This post has been months in the works, so bear with me. I wanted to provide some reflections on my time in Utila, with the perspective of being away for a week.
As K mentioned in an early post, you have to embrace the fact you are not in a “developed” country to truly love Utila. Yes, there are huge open gutters running along the streets and paths that in years past ran sewage to the bay (they have a sewage plant now); yes, there are dogs, kids, chickens and oblivious tourists wandering down the middle of the single lane roads competing for space with open tuk-tuk scooters, rusted bikes and the occasional delivery truck; yes, the restaurants open randomly in both days and hours, along with the all the other stores; and yes, the power lines do nearly drag the street once they have stretched out, until UPCO sends three guys with ladders and a truck winch to tighten them up. But you have reliable power, reliable internet, some incredibly cheap food, and nearly zero crime.
So, getting past the yuppie, pretentious entitled first world snobbery of the middle-class American is the first thing you have to do to enjoy Utila. I am sure it is easier for the young and the backpackers, they don’t usually have the benefit(?) of years of momentum in the suburbs with 50 hour/week jobs, taxes, bills and social obligations. I am not suggesting that you cannot have both a pretty ticky tack McMansion and BMW and an open mind about travel and foreign cultures; I am saying that this was my first long-term immersion into a foreign country, living by their rules without expecting the safety net of modern America to fix my problems. It took a serious commitment before I left to create an expectation level, then destroy it all together and leave myself open to whatever the island provided. And boy did Utila succeed on so many levels.
First and foremost, the locals and expats are wonderful, generous and kind. It is often said that the quality of the people may be the biggest factor in enjoyment of your travels; and Utilians are amazing. They are happy to greet you with a “Good morning” as you bike down the street to work. They quickly remember your name, or at least which dive shop you are associated with. They have seen so many backpackers and tourists come and go that they really seem to appreciate when someone has been on island longer than a month and seems to start acting like a resident of their little community. The institutional knowledge and coconut telegraph of the locals and expats is incredible. From which day the freshest veggies show up on the ferry, to who to see for a broken bike cassette, to finding fresh fish at a local home on the cays for lunch. Living there day in and day out creates a vast library of knowledge that when collected and used, makes life on the island pretty easy and enjoyable. I think the people we met and that embraced us into their daily routines were the absolute best part of my trip. We owe so many people our gratitude for making our trip fun, safe and unique that it would take an entire post alone.
Next for me was the simple beauty in the things around you. Yes, each day’s sunset was generally spectacular. The ocean and beachfront vistas could be breathtaking and the diving is amazing. But look close and you see the shaky leg lizards in their blue and green finery racing along the dirt paths, you see the hundreds of egrets and pelicans in the lagoon all nesting in one big tree sticking up out of the murky water, you may see an eagle ray’s wing tips flapping the water of the flats as you pedal along the beach to work, or you may just notice that the breeze perfectly cools you as you rock luxuriously in the hammock sipping a cold Imperial beer. Without the noise of distraction, whether it be work, family, television or the myriad of things we fill our days with at home, the wonder all around becomes apparent. Although we generally do notice it, most of the time in our real lives we ignore it for more “important” options. Guess I’m tired of the distractions when the real world can be so entertaining and invigorating. I have no idea what is happening on TV shows, don’t really care about the latest gossip or political b.s., and marginally care that I cannot hear all the Giants games on the radio or streaming. Ok, the later would only enhance the boat lifestyle, so I am working on my Sirius radio reception issue.
We made some hopefully lifelong friends. I have never been great at regularly maintaining relationships with acquaintances or co-workers. Good friends or very interesting people I will travel the world to visit and see again and again. But Utila made it clear that the quality of people in your life is extremely important and one must expend the necessary energy to ensure to make those relationships productive and enjoyable.
