Utila – Week 4, Day 5: The Pirate Life
UTILA
Week 4
Day 5: The Pirate Life
December 08, 2022
It had been almost a month since I’d arrived in Utila. A month – and I had barely seen any of the island. Usually, when travelling, I’m always going around like crazy, trying to fit in as many things as possible in a day to see as much as I can. But one month in, and all I’d seen of Utila was the main road and its coast from all the boat rides. That’s it!
For some reason, I kept on pushing it off. “I’ll explore it one day!” I’d repeat to myself over and over, knowing I still had a few weeks left before I’d leave. Instead, I’d now get to explore a different island entirely – that of Sandy Caye – a tropical paradise that Clive had rented for his 31st birthday. Although I wanted to get my divemaster training programme over and done with, spending an entire day on a tropical island would be a much welcome opportunity to unwind a bit.
As fate would have it, that same morning, a huge thunderstorm hit Utila. Having been left behind to assist on the courses, Amelia and I were caught right in it as we went out shopping for supplies – and by supplies, I mean an obscene amount of alcohol and snacks. We got back to Underwater Vision drenched, not knowing whether the boat would operate in such weather – or whether we’d even get to enjoy the island in those conditions.
But, the tropics being the tropics, it was all sunny and warm a few minutes later and the boat did eventually show up – albeit in Latin time. After loading it with black-market amounts of spirits, we got on, and after a forty-minute ride, there we were.
Sandy Caye - In All Its Undisturbed Glory
We stepped off the boat and right into paradise. By this point in time, I had been to a few tropical islands – the most recent one Cayos Cochinos close to La Ceiba. And lemme tell ya, they had nothing on Sandy Caye.
The island – a palm-covered sand patch with a large lodge at its centre and a thriving coral reef around its periphery – is what you’d expect on any tropical holiday brochure. However, this one was completely uninhabited – save for the few Underwater Visioners that had gathered for Clive’s birthday. Usually, more well-known islands would be crawling with tourists! Having it entirely to ourselves was privilege!
As we disembarked, it truly felt like an uninhabited island – there wasn’t’ a single sound or any signs of life. The others, who had arrived the previous day, were either still asleep, stoned, drunk, hungover, or a combination of all four. We made our way to the lodge, unloaded our stuff and checked it out – perhaps not the fanciest, but considering it’s on a private island, it might as well be a five-star hotel. The newcomers’ hype and enthusiasm contrasted big-time with the by-now natives’ apparent lifelessness. We poured a couple of drinks to try to sync up, but they seemed too far gone to be joined.
And so, we had to make other plans until their caffeine kicked in. Louis, David, Amelia and I decided we’d collect coconuts and make Coco Loco – coconut water mixed with rum. There was just one problem – the trees were too slippery to climb after the morning rain. That said, my mind was already set on drinking that cocktail, and in an effort to make it happen, I came up with a new way of getting coconuts. Turns out, picking up fallen coconuts and hurling them at the ones still stuck on trees works.
For a bad shot, I gotta say I did an incredible job. After hitting one of them some ten times, it finally gave way and fell down. You can’t imagine the cheering and celebration that went on after we got our first one, not knowing whether it’d even be possible to manage this ridiculous job. Apparently, it is – and once we realised that, more and more of the islanders joined in the fun – everyone throwing coconuts in the air, hoping to knock more of the ripe ones down.
After an hour or so, we had a whole lotta cocos and we just needed to turn them loco. To do that, we had to break them open somehow. All we had was a knife. I stabbed the thing with one quick, forceful motion and then punched it in an effort to penetrate the hard shell. No success. I turned the whole thing upside-down and hit the knife against a table. Still nothing. That’s when Jack – an instructor from Florida – handed me a conch shell and told me to beat it hard against the knife, reassuring me it wouldn’t break. Success!
One coconut gave us a measly half a cup of juice. By the end, we managed to extract enough juice to fill an entire full pitcher. A lot of work, sure, but was it worth it? Not really. The Coco Locos sucked.
