A long trip home, but arriving just in time ...

My flight back to the Caribbean left Nashville at 6:00 a.m. It is an international flight so they say you should be at the airport two hours early. My experience has been that at 4:00 a.m., there is absolutely nothing open in the Nashville airport, including the airline ticket counters and kiosks. But I still had to get gas and return the rental car so I left Murfreesboro about 3:45 a.m. Ugh.

I was flying United again so it was with some trepidation that I handed over my bag to be checked.

The first leg of my flight was to Houston, then hustle from one terminal to another for the next leg which was Houston to San Pedro Sula. I again, when making the reservations had faced the problem of if I flew into San Pedro Sula on any day other than a Saturday I couldn't get a flight back to Utila, so I would have to take a bus and a ferry and likely stay overnight somewhere, so I booked a flight to Roatan instead.

At the time it made sense, Roatan is another of the Bay Islands, I can on a clear day see it from the dive boat. How hard can it be to get to Utila from there?

I arrived in San Pedro Sula at about 11 a.m. Here is where things get worse. Every flight to Roatan from Nashville included a LONG layover in San Pedro Sula. Mine was about 21 hours. I tried to convince myself and anyone who asked that it wasn't going to be that bad. I've spent lots of hours in airports and while not great I have music, books, games on my myriad of electronics and a computer with all that time to write.

The problem with San Pedro Sula Airport is that there is almost nowhere to even sit. There are some tables and chairs at the restaurants but when the place is busy it is tough to find a seat, and I usually try to avoid taking up a seat at a restaurant if I'm not a paying customer. Before you go through security, which you can't do until a couple of hours before your flight, there is one five seat bench not at a restaurant. The other problem for me is there are almost no electrical outlets. I asked if there was one and was told by the customer service people that there was nowhere to charge a phone. I found a plug against a wall finally and spent some time just sitting on the floor charging my phone. My luggage had arrived safely but again, until two hours before my flight to Roatan I could not check my bag in so had to lug it with me around the airport as I looked for somewhere relatively quiet and comfortable to wait it out.

Many hours sleeping sitting up -- or at least sleeping while trying not to fall over.

I had attempted to make arrangements for a boat ride from Roatan to Utila, on a ferry called the Lady Julia. Unfortunately, the day I wanted to travel they didn't have enough customers so the ferry was not running. No one had a flight going to Utila so I took the only other option. I caught a ferry going from Roatan to La Ceiba (back on the mainland), then a second ferry from La Ceiba to Utila. The ferry rides are reasonably cheap but it added more hours to my long travel days.

Once again it had taken me two days to get back to Utila.

I left Nashville at 6:00 a.m. on the 26th of August and stepped off the ferry in Utila at about 5:00 p.m. on the 27th. But I immediately knew I was "home". David from Pirates Bay Inn was at the Ferry Dock to meet potential new guests. He helped me with my bags and offered me a ride in a truck they had at the dock.

The first whaleshark in four weeks or so had been seen couple days before so I was anxious to try and get in the water. I scheduled a dive for the 28th.

We completed the fist dive of the day, it was really beautiful and I was so glad to be back in the water. Then during our surface interval Captain Louis started driving out towards the open water. He was watching for the tell tale signs that start with  a lot of birds at the surface. As we got closer he looked for the "Tuna Boil", large schools of tuna near the surface jumping out of the water and feeding. It really does look like a big pot of water at a rolling boil.

All of us on the boat got our fins, mask and snorkels on and waited on the back of the boat. Louis watched the water, slowly moving around the three separate boils we had come to. Suddenly Louis yelled, "there it is, right next to the boat, get in, get in!!" We all slid into the water and there it was.

Most people are lucky at times like this to spend a couple minutes close to a whaleshark. This whaleshark was probably around our boat for 15-20 minutes. The experience was absolutely incredible and the whaleshark was magnificent.

Hard to tell but all that mess at the top of the water? That is birds diving in and fish jumping out.

Tuna, lots of them, these ones just looks so calm, but imagine this multiplied by hundreds all racing around and jumping out of the water.

They estimated this whaleshark to be about 7 meters long (about 21 feet). Most graceful huge animal ever.

I felt so fortunate to have the opportunity to be in the water with this amazing animal.

After about 20 minutes the tuna boil had dissipated and the whaleshark had returned to the depths. We then left to get to another dive site for our second dive.

The second dive was gorgeous but hard to compare with what we had just experienced.

My friend and dive buddy Laurent.

Butterflyfish

Gray Angelfish peeking out from behind a sea fan

Since then I have been on the boat a couple more days. The visibility has gotten a bit worse and last week the seas were a little rough but still gorgeous dives. Up until now I've always just worn my 2.5mm Spring shorty wetsuit but I think I'm about  ready to start wearing my full 3mm suit during the rainy season.