Thanks Graham — this feels like a long time ago. Fun to look back and see how my photography has improved!

Hi Tony! Thanks for the info, I have edited my other comments to reflect this!

Thanks for the great tips. I love the blog!

Hi Amber! If you have it to Roatan, I highly recommend Coconut Tree Divers. Loved them! In Utila I would avoid Paradise Divers. Unfortunately I don’t have a recommendation for anywhere there, though check out ScubaBoard.com for tons of great suggestions. If I were going back to Utila I would definitely make time to spend a night at least on the Cayes. Not much to do on that island other than dive and relax! Roatan has a much greater variety of attractions. In mainland Honduras we only had time to hit up La Cieba, where we did some really affordable rafting and ziplining. I really recommend it!

I stumbled across your blog while planning a budget friendly trip to Honduras and Belize. Do you have any dive companies/groups you would suggest we go with? Also besides the coolest bar in Central America anywhere else we must see?

Thanks for the tips!
Amber

Unfortunately we only had the time and budget for the two dives I wrote about in this post, so I don’t have many dive site recommendations. Just ask other DMs about their favorites! I heard the north side is the best for seeing whale sharks, but I’m guessing you’ll see plenty of them with your volunteer project!

Thank you – I’ll make sure to avoid it. I’m lodging with a place called Gunther’s, so will probably end up doing my open water there (and possibly my advanced open water if I have time) but I know now where not to go for adventure dives! I am so stoked to be finally learning to dive, I’ve wanted to for as long as I can remember. What dive site(s) would you recommend the most from your time on Utila?

I’ll be volunteering with the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Centre, so will be basically spending a few weeks chasing whale sharks around; my idea of heaven and hopefully somewhere I can return to for my dissertation project next year..

Kat, I think it was Paradise Divers. Believe me, you know when you see these places in person which are reputable and which aren’t. Of course we thought we didn’t care that they were dodgy as we were getting a good price — but we learned our lesson! What kind of volunteering are you doing?