Utila Trip Report - June 2003 (Laguna Beach Resort)

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Zippsy

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
1,817
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Location
SIngapore
# of dives
2500 - 4999
Let’s get this out of the way first – in six days of diving, we didn’t see any whale sharks and we really did not expect to see them after our hunting experience on the very first day. Were we disappointed? A little; but the rest of the diving was good enough to make up for the lack of the big guys.

The trip to Utila from the east coast of the US was fun even though it takes the best part of the day to get there. You wake up about 3:30 a.m. and arrive at the resort four flights and two time zones later around 4:30 p.m., local time. You are definitely traveling in the third world but as I have always said, most places worth traveling to are hard to get to. Suffice it to say that it’s a little tough to get departure information in La Ceiba and the baggage claim belt in Utila seemed to need a little work. As a matter of fact, the whole beautiful new Utila International Airport terminal building earns special mention for its airy design.

On the day our group of three we arrived along with another four guests, we brought the total guest population at LBR to exactly eight. For the first three days, obviously we had outstanding personalized service. When another group of 20 or so arrived on the weekend, we felt a little bumped to second class citizens but this was more a reflection on the new group rather than the resort itself or their staff.

A few quick notes about the resort – it was wonderful!! Its very nice wooden “rustic” cabins were better than most places I have been diving and were exactly what I look for in a dive resort. We had to keep the A/C and fans on all the time for fear of disease carrying mosquitoes but this did not ruin the atmosphere. We had plenty of space, hot water, clean towels (more than we needed), assistance from house cleaning staff, etc. Although the small resort does not give a lot of choice in the buffet because of its small size, the food was very good and plentiful. I have been many places before where you end up on a forced diet but I put on weight at LBR and that should tell you something. We did not really use the pool table or satellite TV but the room they were in above the restaurant / bar was fantastic for hanging out and reading.

The set up for diving also gets full marks in my book. Equipment is stored in spacious accommodations just steps away from the docks. Separate rinse tanks for each boat as well as for cameras and other equipment are in between the boats and equipment shed. The two boats I used were 36’ Newtons, one with flying bridge that “accommodated” 22 divers and the other without the upper deck that was set up for 12 divers. I think if we ever had that many on either boat, it would have been too crowded but the most we had was eight on the smaller boat and that was close to what I would call its maximum. These boats are about the biggest I saw on island but are not terribly steady in the normal heavy seas around the island so make sure you have Dramamine if you are prone to sea sickness. Only one person had trouble during the week I was there and I think that this case may have had more to do with the malarial pills or something else but Dramamine still would have helped.

How was the diving? I must admit that I am used to diving in Asia in places where the visibility is not as good as the 75’ we were getting in Utila but where there are at least ten or twenty times as many fish to see. The reefs were healthy with great coverage of hard coral, fans, barrel and vase sponges, etc. but little in the way of soft coral like anemones. The landscape on every dive site was fantastic. I just hope there are plans to re-stock them with fish (eww – that was mean!). It did not take us long to forget about looking in the distance for whale sharks and start concentrating on the smaller critters.

At most sites we saw the plentiful black durgons, green morays, spotted morays, lobsters, swarming blue tangs, French, Queen and Blue angelfish, spotted drums, cow fish, soap fish, fairy basslets, spiny lobsters, squirrel fish, stoplight parrot fish, queen parrot fish, hog fish, file fish, beautiful baby yellowtail damsels, tuna, many species of shrimp (peppermint, Pederson cleaners, banded coral, anemone) and crabs (spider, neck, arrow and a huge grandpa crab of unknown species), dozens of goby species, brittle stars, etc. The highlights, however, still seemed to be the bigger fauna such as when spotted eagle rays flew past or even kept circling to check us out. Another spotted eagle ray with a 3’ cobia chasing him made an appearance at another site. The occasional loggerhead and hawksbill turtles, southern rays, huge tarpon and Nassau groupers were also greatly welcomed on some dives. One 7’ green moray was guarding the entrance to a small cave but he was entirely out in the open so that we could see his whole body. Rarer sightings included the oceanic trigger fish, the queen trigger fish, golden tail morays, slipper lobsters, squid, frog fish, balloon fish, tiny black banded pipe fish, fields of garden eels. We had great fun and competition in looking for the tiny stuff too. We got adept at finding neck crabs, flamingo tongue cowries and the tiny crabs and shrimp.

The dive masters that we had were about the best that I have ever been diving with. Jen and Marcella were both very friendly and helpful. They knew how to lead a dive and were always keen and successful to find something interesting for us to look at. They were very safety conscious but not obsessively so. We had some DM students (or part-time DM’s) along on some dives who were not up to the same standards yet but I bet they will be. Except the night dives, all dives lasted an hour which is perfect for me (I prefer longer shallower dives rather than trying to set depth records). My only complaint was that the DM’s did not remind certain divers to stop dragging their gauges through the coral (the reminder is bad for tips but the divers were worse for the coral – I personally saw three fans completely destroyed).

Random comments

At the top of the reef during the safety stops, we were buffeted by surge on almost every dive. It was really bad for me on only two of twenty dives but the ladies had more trouble. This may have just been due to the season we were there but be prepared.

A typical day was to rise at 6:30, breakfast at 7:00, depart for a dive on the north side at 8:00, start a one hour dive around 9:00, surface interval of an hour while searching for whale sharks and heading to the east or west side, another hour-long dive, back at the resort around 12:30 or 1:00, lunch 20 minutes after arrival and depart for the final dive two hours after arrival. Dinner was at 7:00 except for the two days per week (Monday and Thursday) when we departed for night dives at 6:00. On those nights, we usually sat on the boat a few minutes waiting for dusk and then dove for 40 minutes on the south side and ate 30 minutes after getting back to the resort. In between dives at the resort was usually spent sleeping, reading books (they have good fish ID books) or telling lies to each other about what we have seen and done.

A lesson I learned in Sipadan: It’s best to go to a dive resort like Laguna Beach with one or two people with whom you really love diving but don’t go with a whole boat load of them. Half the fun at these places is meeting new and interesting people and this trip was no exception. We made great friends with some of the other divers and while we would love to see them again someday, I’d hate to try to recapture the atmosphere at a different place every year when we could be meeting other new people too.

The only bad or boring dive we did out of the twenty was a “drift” dive from the airport reef to the lighthouse. Apparently Utila never has much of a current so a “drift” dive is one where you get in a fin from one dive site to another without returning to a moored boat. Forget about doing these because you miss out on the 15 minute safety stop enjoying the top of the reef. Everyone is forced to surface together and early.

These are just my comments and thoughts so let me know if you have questions or want to argue about something. While I’m here, I’ll also say hey to the rhyming rabbits (D&K), the honeymooners (J&J), the “special” guest (L), the "good" people from MI (P&J) and even to the three bears (but I still wish you would learn to secure your gauges after 20 years of diving!)
 
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