. Amy is working on her divemaster certification right now at a place called Utila Dive Centre and I just finished my Advanced Open Water certification there.

Coolest animals I've seen diving would have to be a five foot barracuda and a Spotted Eagle Ray. My favorite dive so far was definitely the wreck dive. About 15 years ago, a giant cargo ship called the Haliburton was sunk to provide an artificial reef. This was my first "deep" dive as the wreck is sitting at about 100 ft. Dropping down to it was amazing. The water here is very clear, so there is tons of surface light even that deep and it feels like you are free falling. It was one of the most exciting moments I've had while diving. I could see our descent line out of one eye, but there was nothing else around us as we descended. Then, the wreck emerged from the blue. The descent line is tied to the stern wheel house and behind it there was about 50 ft of cargo hold.

The ship is covered in life--a few small corals, but mostly sponges and tunicates (also called sea squirts). A couple of big gropers make their home there, as well as a giant Green Moray Eel. The animals around here are completely different from those around Rosario where I'm used to diving. And before you tell me, "No duh, Robyn, you're in the Caribbean!" I mean that more than just species differences. At Rosario, there are sea cucumbers, sea stars, and other echinoderms all over, you can't dive with out seeing a few hundred. But here I have seen one brittle star and one cucumber over four dives. Near Rosario, there are some fish--you'll see a few on most dives, but here there are hundreds of fish around (most of them quite small, but some, like the grouper or the barracuda, that are very large). It's a lot of fun to see so many new things.

I was going to put up a few pictures with this post, but my camera along with a few other things were stolen off the beach while we were working this afternoon. I still have access to a camera here, but it will be a bit before I get some more pictures up. We didn't lose a whole lot of stuff, but it has been a very frustrating day. Good news is that we finally got the beach profiling and pollution projects started, which means that I will probably have a project to actually write up at the end of this summer!