Utilla, Bay of islands
| Date: | Monday 18 April 2005 - Monday 25 April 2005 |
| Temperature: | 30-35 °C |
| Weather: |  |
After a long bus drive and a nice one hour boat ride I arrived on Utilla, where, amazingly, not many touts were waiting for us. I checked into the cheapest place on the island with some friends and checked all the shops for a dive master job. But, unfortunately, this place has too many dive master trainees and instructors without jobs, so I booked a ten dive package at Paradise divers for only 125 USD, at least 50 USD cheaper than any of the other shops I have seen.
The reason they were cheaper depended on the persons you asked it. Asking it at the other dive shops, who to my opinion have agreed on prices, I got answers like bad instructors and uncertified PADI shops. All bullshit, because I learned that their gear was good, the instructors were great and you only have to be a certified PADI shop if you certify instructors, which they didn't. And another reason was that it was locally owned so they don't have extra costs because of rent. The people here are friendly and speak English, if you can call it that. It's full of swearing and as they are descendents of slaves and pirates they talk and behave like that. And they are proud of it.
Wednesday was the day of the earth and everybody got a free tank to dive around Utilla's shore and collect as much garbage as possible. My most interesting item was a baseball cap, but stuff like plastic sombreros, beer bottles, diving equipment and a lot of plastic was coming to the surface. The ten dives I did were great. A lot of colorful coral, not as many fish as in warmer waters like Thailand and Australia, but nice nevertheless. Unfortunately I didn't see the for this region famous whale sharks. But after ten dives I had enough and my ears started to hurt so I went back to the mainland. During those days I caught my own fish and put it on the barbeque. I felt a bit sad actually, because it were nice colored coral fish. But tasty nevertheless and easy to catch with just a hook, some line, a branch of a tree and some carrot. I joined a full moon party and my feet were spotted all over because of only a five minute walk across a sand fly occupied beach.
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