After a very early start we were on our way back to the coast.... YAY!!! The first of two busses was a dreadful ride through the mountains which uncharacteristically caused the need in me to hang my head out the window for 3 hours straight to hold back what my stomach wanted to get rid of! I somehow survived and we switched busses easily enough and arrived in the port town of La Ceiba on the north coast of Honduras. We had thought about staying here a night or two but was advised against it, so instead we boarded the first ferry to the largest of the three Bay Islands called Roatan.

Roatan is a beautiful island with the typical crystal clear waters, white sands and palm trees. We spent four nights here just relaxing and enjoying much needed sun and sand time that we have been without for the past month! I also came down with a cold and ear infection on my travels and we had intended to get straight into scuba diving but we frustratingly had to wait a few days before we could start. Roatan was not on our itinerary originally but it was a nice place to chill out for four nights (although the island was full of retired American cruise boat tourists) before the fun began on the neighbouring island of Utila!

Utila is a lot smaller with less beautiful beaches (although there was one amazing, secluded beach with palm trees, white sands and beautiful blue water) but what it lacks there, it makes up in the young backpacker vibe and countless numbers of scuba diving schools! Straight of the bat we signed up to become certified divers! Kate was already an Open Water Diver (entry level certification) so she signed up for the Advanced course while I began with the Open Water and not wanting Kate to get the better of me... I signed up for the advanced too.

My course was four and a half days and Kate´s only two but we started on the same day. Whilst I started out learning how to find my regulator and empty my mask of water at 3 metres deep, Kate was 30 metres down checking out wrecks, amazing marine life, night diving and enjoying the effects of nitrogen narcosis (at deep depths the nitrogen in your air intensifies and makes you a little tipsy underwater and can make you do funny things. Kate´s instructor once saw a student try and give his regulator to a fish... hehe).

Although we had a few hits of rain, our time here was spent mostly underwater where you don´t notice it much and the rest of the time it was absolutely stunning Carribean weather. We met some fun people here and enjoyed a few nights on the town which we havn´t done in a while on this trip!

I caught up with the diving and I got to experience the deep diving, night diving and amazing sea life. I had a hawknosed turtle swim straight for me very slowly and passed me only about a metre away and turned its head a looked right at me which was an amazing experience.

Our eleven nights spent here was an enjoyable and productive one as we are now both certified Advanced Open Water divers which we will hopefully use throughout this trip in other diving hot spots!

You may have noticed a lack of photo albums for San Pedro, Copan Ruinas and the Bay Islands... It is with great sadness, anger and regret that we had our camera and USB (and Ipod) stolen on our second day on the island of Utila. Although extremely pissed of at the loss of many memories, last week we bought a new camera so get ready for some new pics to come soon!!

Lots of love guys!!! xxx