Scuba Week!

Last week, Amy and I got a bit of a vacation. Our grad student abandoned us to go home and see her husband for a couple of weeks. Since she was off having fun, Amy and I decided that it was time for our vacation too—especially since the Utila Dive Festival was happening!

We had a ton of fun going to different events and specialty dives. My favorite part of the week was getting to go on several dives to the north side of the island. Actually, my favorite part of the week was getting to snorkel with DOLPHINS!

That was pretty much the most exciting day I’ve had here. On our way to do our first dive for the week, we ran across a small pod of Spinner Dolphins. UDC’s policy is that you can snorkel with the dolphins, as long as you tip the boat captain. Amy and I decided that it was definitely worth the cost.

Despite there being quite a few of us in the water, we got some good looks at the dolphins. The best view I had was when one swam directly under me about ten feet down.

Baleadas make the best breakfast foods!

After the dolphin excitement, we got to our dive site. Blackish Point is a unique dive site here on Utila because it is the only spot on Utila where Midnight Parrotfish can be found regularly.

Unfortunately, we were diving too deep for Amy’s camera to work so I don’t have any pictures of the fish we were seeing. The highlights of the dive were two Midnight Parrotfish and eight brittle stars.

Amy working on her Coral Watch project to help determine
how much coral bleaching is occurring around  Utila.

The rest of the week was a lot of fun—we did a pollution clean-up dive, watched a boat parade, and Amy even won a ScubaPro hat! 

One of the boats in the Parade of Lights.