PHOTOS HERE–>> Utita, Honduras Bay islands
Utila
Was just a half-day sail away from Roatan and we had a lovely sail there. In Utila we 1st anchored away from the main Harbour as our cruising guide had suggested. That was not good info as the bay had wind and seas coming right into the bay with us backing on the reef. Yes, lovely location but risky.
We moved the next morning to Puerto Este – East Harbour. Steve on catamaran Bad Kitty had warned us 
that the holding was not good – he had dragged. Sure enough later in the afternoon just when the wind blew up to 39knots our anchor dragged. It was action stations, me on the bow in the wind and rain getting the snubber off the anchor chain, John at the helm trying to keep us into the wind. He said it was tough as the wind really had us and we were just whipping along sideways. Anyway we got ourselves re-anchored and secure again, we hoped.
Utila is a delightful island. Its main and only town is Puerto Este – East Harbour. We had an access dock at Bush’s Grocery store, which was excellent for supplies too.
We explored the town and part of the shoreline over the bridge. The town is full of interesting family stores selling everything you could need. A quaint, tidy, colourful place to explore.
The shoreline beyond the bridge is rugged as the waves pound ashore there. We could see that there were many new homes being built. They looked to be for the upper income bracket, and still appeared to be on the 
market. A nice place to live but very exposed to the weather.
Pumpkin Hill and Robinson Crusoe
Off we set one morning on an impromptu hike. We had hoped to whale shark watch, but there was no trip on so in bathing suits and flip-flops we headed across island to check out Pumpkin Hill and to see Robinson Crusoe’s look out.
It is said that Robinson Crusoe was ship wrecked on Utila and that that is where the story comes from, so Utila is known as the Robinson Crusoe Island. Anyway our walk to Pumpkin Hill turned out to be a track through marshy, forested farmland. And before long we had clouds of mosquitoes all around us. Being true sports we kept going, I used small branches with leaves to try to swish away the mosquitoes, but really to little effect.
The walk turned out to be quite long, 1 hour 30 minutes to get there.
There was the shoreline with a beach and again it was pretty. We sat had an orange and then headed to the lookout. This was the only high point on the 
island, Pumpkin Hill.
There was a good view across the whole island.
For the walk back my tactic was speed, figuring the faster I was the fewer bites I would get. Well we made it back in 45 minutes, but we were both well bitten and I was very over heated with sore feet and chaff.
Our one wish was to go whale shark watching. So everyday we would check if a trip was going out. Finally, just as we had given up we received a call to go at 9:00am that day, our last day in Utila. So off we went in the boat with our guide. There was a young
teen girl Andeara and her granddad, Pedro with us.
Our guide headed out to the north side of Utila. The seas were quite rough as the wind was up and blowing 15 – 20K. Our young captain watched for the tell tale signs of whale sharks – birds swooping in flocks above the water and feeding on bait fish with tuna feeding too. We spotted the birds swooping and followed them for quite some time while they fed on the baitfish, but no whale sharks were there to feed that day. Off we went to the shallow reef to snorkel instead.
The snorkeling was brilliant! Utila’s reefs are in excellent condition with wonderful corals and numerous fish of all types and sizes. It was a good half-day out even if we never saw a whale shark. There is always next time and we both want to go back to Utila again.
It was time to head to Rio Dulce Guatemala!
“Envisioning our hopes provides a path, as luminous as a beam of moonlight. Once you’ve visualized what you wish, an inner road is being cobbled for you to follow.” Chris Downie
