Utila, Honduras Thoughts February, 2012:  I apologize ahead of time as I don’t feel very creative on this dreary day.

• First off my baby caker Tom turned 60 years young here!!!  We had a party at The Jade Sea Horse restaurant with other cruisers.  Rose made an awesome carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for all to share after dinner.  This is owned by a California glass artist and my gosh is it amazing with its own HUGE Banana spiders – check out the photos!  This also means our first Railroad Retirement check in April!!
• Utila is a quaint, relaxed, friendly backpacker destination with few vehicles as the streets aren’t wide enough. It does have a number of small motorcycles, bikes and golf carts filling the streets.  Its easy to walk around and is one of the smallest flattest Bay Islands.  Dining via street vendors are good and reasonable.  All provisions are obtained via small tiendas with fresh vegees/fruits coming over once per week via the cargo ferry from mainland.  You can tell when it arrives as things start looking abit worn….
• We arrived via a speedy overnight sail from Glovers Cay/Atol Belize to East Hbr. Utila in company with Cordelia from MI and Homers Odessey (Vancouver).  We had much more wind and seas than anticipated by Chris Parkers forecast.  It was our first major passage of the season and the first time that neither of us got any sleep!  The boat and us were covered in salt. I still can’t get used to this salt thing coming from Lake Superior. Its also been a very different winter this year with lots of cold fronts coming down.
• The anchorage can get uncomfortable with any So or West wind which is a similar issue at West End Roatan. You always have to be careful while traveling around in your dinghy as there are lots of boats that really don’t look or care if they create a big wake.  Actually even in our big boat we were at risk as the cargo and people ferry were coming into harbor at the same time and the people ferry decided that they needed to get in first.  We saw what was happening so we made a VHF call indicating that they were approaching too close to S/V Sojourn. They said that we were in the channel and therefore not their problem, accellerated and came within 5′ of our stern creating lots of wave and dangerous action for us.  There is no channel on the charts but decided to move regardless.  They know they have the upper hand!
• We really enjoyed the walking, snorkeling and dinghy diving.  Diving wasn’t as good as Glovers nor Roatan but could have been weather.  This island is also supposed to be protected by the Marine Park Reserve fishing rules and therefore they have dive mooring balls positioned around the island.  It has an year round whale shark population monitored by the Whale Shark Oceanic Research Center.  We plan on going back when weather improves to go on their 4 hour snorkel trip with a scientist where they focus on looking for them.
• Kevin decided to come visit us in March in Roatan.  We are very excited about this and hope the weather cooperates so we can do some major diving.

Live Your Dreams!