Now the not so good, and the list is short. You can easily get sucked into the 20-something backpacker lifestyle of diving all day, grabbing a baleada for late afternoon snack and proceed to drinking the evening away. The conversation and antics are usually enjoyable, but you can easily piss away $25 a night in partying (a well-employed divemaster makes about $20/day) and have a decision to make around 1AM about whether you stay up all night to continue the fun, or find your bed, or maybe the nearest bed, for some sleep before the 7AM dive boat. Life on Utila for expats isn’t much more cut and tried, because they either dabble unsuccessfully in the backpacker lifestyle, seeming a little creepy for hanging around the bars at midnight; or ostracize themselves in their homes, going out irregularly and then only with other expats for sundowners or dinner; or they jump in with both feet and will be the first ones at the bar when it ones at noon, and completely hammered by 7pm when the “youth” are just about to get started. Seems like it would be tough to keep a set of boundaries and parameters without some of the “trappings” of adult life to keep you from having too much fun on a regular basis.
Finally, I opened my eyes to a serious concern, and this one is not unique to Utila, or in fact a criticism of Utilans. But, we as a species have decided that the world is our garbage heap or toilet bowl without any concern for the ramifications. Two cases in point: (1) the amount of plastic covering every square inch of the windward shores of most land masses; and (2) the irreparable damage our sewage is doing to the reefs and organisms of the world’s waters. I cannot blame any one place or people for the plastic issue. Utila has beach cleanup days 6-8 times a year, however they too use their share of plastics without a recycle system in place. But the fact is that Utila is one of the most western islands in the Caribbean, thereby “catching” all the plastic and trash dumped from every island, boat or cruise ship upstream. It ends up on the beaches.
The driftwood and coral bits aren’t the problem, it is all the plastic. I pulled a dozen plastic bags off coral heads or sea fans. Kerry and I found hundreds of flipflops, water bottles, liquid containers of every type, and anything plastic you can imagine. I actually grabbed two flops off a beach to fix my lose fin straps that were cutting my booties. We are a one-use species because of consumer driven marketing and production. It is disgusting and absolutely destroying our environment. I’ll pick up trash as much as the next tree-hugger because you aren’t likely to convince big petroleum or plastic consumers to change their ways; but until we find an efficient and easy way to collect and reuse the plastic waste we make, the world will be cluttered and trashed with plastic. A shame really, because all it takes is commitment and dedication to a belief that the world, particularly our oceans, are NOT mankind’s trash dump. If anyone has a serious and innovative manner for reusing plastic in remote locations on a large scale, I am interesting in hearing and investing in it.
The second problem is more straight forward and obvious. Nearly 50% of the reefs in the oceans have been destroyed by bleaching or other impacts due to interactions with human waste or runoff. Entire reef systems around Pacific islands have decimated due to erosion from deforestation or lack of proper sewage facilities. The pH levels in human waste kill most of the organisms around the reefs, or change the coral itself. This has devastating effects on the health of the reef. Utila has lost all of its apex predators on the reef. There are a handful of nurse sharks like Nick, but there are no “sharky sharks” as my friend Faye would say. No reef sharks or other predators to keep the parrot fish and snapper in check. Those fish graze the algae off the reef, without which, there is less CO2 breakdown in the system, causing further problems. We had the opportunity to dive and talk with some incredible post-grad researchers doing studies of the Utila reefs. They expressed astonishment about the changes in the reef observed over the past 10 years of studies. The practical impact is that the reef as it is today will disappear within our lifetimes, and with it the dive industry on Utila, and then the improved way of life vanishes because there are no more US or Canadian dollars to fund the new power facilities or sewage plants or internet. I know it is hard to think on that scale while you are stuck in traffic trying to get to your kid’s soccer game or riding the train home from work to watch the season finale of Walking Dead. I am finding it very disconcerting, maybe at a relatively old age, that generally the first world middle class tends to be so narrowly focused on our own problems and pressing needs leaving the bigger picture for the fanatics, the environmentalists, dreamers, romantics or the naïve.
I guess I have to thank Utila for opening my eyes to a new reality, another path with purposeful choices. That might be the greatest thing about the island, if you are willing to open your eyes, ears, mind and heart; you will quickly forget why you ever wanted to be just like everyone else in your subdivision, office, church or see on TV; and why you might want to be something completely different slowly grabs hold of your mind. Guess it is time to act on that thought.
Enough soap-box, the sordid tales of Admiral and his siren wenches sailing the pirate waters of the Leeward Islands will now continue on its regularly scheduled channel.
