Being the Invisible Man

Strangely, Christmas on the Caribbean island of Utila was a little different to Christmas in the London Borough of Hounslow. Instead of being able to enjoy pint after pint of Discovery in the George IV (possibly with the unseen addition of vodka) I was instead forced to endure rum after rum on a small boat cruising around the bay. Despite the Father Christmas hats, turkey and incessant playing of Christmas carols there was something missing. By Boxing Day it was as if Christmas had never happened and it was back to the daily grind of diving and drinking rum.

I've wanted to visit the Bay Islands for many years and I'm very glad that I took my Open Water before arriving so that I could make a running start. Within half an hour of arriving on Utila I was in a classroom having theory explained to me and before I'd slept I'd been on three dives - a buoyancy control dive, a navigation dive and a night dive. The high point of the night dive (other than the Octopus) was when we knelt on the sea floor, turned off our torches and waved our arms around in the pitch black - bringing to life all the phosphorescence around us. The second day saw us make a deep dive to 36m as well as a fun dive. The third (Christmas Eve) saw us finish things off with a wreck dive (my favourite by far) and a naturalist dive - where we had to identify different types of coral and fish that our instructor pointed out. Conveniently we were back from our final dive in time for the first 'Booze Cruise' on the boat around the bay, which may have led to the concentration problems I had when completing my exam paper the next day. Having not met many British people in the last few months I was shocked to hear familiar accents absolutely everywhere, though rivaled by the omnipresent Swiss-Germans.

I'm afraid to say that the next few days in Utila featured a small amount of diving and a large amount of rum. New Year's Eve saw another 'Booze Cruise' and another of my traditional bouts of memory loss. After a brief break, lying speadeagled on the dock at the dive shop, the NYE party became a NYD party as I decided to pay tribute to Paul Gascoigne by introducing his patented 'Dentist's Chair' to Utila. Why I did this I don't know but it all led to me getting home at 4am, perfect timing given that I had to be on a boat to Roatan at 6.30am. This was aboard a beautiful catamaran and is supposed to afford you the chance to see dolphins swimming alongside and quite possibly whalesharks. However, I battened down the hatches and was asleep on a bench - awaking just as we pulled into West End Bay.

Strangely I was a little under the weather when I arrived in Roatan and so took a few days to get better in order to dive again. Whilst the instructors and divemasters were excellent on Utila and I had a great time there, me and a number of people that I spoke to were a little disappointed at the lack of fish - in particular mega fauna. Some of this was obviously down to bad luck as well as poor weather preventing too many trips to the north side of the island. However, on my first dive in Roatan I saw a nurse shark, several large barracudas and an enormous eagle ray. I also finally worked out how to breath properly underwater - for so long I'd always been the first to run low on air but after 25 dives I finally got it right.

My hopes for a quiet period of reflection on Roatan were dashed by the arrival of friends Cindee and Helen from my diveschool on Utila. Although, being Canadians of oriental extraction, they did relieve me of the necessity of taking photos as almost our every waking move was documented in photo and video. Roatan is a far more beautiful island than Utila, with great beaches and snorkeling all over the place, yet the inevitable result of this is the suffocation of constant cruise ships. On one day three ships arrived, boosting the island's population by 12,000. Constant traffic jams and water jammed with snorkelers can detract a little from the beauty of the place. We escaped this by visiting the botanical gardens and I (alone) visited the island museum - without doubt the quietest and most deserted place on the entire island.

Leaving Roatan we headed cross country to San Pedro Sula, where I left the girls and headed north to the coast to the small town of Omoa. Here there's a large Spanish fort which afforded me another photo op atop a cannon. My night's sleep in Omoa was disturbed by a titanic battle of the sinuses by two middle-aged men that were sharing my dorm, I've really never heard anything like it - they both kept waking themselves up so loud were their snorts.

From Puerto Cortes, near Omoa, I left Honduras after over a month and headed by boat up to Dangriga in Belize. Again my (honest) attempts to have a quiet and sober few days on a small island were dashed when I met two Norwegians, Anette and Lotte. I'm (obviously) here to learn more about Latin America with a view to possibly staying here, but throughout my trip I've learnt much more about Canada and Scandinavia than I have about any part of this continent. They get around. The three of us headed out to the absolutely minute island of Tobacco Caye - which you can walk around in less than ten minutes.

On Tobacco Caye I was reminded of the fact that foreign men are entirely invisible to the Belizean male. The last time I was in Belize, in 2006, I was again with a small group of girls and was amazed that blokes would walk up to the group and greet everyone except myself. What was it that made me different from the others? I deduce that I was in fact invisible. I regained this superpower (strangely it deserted me for four and a half years) on Tobacco Caye as the island's gentlemen were entirely oblivious to my presence. If only my power worked outside of Belize imagine the havoc I could wreak in the world!

As my travels have taught me that the Norwegians are perhaps the closest to the British in terms of 'culture' a little more rum was consumed, with one evening ending in the water and me receiving a thousands coral cuts on my feet. Obviously I complained incessantly about these cuts in the following days, with little sympathy.

Whilst the girls were very easily able to talk themselves onto a boat south to Placencia I had to return to Dangriga for administrative reasons. This was in a tiny boat on an extremely rough day, with waves several times higher than our boat. Any concern I had quickly turned to amusement thanks to the screaming, sighing and swearing of the Danish girl next to me - reminded me a lot of my Mum on Space Mountain. After a couple of days in Placencia (from where the Norwegians returned to Caye Caulker) I traveled further south to the small Mayan village of San Pedro Columbia. This was near the largest Mayan archaeological site in southern Belize - Lumbaatum. Although little of the enormous site has been excavated so far it does have a series of impressive, if unreconstructed, temples and three obviously identifiable ball courts.

That leaves me in the distant south of Belize, Punta Gorda, waiting for my poor poor feet to heal before I jump on a boat to take me to Livingston in Guatemala. It's been several years and I can hardly wait for the first bottle of Gallo and taste of Pollo Campero.