A Caribbean Treasure Hunt
After recovering from the physical effort of coconut harvesting and juice-sucking, we moved on to something Clive and Omar had organised for us.
Omar and his friends back in Israel had this tradition where, each time one of them travelled, they’d take this one plate with a group photo printed on it along for the journey. Over the years, the photo faded, and after some deliberation, they decided to bury the plate in Sandy Caye a few years back. Now, it was our job to find it. A proper treasure hunt on a proper tropical island. So friggin’ cool, right?
Omar gave us one clue – “a three-minute safety stop.” The hand signal for this is three fingers with a flat hand over them. He also told us the plate was buried somewhere and that it wasn’t in the house. Just like that, we all set off, scouring every inch of the island for the long-lost treasure. I looked frantically for something with three legs, or three trees forming one canopy, or maybe a tree with its trunk split in three. I had no idea where it was, but it had to be somewhere. Unless, of course, this was all part of a grand scheme where Clive and Omar had us dig throughout the island for nothing – a wild goose chase. That would’ve been funny and definitely something I would’ve thought of. But they reassured us it wasn’t the case.
And so we searched and dug anywhere it might’ve been – until at one point, I noticed three palm trees very close together, their branches meeting at the top. The sand between them had already been searched, but I had scoured the island twice already and this had to be it. I recruited Aviv, who happened to be carrying a shovel, while the rest of us were using our hands to do the dirty work. Lo and behold, some two feet under the surface, was a blue plate with a faded centre. Success!
Buried with it was a plastic bag containing a bong and some weed – a gift left for Omar by one of his mates when they visited the island a few months earlier. Aviv and I, on the other hand, would be excused from paying for the food and alcohol – a prize we refused to accept anyway. The satisfaction of winning was more than enough.
From One Hunt to the Other
Then it was yet another adventure. Jack had brought along some of the shop’s Hawaiian slings and we headed into the reef to catch our dinner.
While fishing is illegal in these areas, spearfishing isn’t, so we could give in to our primal instincts and let our bloodthirst take over. I borrowed Amelia’s mask and snorkel and plunged into the pristine, crystalline water around the island, excited at finally getting to shoot something – having missed the chance during the lionfish hunt.
This reef felt way more alive than the one around Utila: coral healthier and abuzz with fish. It was great just snorkeling – let alone hunting! That said, spearfishing while free diving is a whole other thing – being limited by my very short breath-hold and horrible diving form. I chased parrotfish and groupers and searched for lobsters and shrimps – with no success. The more I tried, the likelier it seemed that I’d go back up empty-handed.
At one point, Jodie, enjoying a skinny dip in the middle of the day, yelled for me to come close. A giant moray eel was right beneath her. I considered diving for it – it’d have been an easier target, and imagine how cool I’d look surfacing with a massive eel around my neck! Plus eel is a delicacy when cooked right. But even though spearfishing was allowed, killing such a gorgeous creature felt like desecration. And it’d probably go badly if the predator became the prey! So I took one last look at the eel – and Jodie’s boobs – and moved on with my hunt.
After about an hour – chasing prey, diving down, loading the sling, shooting and missing – a filefish got unlucky. It wedged between a patch of brain coral and my sling – a fatal combination. You cannot imagine the rush of adrenaline I felt the moment I let the spear go and the fish was pinned down. It was pure elation, like being high. I surfaced feeling like a boss: strong, powerful, proud. A bit guilty, but I rationalised it as natural selection – kill or be killed. Maybe not, but damn, it was fun. Back at the lodge, the others were pretty impressed. Jack and Omar had done well for themselves, having snagged three lobsters between them.
