Corn Islands

The way people speak on this side of the Caribbean may make you think you've arrived in Jamaica. Instead our flight had taken us to Big Corn Island. The airport is nothing more than a short runway and a small building where the baggage gets put on the floor near the entrance after your name has been written down in a logbook on the other side of the square room. Here the people respond to the question of 'Hi, how are you?' with 'Right here!' in a Jamaican accent which I'm determined to get the hang of by the time we leave.

We spent a night on Big Corn Island and then took a 20 minute boat ride to Little Corn, a small island without streets or cars and electricity only from 12:00 until 05:00. During our time here we each logged 5 dives including a night dive under a full moon. The dive spots are beautiful, we saw so much: coral and fish ranging from dolphins to nurse sharks, huge turtle, lobsters, sting rays and lion fish just to name a few. At the end of our last dive we were followed by a 1 metre-long curious shark sucker who swam around us for a good 5 minutes. Having seen them on the night dive the evening before, Geert and I knew that they weren't that dangerous. He made a few of the other divers nervous enough for them to take off a fin trying to use it as protection while we couldn't help but laugh into our mouthpiece watching even the most experienced diver swim near the surface without doing the required safety stop a few metres below. That fish didn't give up, circling us until the last moment before climbing back onto the boat.

My 29th birthday present from Geert was the flight to the islands but we had planned to celebrate the day itself on Little Corn: we'd have our last dive; swim in the sea; drink a cocktail in the sun followed by a meal in the evening. Unfortunately we woke up to rain which would continue the whole day, changing some of those plans. Late that afternoon the rain finally stopped and we slowly started making our way to the restaurant for dinner. Geert started giving reasons as to why we should walk along the sand and there at the waters edge of the empty beach he got down on one knee and proposed :-) I was taken by surprise and first burst into tears before saying yes. So, we are engaged! Or rather, as the Nicaraguans call it, 'compromised'!

The next day we headed back to Big Corn Island, the rain had started again now with large black clouds in the distance. Soon after boarding the open aired boat, the rain pounded down accompanied by thunder and lightning. We'd been given a thick piece of plastic to cover all passengers which had to be held down by the passengers on the edge of the seats. The lightning didn't seem to bother the 'second mate' who stood on the front of the boat, holding a rope to keep his balance, looking out towards our destination. We all held on for dear life for 20 minutes, praying that the huge waves wouldn't cause the boat to turn over.

On Big Corn we spent one more night at a hostel called 'Big Fish' and flew out the next afternoon on a plane for 12 passengers back to the capital city, Minagua.