Tropical Idyll - Utila

Reclining in languid ease, brushed by floral trade winds, eighteen miles off Honduras’s northern coast, an island six and a half miles long and three miles wide—two thirds of which wallows in swamp, the rest sporting coral reef, mangrove, sea grasses, fossilized sun-bleached pale “iron shore” broken coral, savannas and thick jungles, trees of palm, coconut, mango, banana, and papaya—Utila is the Bay Islands’ low rent tropical jewel of Caribbean beach life. One morning we actually witnessed a hummingbird on “island time”, swooping by a knot or so faster than a butterfly, en route, no doubt, to a lazy afternoon hammock. You’re gently admonished to move at a slower pace...:) The island embraces roughly two thousand residents, most of whom reside in Utila Town necklacing the east harbor, and besides local Hondurans, Garifuna, and mingling Latinos, we passed many shuffling, grizzled, wiry, unshaven, wild-haired, glassy-eyed but determined and aged gringos who long ago settled here dodging taxes, debt, cackling, knife-wielding shrews, child support, sanity. But we also encountered folks who chose to drop the hectic and demanding suburb and city for a tropical pace; one muggy morning we sipped delicious local coffee at a small café beneath a house facing the bay run by a mildly elderly couple whom you wouldn’t be surprised to see taking donations for a Methodist Church food bank in Cleveland, Ohio. Hippies, that undying race sprouting up in quiet locales like kindly weeds, also swayed through the island town’s narrow streets and sold leather adornments and silver jewelry. Guidebooks tout Utila as being laid back, haven for backpacker and lonesome traveler, and a sacred destination for scuba divers desiring to explore the island’s cooling pale emerald and cerulean waters, coral walls and valleys of undulating sea sand teeming with parrotfish, barracuda, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles, the shy nurse shark, which is why we landed here for four nights over Semana Santa. Anything to get away from the annual Central American spring rites of farmers burning forest lands to clear room for agriculture; thousands of fires all over the countryside and mountains, clogging the air with thick white dirty smoke for weeks and weeks...) I neither washed nor combed my hair for five days, and life seemed no worse for wear. Slip on a bathing suit early in the morning and you’re dressed until bedtime, pulling on a faded T-shirt and digging your toes into flipflops when sauntering to the restaurants—open-aired, techno-Reggae bouncing, and cheesy pirate themed banners and flags, one of which borrowed from Renaissance faire’s “The whippings will continue until morale improves”. No one stands on ceremony—certainly not the cuisine. But we arrived, as mentioned, to scuba dive; we submerged six glorious times during our time here. But when we weren’t diving, eating, and sleeping, nothing much else beckoned on Utila. We wouldn’t pass for teenagers: no texting, planning for the beach rave, trolling the harbor main street narrow as a city alley, dodging reckless tuk-tuks, ATVs, scooters, motorcycles, golf carts, and pickup trucks, nursing hangovers. Glossy advertisements and guidebooks delight in the untouched sandy cove, the breezy sheltering palms, the promise of quiet hours, perhaps an invisible attentive native who alights whenever you wonder how refreshing a Pina Colada would taste. “Get away from it all” goes the command. Best of luck finding that on your budget. We were either fortunate or unfortunate to book the Pirate Bay Inn at $40 a night, smack in the middle of the town but fronting the dock where Captain Morgan’s Scuba Diving launches its outings, so we were mere sandy steps away. More expensive lodgings could be had, but these were farther outside of town, which puts you farther away from the restaurants and scuba dive launchings and establishments open to replenish the rum you thought would last the week. To really “get away” means to relax, and this implies satisfying one’s desires, even whims, at one’s chosen, unhurried pace. Leisure sees needs melting into simple, gentle wants, and attending to these wants unbidden by deadlines or the strict expectations of other. Life is good, goes the affirmation. If you crave a beer at 9:00 in the morning, pop open a coldie. Nap when- and wherever. Those expectations and deadlines are the “all” away from which you strive to get. And the more money you spend, the more oiled and smooth running is this illusion enacted for your benefit that you are indeed away. But in fact those expectations and deadlines and shopping and cleaning and cooking and frantic tasks marking your grind back home get subsumed under cost of your Tropical Getaway. The work is done for you, as you’ve paid to keep the service industry humming. Getting away from it all can also imply an escape from having to deal with people. But we only paid $40, and during the hotly vibed holy week the price got us basically a dorm. The room blessedly had air-conditioning, but the remote to activate it was another $10 a night. Our hotel was smack dab in the town; there was no getting away. Strewn about in hallways and benches and barstools were the young, tanned, and hopeful. The hotel adjacent was undergoing renovation, so post-breakfast reading in the Adirondack outside our window shared the air with electric saws searing, babies squealing from boredom, hunger, the thick wet heat, or dread that they’re destined to inherit one of the island’s dilapidated souvenir shops swaying on the tourist drag, the whine and whirr of exhaust-spewing vehicles, the cacophony of aforementioned techno-Reggae booming beats roaring from shops and restaurants as though vying for dominance…the daily sounds grating and intrusive, the stench of light industry and minor transportation bearing necessary goods to make your stay livable and perhaps memorable, these are the strains wrought in jagged harmony while you, too, are awake and doing your living...:) The dive boat pulls out of the harbor, glides through the bay passing shallow aquamarine waters, shimmering white sandbanks and shadowy reef, then heads northeast into open sea. Carrie and I climb up a ladder to the bridge to join the silent captain. The request to join garnered a barely perceptible nod. We are searching for whale sharks, the Caribbean a windswept blue beneath a canvas white sky. The boat rumbles and rises up and over swells for forty-five minutes, the captain scanning the distance for signs: a slight ruffling on the white-capped horizon indicating tuna feeding in a frenzy on smaller fish, which in turn swirls of the krill, and the resulting “boiling” patches spreading on the sea attract the gulls. Onboard we all scan the four corners. I watch the captain turn and follow the flight of a gull easing over the stern. Sunshine warms my shoulder and forearm. A long moment later the captain returns his gaze, unimpressed by the gull’s powers of discrimination. Rising and falling, rising and falling. Suddenly the captain locks on a point on the horizon starboard. Slowly the big boat veers. I see nothing. But the captain yells “There!” to a spot half a mile away. A minute later a gull races over the bow, and the captain calls out “I saw it before you did!” Soon we slow and the boat moves into the heart of the roiling sea boil. Tuna spear the air by the hundreds. We look hard on the waters. The captain points, and just beneath the surface glides a whale shark, perhaps 18-feet, a shimmering dark gold ethereal shadow. We climb down, don snorkel, mask, and fins with five or six others, and sit waiting at the low stern. The captain positions the boat, gently, gently. “Go, go, go!” he bellows, and we ease into the sea. She rises to us silently, wide as a small open-mouthed planet, golden with green textured spots, and with large-hearted grace she arcs away from this pack of bobbing and wide-eyed humans. We turn as she swims on, stroking and kicking till our lungs ache, gazing upon her gentle sway against pearl blue open and endless sea, and then she descends....