Utila, Honduras - Deep Blue Resort - Whale Shark Week!!! Up to 4 spaces remain

It is said that Jacques Cousteau only saw 3 Whale Sharks during his lifetime. On the trip in 2008, the group saw 4! We enjoyed the atmosphere and the hospitality at Deep Blue Resort, but most of all seeing and snorkeling with the Whale Sharks. The experience was so enjoyable, we are putting together a return trip in 2010 during the Whale Shark Research Project Week of April 10-17, 2010. This is a week of diving and snorkeling with Whale Sharks. During a four week period from the middle of March to the middle of April is prime whale shark season in Utila bringing Whale Shark researchers from all over the world to Utila. The resort limits the number of rooms available providing space to the researchers. Having these researchers at the resort is an additional bonus because in the evenings the researchers give talks on Whale Sharks research making this not only a fun filled week, but also a very educational week. Since the resort limits the number of guest to 12 during these weeks as the other rooms are used by researchers and video/photography people, there are only 12 available spaces (6 rooms). There are currently 2 spaces available but may have access to an additional 2 spaces. The following prices, which include tax but not airfare, are current prices for 2009 and are guaranteed not to increase for us in 2010. Per person double occupancy: $1850 divers, $1735 non-divers Single Occupancy: $2315 divers, $2195 non-divers Some of the major details: 1. A deposit of $200 will guarantee your spot for this week of diving and Whale Shark education. An additional $200 is due by June 1st. The deposit is refundable if trip is cancelled no less than 180 days prior to departure. 2. Balance is due by 15 January 2010. Payments can be made at any time prior to the due date. 3. Group airfare to Utila may be organized for the trip if everyone participates as group air requires a minimum of 10 participants; otherwise, you are responsible for obtaining your own round trip airfare to Roatan from where a round trip charter flight to Utila (at an additional cost of approximately $200 to be finalized at a later date) will be organized. The ability to arrange your own airfare will allow those of you who want to use miles to do so and/or gives you plenty of time to secure the best airfare. Even with group air, the price can fluctuate because only the base fare is guaranteed and the increases/decreases in taxes and other fees affect the final ticket price. If group airfare is not organized and you need assistance in obtaining transportation to Roatan, please let me know. There are several alternate ways of getting to Roatan from the States going thru the Honduran mainland or direct to Roatan. 4. If you sign up as a single and do not have a roommate, you must be prepared to pay the single occupancy price if you cannot find yourself a roommate or if there is not another single who signs up looking for a roommate. We hope you will decide to join us for this trip, which should be even better than the trip we completed in August of 2008. With only 6, maybe 5, spaces available, sign up soon as spaces will be filled on a first come first serve basis based on email response date and time. If you would like to join us on this trip, contact Danny Buska via email for a registration form. Your space will be held with a deposit of $200 and completed registration form. I asked Steve at Deep Blue Resort to describe, along with the great diving Utila has to offer, the activities which the group will be able to participate in during the trip. Here is his response. "No problem, let me explain a little about the week. The main thing is identifying whale sharks, if people can take photos that is fantastic, they will be told where on the shark and how to take the photos, this we use for spot pattern recognition see www.Ecocean.org, we have worked very closely with these for years, we were the first people outside of Australia to use this method, we now have over 40 countries participating. For people not with cameras, it is important for them to look at markings, fin damage etc and to see if the shark has any tags on, and to estimate size. Hopefully we will also be taking tissue samples and acoustic tagging, all this will be done from a combination of boats including the customers boat. In the evenings we will show people how to upload their photos to ecocean and then how we process them, anyone that does this with a picture of a whale shark that we can get a spot pattern from will get an email showing all that sharks history and will be notified when it is seen again in the future. Also there will 2 or 3 talks in the evenings about the whale sharks here and from invited guests around the world and sometimes film companies.