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In March, 2001 I traveled from Boulder, CO to the Island of Utila just off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Below is a narrative of the trip. If you want to skip the details and get a trip summary, click here.

Having heard reports of regular whale shark sightings around Utila, my interest in the island was piqued. This combined with the relatively undeveloped nature of this Honduran Bay Island, encouraged me to book a 10 night trip for March. Not only should the trip ease the spring itch that creeps into your psyche sometime around March during the long Colorado winter, it promised to fulfill one of my dreams, diving with a whale shark. A few inquiries led me to the Utila Lodge, what turned out to be a good choice. My long-time diving buddy Doug, also in need of a March break, decided to come.

Both Doug and I have frequently dived the Caribbean. The possibility of a whale shark encounter adds some spice to a hobby that has otherwise lost some of its luster. We plan ten nights rather than a more typical seven in order to maximize our chances of getting in the water with a whale shark. I also break down and finally purchase an underwater camera to capture our prey.

We leave Denver on Sunday. Overnighting in Houston with it's humidity and flat vistas reminds me why I live in Colorado. Arriving in San Pedro Sula on the Honduran mainland, we are greeted by a tour company representative who guides us through the domestic check-in process for our short flight to Utila. He tells us the plane leaves at 1:50 but that the flight schedules are variable in Honduras. We mistakenly assume this means the flight will be late. It's now 1:15 and we're hungry. We grab lunch at Wendy's. I don't really like seeing American fast food places in other countries, but it was the only place to eat in the airport. "Combo número seis." I order in Spanish trying to make myself not feel as bad about eating at a Wendy's in Honduras. At 1:30 the tour company guy runs over to where we're finishing lunch. He tells us the plane is loaded and ready for take-off. They are waiting for us. We run to catch the Russian made twin-engine. It flies to Roatan where we wait a couple more hours to catch the short hop to Utila. By 4:00 we descend into Utila. I look out the window and see water...water...water...land. We touch down on the short dirt field at the edge of the reef. Ben, our dive master, greets us as we step off the plane. A taxi takes us a mile or so to the lodge down the one-lane main drag. We pass pedestrians, children, bicycles, motorcycles, and dogs all within inches of the taxi. We're in the water for a night dive by 6:30.

Having dived enough in the past, Caribbean reefs hold few surprises for us. We have identified most of the common and many uncommon species of fish and invertebrate. If I were a biologist, I would be interested in finer details. Our diving style is different from many of the other divers who rush to see everything, sometimes being too careless with the delicate corals in their haste. For us, diving becomes more of a meditation. We relax, slow our breathing, adjust our buoyancy, and gently drift or fin over the reef as surreal observers in this weightless blue world.

Diving starts at 8:00 every morning. We do two dives in the morning and an afternoon or night dive. Weather permitting, we motor around to the north side of the island to do our first dive. During the surface interval between dives, Willy, the boat captain, takes us farther off shore to spot whale sharks. Willy was born on Utila. For the last fourteen years he has been driving boats around the island. His eyes have adapted to the intense glare of the sun on the water with a permanent squint. He knows these waters and can spot activity on what looks to me like a featureless landscape.

On the first morning, Willy spots large dorsal fins piercing the surface. He aims the boat for them, keeping the boat at a fast enough pace to intercept but not so fast as to scare anything away. From a distance, it looks like the fins may belong to pilot whales. On closer inspection, we identify the tell-tale markings of orca whales. Yes, killer whales in the western Caribbean, a rare sighting! This is a first for Willy. He has never seen them here. As luck would have it, I don't have my camera with me. Fortunately, one of the divers has a video camera. Three whales cross in front of the bow. They take turns riding the bow wave. A 25 footer comes along side near the surface. The whales have stayed with us for 15 minutes. This being such a rare sighting, Willy radios his brother. Soon two more boats speed in. Two more whales join the group. After a few minutes we head back towards our next dive and leave the other boats to enjoy the company of whales. This is just our first day. How can we top this?

Diving here is varied. There are reefs that start in the shallows near shore and have walls that drop to 90 feet or so, shallow sea mounts farther off shore, and on the north side walls that drop 3000 feet into the Cayman trench.  Over-fishing has depleted the reefs of lobsters and many of the larger fish.

We fall into a rhythm, waking early every morning, catching the pink hues of the rising sun, eating breakfast, and motoring out to the dive site. Each day tantalizes us with the chance to see a whale shark or maybe even more orca. Two days a week we do a night dive. The other days we dive in the afternoon. In the evening the guests gather in the lodge for dinner and camaraderie.  The lodge has eight rooms. Guest during our stay come from Canada, Ireland, and the States.

