The pictures speak for them selves. Underneath: Utila Princess II that runs between La Ceiba and Utilas only town, East Harbour, 2 times a day; 9:30 am and 4:00 pm from La Ceiba and 6:20 am and 2:00 pm from Utila. The ride takes one hour and a bit, and going in the evning I have heard can be very bumpy and caotic ride. It is best to ask the capitan if yopu will need a pill against seasickness. I left La Ceiba with the boat 9:30 am and the sea was calm. The boat is overbuild, so you sit inside a large room that with just benches for the passengers and nothing more. It was still a pleasant ride. As you travel from shore at La Ceiba you see the mountains coming up from the ocean, it is beautiful.
Utila is a quite small island lying far out in the Caribbean sea outside Honduras. It has a much bigger neighbouring island called Rotan in the east, even further out in the ocean, they belong to the Bay Islands (Islas de la Bahia). The history of the islands is very interesting; They were inhabited by AD 1000 for sure, but the inhabitants are unknown, and also where they came from. Christopher Columbus landed on the island called Guanaja in 1502 and met a large indigenous population there as on Rotan and Utila. Spanish slave traders kidnaped islanders and sent them to work at platations in Cuba and silver mines in Mexico. In the meanwhile, English, among them the famous Henry Morgan, Dutch and French pirates established hideaways on the islands and used them as bases to launch raids on Spanish cargo vessels laden with gold and other treasures. There were 5000 pirats on Rotan alone in the 17th century. The Spanish captured Port Royal on Rotan in March 1782 killing most of the pirates and selling the rest as slaves. Rotan was unoccupied until 1797 when the British marine dumbed 2000 black Caribs there. They setteled in the town Punta Gorda on Rotan and became known as Garifuna. Until 1859 Bay Islands were contolled by the British, then it became territory to Honduras. It is strange to see how white, black and mixed people and Spaniards live in such harmony here. The population is very diverse and I hear different languages. English is spoken with the Carib accent, like the people of Jamaica, then there is the Garifuna that is constructed language and Spanish. The Spanish is a bit difficult for me to understand. I see a lot of European looking and I thought they were tourists like me, but they are decendants of early Irish and British settlement. that came here over a centery ago. But there are settlers from the US, Israel, France and England that came here traveling and then just never left. They work in the tourist oriented businesses.
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