Still pumped, I dove again. Seconds in, I spotted a large flounder. Aviv said their meat is one of the best he’s ever had. So that became catch number two. I hunted on, and after I spotted a metre-long grouper hiding under a cave, I figured I’d be way in over my head if I tried to shoot it. I would’ve probably ended up just hurting it without being able to haul it up anyways, so I gave up on it. Then I saw two huge pufferfish – each about a metre – and knew I couldn’t cook those (apparently it takes a three-month course in Japan to learn how to prepare fugu). Then a needlefish which outswam me, and a couple of squids which, I couldn’t for the life of me even approach – them propelling away the second they caught wind of me.
When I saw the sun start to dip, I called it a day. I was satisfied with two awesome catches, and it was a hell of a fun hunt. Best part? After gathering so many coconuts and two fish, I figured I could potentially survive if I were to end up stranded on a tropical island (if I had a spear and mask, that is).
Island Hangout & Deep Talks
Back on the beach, we chilled, drank, and smoked. I hadn’t let myself unwind like that in ages. I was travelling and doing all kinds of crazy things, but somehow, it felt that relaxing wasn’t quite one of them – especially since I had started my divemaster training!
We sang, danced, laughed, hugged – and even gave each other massages. Jodie confessed that she’s a witch and told me I’m a double-faced Gemini who needs to listen to the moon (I’m a Virgo and totally a daytime person, sorry). It was such good fun. And to top it off, Amelia was the one doing the emotional counselling this time round. You see, usually I’m the one people go to in order to discuss their drama and life affairs – years of soaps and chick flicks had turned me into a professional meddler. But not today – I was too relaxed and tipsy to give sage advice. Instead, I lay there – observing, listening, enjoying every single moment.
After listening to Amelia talking through most of the islanders’ drama, I could tell something had shifted. She seemed almost broken. It was here that she laid her heart out in the open and opened up – really opened up – about her life. Tiny, sweet, innocent Amelia was never again the same to me after that. She had mentioned some stuff about her family, but, being so busy with diving all the time, we never seemed to have enough time to elaborate on her past. Now, she bared it all out.
She told me all about her mother’s struggle with alcoholism. How she was practically a celebrity back home. How she let fame get to her head. How she turned to alcohol for solace and comfort. How it broke her family. How it broke her. At the ripe and tender age of nine, she moved in with her dad at nine, and they grew distant from her mom. A year before, after hitting rock bottom, she was taken to rehab, and, after that, had been doing well for around nine months. During this period, they had rekindled their relationship – with Amelia being hopeful for the first time – until she stumbled upon her secret stash of alcohol. After this incident, Amelia had left Austria and tried to leave her past behind.
As she spoke, I had no idea what to say. That confession had changed everything. And as emotional as I got, I couldn’t quite imagine her pain. I could, however, relate to her on some level – her mother wasn’t there for her when she needed her the most. While my experience was nowhere as traumatic, I did share some of those feelings growing up.
Hearing her speak like this made me feel just so proud of her. I wanted to help – to take some of her pain away – but I also knew that there wasn’t much I could do. In these situations, I’ve learned that it’s best to avoid advice and that just listening is enough. And it had to be. The only thing I could say was simple: I let told her that I was there for her and that she could always count on me.
As the sunset gave way to a starry sky, we headed to the pier for Clive’s birthday bash. Cheap fireworks lit the night sky, and we all skinny-dipped in celebration. The last time I had done that had been in Caye Caulker – yet another paradise I had the privilege of visiting.
Standing there – barefoot, soaking wet, under the stars – it just hit me: I was living such a wildly surreal life. Everything felt surreal. The fact that I was there with such great people on our very own private tropical island. The fact that I’d be going back to Utila to continue my training as a divemaster. The fact that I was in Honduras on the trip of a lifetime. All of it felt surreal. Like I was living someone else’s life. Like I was in a dream. It was truly one of the very best days of my life!
Stay wild,
Marius
Post-Scriptum
Here I also got to have a long and deep discussion with Jagger. He told me all about how he used to be a comedian back in Scotland and is now trying to run away from that life he left behind. In facing his demons (of which he has plenty), he too finds writing a good medium to express himself and self-therapeuticize.