Bay Islands Conservation Association Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras

I spent most of last week preparing for carnival...BICA helped out with creating the decorations for the stage, as well as preparing our own float...which looked great! We organised a workshop for kids from the local school to learn about marine life, and then they helped us paint fish to decorate the float.

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This week it has been all about the air, as the 2nd of August is International Air Day. BICA ran events jointly with the Utila Iguana Station to celebrate.

On Tuesday, children from the local schools came in to get a presentation about the birds of Utila. There is a huge variety of interesting species here, including some subspecies unique to the island.

At the end of the week, children attended presentations on the importance of air, and avoiding air pollution, then celebrated the air by making and flying kites. I think the kids enjoyed it nearly as much as we did!

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So I've just completed my first three weeks at BICA, and they've flown by. My main interest is in environmental education, and there's been plenty of that, from performing a puppet show (complete with Trash Monster!) for the local kindergarten to taking a group of schoolchildren snorkelling.

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So last week we went to Turtle Harbor to continue our efforts in cleaning it up and making paths and preparing the reserve for tourist visits. On our way back, it was about 3 in the afternoon, and the wind had been tremendous all day long. Our boat is one of the smaller ones that goes out on the open sea, only about 22 ft. As we rounded the corner where the ocean was unshielded from the island, we began to see huge waves. The space between the peaks of the waves was sometimes as much as 75 feet, which meant that our boat could easily fit in either side of the valley between the peaks.

So lately, there have been a few earthquakes near the island. It sounds really scary, and I´ll admit that I had a good startle when I felt my bed shaking and I could hear the glasses banging together. During one of the earthquakes, they put out a tsunami warning because the water level retracted in La Ceiba. Everyone was really scared, so they all hiked up to Pumpkin Hill to be safe from any flooding from the ocean. Here in Utila not very much happened, no one was hurt or anything thank goodness. A few of the houses are pretty damaged, especially those which have stilts.

As part of our environmental education, we invited a school to go on a hike down to the beach and help clean up the beach. A huge problem they have here in Utila is that the garbage washes up on the shore from all over the place. There were about 100 students grades 6-8 helping us clean up the beach, and we collected over 100 huge garbage bags full of trash! It took us 5 truckloads to hull it off to the dump. The obvious solution is to stop throwing garbage in the sea! We're working with the children and school districts to get that idea into the next generation's minds.

This was my second time on Utila...so what can you expect...Well the nature is beautiful the water turquoise, the streets bustle with scooters, quad bikes, motos and bicicletas. As a Bica volunteer you will have the pleasure of being ferried around in the Bica mobil (golf cart), but if that isn't your style then you can hop on the one pedalled bica bike and when you become a real hippie you can ditch your flip flops and go feral.

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This was our first week volunteering on the island, and it has been great. The boat ride over was a bit rough; the yacht is smaller than the one that goes to Roatan so you can really feel the boat going up and down as it crosses the waves. We were a bit sea sick when we arrived, so we took it easy and rested the first day.

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