We are back in our beloved Guatemala, in the town of Livingston at the mouth of the Rio Dulce. We will head upriver and hang for awhile, mosquitos permitting.  


This has been an interesting trip, especially the check-out and check-in you go through in every country.  Leave Honduras:  Customs, Immigration, Port Captain.  Enter Guatemala:  same process.  None of these buildings are near each other- or the place shown on your map.  And they are bureaucracies that could put the SF Building Department to shame.  But we're getting used to the drill- and you meet quite a few people in the process.


It is absolutely beautiful, and starting to rain.

Solstice action at Stonehenge

Yesterday we did a night dive- we were both looking forward to seeing what the fish get up to after dark.  But not many were visible, in our sea of flashlights.


The experience was sort of like leaving Fenway after a night game- dark, with lots of jostling.


But if you turned off your light and looked away from the group, there were other lights visible on the reef.  There are some strange luminescent creatures out there.  And we will find them!

Been hanging with a large family of squid, just watching them change color as they move about. Once they get used to you, you can get really close. Today we hung over a flounder on the grassy bottom and watched him changing colors. They are so confident in their camouflage you can swim right up to them. Tonight we go night diving. This reef is just full of goofy stuff.

Anchored in Utila harbor.
We eat, we swim, snorkel, dive, play cards, and lie about.
Cats just lie about.
Honduras is wonderful.

We went for a wall dive yesterday- to a great spot on the north side of Utila.  All the corals were growing sideways, with the attendant creatures clinging on.     Mostly small thing- cleaner shrimp, worms, brittle stars.  Every few feet is a new picture.  If you could stop gazing at the wall for a moment and look out into open water, fish were swimming by at odd angles.  Someone here may have pictures- hard to do justice to the scene, though.


When I asked our dive instructor for pics of underwater creatures, he sent this:

We've been in Utila for 3 weeks it's just very easy to stay here -anchoring is free, diving is cheap, the food is doable, if not exciting (really, it's the pineapple that keeps us here.)

Yesterday we watched on the pier as a fisherman cut three 4' fish into filets- a female dolphinfish and two wahoo.  People gathered to watch -torn, I'm sure, between saying 'great catch!' and 'wtf were you thinking??"  Overfishing is a big issue here.  Well, you didn't have to ask- his son was looking on entranced, and his wife brought out containers from the restaurant next door.  It was an event you don't see every day. 

We're in Utila, waiting to dive- the heavens just opened up, so we'll see how intrepid the other divers feel. Yes, I know it's wet down there. The snorkeling's also excellent- coral and small creatures will cling to any random rock or piece of debris, and set about building a terrarium- uh, aquarium.  Anyway, very cool.