Utila

Before Europeans arrived, the Bay Islands were home to a people the Spanish called the Paya, now known as the Pech. Columbus reached neighbouring Guanaja on his fourth voyage in 1502, and slave raids followed: in 1516, ships sent under the authority of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar captured Paya on the islands, and a second expedition seized 400 people from Utila and one of the other islands, killing about 100. Over the following century the islands' original people were wiped out by enslavement.

The empty islands became a refuge for buccaneers. Britain occupied the Bay Islands on and off between 1550 and 1700, and pirates used them for food, timber and safe harbour; divers still search Utila's waters for treasure said to come from Henry Morgan's raid on Panama in 1671. In 1797 the British deported more than two thousand Garífuna to the Honduran coast and the Bay Islands, where their descendants keep their own language and identity.

Britain handed the islands to Honduras in the mid-19th century. By then settlers from the Cayman Islands were moving to the nearly uninhabited islands, and Utila still carries their culture and dialect. For a long time it was a closed community devoted to fishing. Over the decades since, tourism and diving have made it one of the most cosmopolitan places in Honduras, and since 2013 the whole island and its cays have been protected as a Ramsar wetland of international importance.

Utila's people are of English, Dutch and Afro-Indigenous Garífuna descent, and the Caymanian settlers of the 19th century left a lasting mark: the island remains rich in Caymanian culture and dialect, and islanders speak an English creole close to Jamaica's. Islanders regard Utila as the most traditional and conservative of the Bay Islands, even though it is now also the most international, with dive instructors and travellers from all over the world living alongside old island families.

Diving is the island's culture as much as its economy. Utila is said to certify more new divers than anywhere else in the Caribbean, its dozen or so dive schools teach in many languages, and evening talk in the bars runs to reef creatures and whale-shark stories. A strong nightlife follows, with an unofficial rota among the bars over where everyone goes each night. Utila was also the home of Sunjam, the largest electronic music event in Honduras, which was held each year in early August.

Pirate lore is part of local identity, with tales of buried treasure still told. The island's nature is a point of pride too: the mangroves are the only home of the critically endangered Utila spiny-tailed iguana, and a local conservation group runs walks and a small museum devoted to the island's wildlife and history.

At the 2013 census Utila municipality had 3,947 people. Most residents identified as mestizo, with smaller white and Afro-Honduran minorities. Most live in the single town, East Harbour, with a small community on the inhabited western cays. The island is about 11 km long and 4 km across at its widest, and most of it is low mangrove swamp, with a few small volcanic hills at the eastern end.

Tourism, fishing and trade are the main livelihoods. Dive shops, hostels, restaurants and bars employ much of the town. Days revolve around the dive boats leaving the docks and end late in the bars along the water.

Practical life is shaped by being an island. The post office sits at the ferry dock, the ferry and small planes bring in supplies and visitors from the mainland, and cars share the narrow roads with scooters, bicycles and tuk-tuks. Sand flies at dawn and dusk are a constant complaint.

Utila's cooking is Caribbean island food built on the sea and on coconut. The local white bread is made with coconut milk and often eaten with mango jam. Conch and crab are favourite catches, and sopa de caracol, a conch soup cooked in coconut milk, is one of the most representative dishes of Honduran cuisine. Fried whole fish and fried hog are everyday plates.

The mainland's staple has made the crossing too: baleadas, warm flour tortillas folded over refried beans, crumbled cheese and cream, are sold by street vendors all over town and are the cheapest meal on the island. Restaurants along the main road serve an international mix for divers and travellers alongside seafood. In the coastal areas and the Bay Islands, seafood and some meats are prepared in many ways, including with coconut milk.

Drinks follow the island's nightlife. Honduran beer is standard in the harbour bars, and guifiti, a rum-based bitters made by soaking roots and herbs in rum, can be found in a few of them.