We woke up horrifically early once more to catch our bus to Utila, and traipsed through the streets of Copan with our bags before the sun had risen in pursuit of the bus station. The driver attempted to rip us off (obviously) but being seasoned travellers by this point, he got nowhere - success! We spent most of the day bussing it to La Ceiba - the port from where we would catch the boat to Utila, and after booking our tickets (and lightening our money belts considerably) we were loading up, when we noticed a considerable difference between the boat bound for Roatan (the posh island) and the one headed for Utila - we were on the one that looked like a cargo ship... Why give backpackers anything nice?

Once on Utila we were instantly happy! It´s so cool there! Everywhere (and I mean everywhere) blasts out Bob Marley, and everyone speaks with a really thick Caribbean accent - someone called out to us "Slow down... You´re on Utila!" And walking down the street there is something else - there´s no pavements so you´re in the road, and there being zero road regulations (of course) people career around the place on quad bikes, golf buggies, scooters, bikes and cars... Managing to get somewhere without being hit is quite an accomplishment.
But the whole point of being on Utila was for the scuba diving, so the next day (Friday 5th) we found our dive shop. We went to Utila Dive Centre and booked it on the spot we were so sold by it, which turned out to be the best decision ever - it was amazing there! We weren´t starting diving until saturday afternoon, so we had the afternoon free to spend our money (and daily calorie allowances) in the bakery, which we promptly did. We went for a drink that evening and watched the sunset over the bay... It´s unbelievably idyllic there!

We started our diving class on Saturday afternoon - there were 7 of us, and we had managed to land the best instructor in the place d*** who was absolutely hilarious! We just watched a (riveting) theory video (which kept on telling us to "take the plunge to change our lives" ... ) but luckily it froze so we manged to get out early that afternoon - nothing but delightful! That night UDC were having a bbq, so we headed back there with the other people from our class, and put our food onto the grill - carefully wrapped in foil to avoid contamination from the many chunks of raw flesh ´cooking´ and grabbed some cervezas. We were lucky enough that night to see the snorkel test too - compulsory for the graduating divemasters, which was interesting to say the least! It involves the addition of a severed bottle to a snorkel, which is put into the poor sucker´s mouth and then filled with a concoction of rum/ beer/ coke/ sprite/ chilli sauce/ anything lying around (one guy was lucky enough to get a raw egg in there...) ! But the A* had to go to this guy who fully cleared his snorkel mask (ie he drank a full mask of beer through his nose... Unbelievable!) So a very fun night was had.

Our open water qualification consisted of 4 dives, and with each one more fun was had! After each dive, d*** would insist on a DODWSV... Debrief On Dock With Salve Vida - the best school ever! On Tuesday night the group of us doing our open water, plus Dick, Morna (another instructor) and some divemasters all went out for dinner which was so much fun! Although this (highly irritating) Australian in our group Vivian (who, confusingly, was in fact male) not only took Alice´s food, but when hers eventually arrived shoved his straw in it and was like "Can I have some?" That being Al´s major pet hate, and bearing in mind he´d just polished off his own bowl he instantly became persona non grata!
We did our fourth, and final, dive on Wednesday, and 20 mins in was the big moment when everyone, bar me, qualified so naturally we had an underwater partay! Ver fun. Then lucky me got another dive that afternoon - excruciating ear pain really does pay off! And when 20 mins was up, did we boogie? Hells yeah! So we were both now qualified open water divers, hurrah! Alice was back at the hostel, so after a DODWSV d*** and Morna offered to give me a lift there which I graciously accepted - not wanting to pass up the (highly hilarious) ride of 3 people and a dog on a scooter!
By this point we were fully in love with both diving and Utila, and so horrified by the prospect of leaving we threw caution to the wind and booked our advanced open waters - definately one of our wiser choices!
We went out that night to the most amazing bar. It apparently took 14 years to build - although on Utila that isn´t so surprising... It was straight out of the Little Mermaid with all these winding balconies, stepping stones, mosaics, raised parts, lowered parts, as well as good music... Win win!
Our advanced course started on Thursday and consisted of 5 dives, 3 of which you could choose. We started with our Fish ID dive - the marine biologists in us frothing at the mouth at the prospect of this! We saw a massive barracuda which was very cool, as well as discovering that drawing fish 17m underwater ain´t so easy - we reverted to Picasso-style interpretations (obviously). The day was absolutely scorching so in the wait between dives we relocated to the front of the boat and basked in the sun for a heavenly half hour.
Dive number 2 was the navigation dive in which we were all paired up with divemasters, led to a spot and then found our own way back to the boat - in theory anyway. In reality no-.one had an idea where the hell we were! We were all drifting in various directions, when we saw a turtle! Amazing. And after following the turtle everyone was even more lost than before, so Morna ended up leading the way back (phew...)
That night was the highly anticipated night dive! We sailed out into the most amazing sunset, and then we descended into the murkey depths. It was slightly scary at first as we had no way of knowing who/ where d*** was, so we grabbed hands to avoid separation and went on the prowl. We quickly found him (success) and saw a stinga, as well as phosphorescent plankton which was amazing! Then when we resurfaced we were all just floating in the water star-gazing - zero light pollution in the middle of the ocean makes for some pretty rad stars! And the other bonus that day brought us, was when we got back to the hostel there was a tarantula in the bathroom... Yay...
We did our final 2 dives on Friday, starting with the deep dive going down to 30m. We went to the Haliburton shipwreck(!) first, and once safely on the ocean floor d*** produced an egg, proceeded to crack it on my mask, and then we played pass the yolk (being careful of the yellow snapper hovering around who had been known to dive for the egg.) Swimming around the wreck was amazing, and we went through the engine room where someone had thoughtfully placed some Playboy boxers! The ship had been deliberately sunk 11 years earlier, and in typical Utilan style ít didn´t occur to them to sever the ropes connecting the two ships until it was going down! And once it had been safely sunk, they suddenly remembered the 2 pumps on board they´d meant to remove. Oh the Caribbean...
Our fifth was the buoyancy dive which, once the boring stuff was out of the way (although that´s boring in the loosest sense of the word) we played the olympic games! We all took our fins off, and started with a sprint - ridiculously hard! Then it was high jump time, which Al took the gold for! The final event was probably my favourite... The limbo! Never did we think we´d do the limbo 12m underwater on the ocean floor... Amazing. After that we all put our fins on and ascended... Everyone but me that is - someone had stolen my fins leaving me both finless and stranded! No surprises when it turned out to be Viv´s doing...

We ended up staying a total of 10 days on Utila, and loved every one - although Al ran into a slight problem with the sandflies there, getting a total of 200 bites over both legs... It´s that sweet blood. We were advised by another traveller to buy 100% Off - the only repellant that worked apparently, but we also learned that the locals, after using it daily for a year, started to develop eczema, rashes and other highly desirable skin diseases, so surprisingly we steered clear of that poison! And as we caught the ferry out of the bay, a pod of dolphins started chasing the boat, it´s just paradise there!