For the 2023 festive season, we are taking the liberty of doing something good for ourselves. As Central America is dominated by the Christian faith, many countries here will function more slowly than usual over Christmas and New Year and/or traveling over the festive period will be much more difficult. So, we set off to reach the Caribbean Island of Utila before December 25th. It belongs to Honduras and is a good 30 km off the coast of the Honduran mainland in the Caribbean Sea. Here we want to dive for as long as we feel like it, but certainly for a week.

Perfect conditions for a quick crossing of Honduras

As we have now definitely broken our record for the longest time at a border at the border crossing from El Salvador to Honduras, we are reliant on a quick and smooth crossing of Honduras. After all, we are at the border on time at 9 a.m., but so are many other travelers. We wait 6.5 hours until we finally have all the documents (stamps in our passports and the temporary import permit for our van) in order to be allowed to enter Honduras. For this reason soon it’s half past three in the afternoon and we have to hurry. We drive more or less directly from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. Luckily, the main connecting roads in Honduras were repaired a few years ago. This means we can speed through the countryside faster than in any other country in Central America. Despite losing a considerable amount of time at the border, we still manage to catch the ferry to Utila on time.

Utila – backpacker diving paradise in the Caribbean Sea

Finally, just in time for Christmas on December 24th, we arrive at our first suitable diving opportunity on our trip. The sea is warm and the reef is said to be beautiful on Utila. The prices are also really affordable. So affordable, in fact, that we immediately decide to take another diving course to raise our level. That works out well. Mimi is now matching her Advanced Open Water diving certification with Paddy’s so that we can go on the same dives. Out of interest and to pass the time, Paddy does the Rescue Diver course to make good use of the time without Mimi underwater.
Not only that, Utila is particularly popular with backpackers, which keeps the diving prices affordable. In many cases, rooms are included in the course price. Perfect! In the end, we were able to afford a week’s diving vacation over Christmas 2023 and New Year 2024 at a reasonable price – it’s still diving and diving is costly.

The underwater world is quite impressive. There are a wide variety of reef fish and corals. Large parts of the reef are in good condition, which makes diving much more enjoyable than just drifting over dead reefs. Utila, or rather the reef around Utila, is part of the Mesoamerican Reef, which is the second largest reef system in the world. Only the Great Barrier Reef is larger. A lot is being done to protect and preserve the reef in the best possible way. Maybe that’s why we even see a really big seahorse! How cool is that!

We enjoy the relaxed festive season at the end of 2023 on the island, where everything runs five gears slower than on the mainland anyway. Accordingly, we start the new year 2024 perfectly relaxed and ready for our further discoveries and adventures!