Its been an awesome days diving here on the Alton's morning boat. With North Side diving set on the board, today's agenda was for drift diving outside Turtle Harbour and Whale Sharking. As the busy slow season continues, Utila has been anticipating the return of the Whale Sharks, and eagerly awaited.

By 8.30am, 30 minutes after leaving shore, we were lined up on the boat with fins and masks, ready to take the plunge. They are here! All 19 divers enjoyed snorkelling with two amazing female whale sharks. Simply amazing! Sightings have been rumoured for the last couple of days but on a previous morning we could only see vast tuna boils but no sharks.

The first whale shark was a 7m juvenile and was on the move when we saw her. The second sighting was perfect, an 11m female nose up vertical feeding on the surface with a remora attached. All the divers enjoyed the timeless moment in the water whilst the shark fed upright, before showing off her awesome size and setting off into the blue.

With the morning's euphoria already cemented for the day, we started our drift dive from Blackish Point to Joshua Quash, located on the outskirts of Turtle Harbour The dive is a re-trace of the old ice age shoreline, which sits 20m below sea level. It's a spectacular drift dive since the original coastline has eroded away to form large caverns, overhangs and dark plateaus.   The coral and fish life takes on a different form from the usual wall dives. With this site particularly, tarpons, horse-eye jacks and midnight parrotfish are the definite highlights.

The dive starts immediately with great numbers of Horse Eye Jacks and Ocean Trigger Fish. As we descend down to the old shoreline, the shadows and distant fish take on an eerie feel. Tarpons linger in the overhang shadows with Dog Snappers and Barracudas. Tarpons themselves are curious creatures and not afraid to come and investigate you.

Along the ridge was a school of around 50 Atlantic Spade Fish, which I have never seen at this site (more commonly seen on Black Hills sea mount). As the dive shallows, the soft corals and the coast edge spring to life and I catch a glimpse of a Juvenile Smooth Trunkfish. More Barracudas and Horse Eye Jacks spurt with Black Durgons hanging around in the shallows. We are 45minutes in and its time to send up the SMB for our safety stops.

The second dive is at Radar Reef to the South East of Utila Bay. The reef plateau's at 10m and makes a gradual slope down to 40m. After an eventful busy first dive, our group decides for a slow moving 1-hour dive investigating the corals. Juvenile Creole Wrasse mingle with Black Durgons. We see our first Queen Trigger Fish for the day and the dive group spots a Hogfish right in front of my mask (whilst I'm looking at something else!)

The boat returns (late!) to the dive centre for a well-deserved lunch and to fill in those log books!