After a full day of diving, nobody is motivated to go out on the town, such as it is. Instead, everybody hangs out after dinner to swap stories, talk about and show pictures (thanks to digital technology) of the day's dives. The locals hang out too. Their banter is entertaining, although I can barely keep up with their island accents. In the morning and the evening Willy catches fish for his pet barracuda, Harry, that lives under the dock. He drops his line in, hooks a fish, whacks it on the dock and feeds it to Harry who snatches it as soon as it hits the water. Willy tells us about his love for the taste of barracuda. Barracuda are known to harbor ciguatera toxin. He says when he brings home a barracuda he always gives his wife some first. If she doesn't get sick, he figures it's OK to eat. As Willy puts it, "You can replace a wife, but you can't replace Willy." I suspect he is actually at least half serious.

Punctuating the dives are some memorable experiences. On one night dive, bioluminescent strands are suspended just above the reef. We shade our lights. All we can see is the eerie blue glow showing us the contours of the reef. Focusing on the nearby strands, one suddenly explodes as a small fish pierces it. Unshading our lights, the blue glow disappears. There are plenty of opportunities here for macro shots.

During the surface interval of another dive, Willy spots bottlenose dolphin. We prepare to snorkel with them. Willy positions the boat and gives the signal. We're in the water.  Three dolphins rise below me. I hear their sonar. I feel it too, on my skin and all through my body. I see their forms with only my eyes. Their eyes see me too, but their senses go beyond the limitations of light. Their clicks and pops penetrate my skin, making me palpable to them. Our encounter is brief and we board the boat. On the surface, some of the dolphins ride the boat's bow wave. It's remarkable that they are in such command of their environment, so sure of their food source, that they expend some of their energy to "play" with us. Others hunt needle fish that hover just below the surface.  One dolphin slaps the water with its tail. The others line up, each driving fish toward the next one in line. A fish darts out of the water chased by a sleek dolphin. The dolphin misses. The fish darts again, and the next dolphin in line snatches it out of the air. The process is repeated.

Then there is what we came here for, whale sharks. Sightings during the morning have been nonexistent for a week, so Willy decides to take us out for a search after the afternoon dive. We finish the dive and head around the point to the north side. The continental shelf ends here. This is where the whale sharks rise from the deep. The sea is calm but for the gentle swells. We pass man-of-war jellyfish with their inflated sails protruding from the water's surface, their colorful poisonous tentacles dangling below. Willy spies sea birds in the distance and steers towards them. As we near the birds about two miles off shore, we see the water boiling with fish. From the bridge, Willy sees the large silhouette of a whale shark driving a school of small fish to the surface. The shark dives away. He watches for where it's headed and positions the boat so that it's near when the shark ascends towards the surface again. Anxiously, we sit on the stern, ready to quietly slip into the water. The group has to stay together or we won't all be positioned over the shark. We get the call. Ready...Ready...GO. GO. GO! All I see are the bubbles created by our entry. They clear. There it is gliding just beneath me, sunlight highlighting its dappled back. Remora cling to its skin for a free ride. It's 20-25 foot length and the slow swish of its tail belies its speed. This thing moves fast, allowing us only a brief glimpse. It ascends again and then dives away. Ben dives after it, but it's moving too fast. We climb back aboard. Willy tracks the shark by the fish roiling at the surface. One wide-eyed diver is so excited that her snorkel is still in her mouth, and she is not about to remove it. The shark keeps moving. Willy spots it. The boat is positioned. Ready...Ready...GO. GO. GO!  We're in the water again. The shark is just below the surface, gulping fish. I kick towards it, getting it in range of the preset focusing distance of seven feet on my underwater camera. Click. I got the shot...I hope. This is priceless. It turns and heads towards us. The zeppelin-like ribbing on whale sharks' backs make them look rigid in all the photos I've seen. However, this shark appears supple as it makes its turn.  It passes us and we fin after it through a school of small fish, the shark's prey. The shark makes another pass and disappears into the blue. Lasting only seconds, our perception is that time slows down during each encounter, allowing us to savor the moment. Glowing from our encounter, we head back to the lodge. A few dolphins briefly ride our bow wave but are soon gone, somehow knowing that we already had enough excitement. The boat returns to the dock just after a big orange sun dips below the horizon. Not a bad day.

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