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If you’re heading to Honduras, Water Cay Utila has to be at the top of your bucket list.
A tiny uninhabited island off the coast of the popular scuba diving island, Utila, Water Cay is seriously heaven on earth.
We spent 6 months exploring Central America, and this was up there as one of my favourite days of our whole trip!
The island is not much bigger than a football field, and its sandy shores are filled with swaying palm trees and pine trees. There’s a sandy lagoon with water so clear it looks translucent, and the island’s south side leads out to the reef, with deep electric blue waters and coral channels to snorkel through.
Although it sounds like this idyllic paradise might be dropped somewhere in the middle of the ocean, it’s actually really easy to organise a day trip here from Utila.
In this post, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know to visit Water Cay Utila and have a perfect day in paradise!
Don’t have time to read this whole post? Here’s the lowdown 👇🏼
- Water Cay is a tiny uninhabited island off the coast of Utila
- Local tour companies on the island run a daily tour, which is basically just boat transport to the island for 4 – 5 hours
- Bush’s or Sunbliss offer this for 540 Lempira / $20 USD
- Pack everything you need for a day of swimming, sunbaking, snorkelling and relaxing in tropical paradise
Where is Water Cay Utila
Water Cay is one of a handful of small cays that are collectively known as the Utila Cays.
Located off the southwest coast of Utila, these tiny islands may be close, but they feel worlds away!
There are a couple of inhabited cays, with small fishing villages and a collective population of around 500 people (I would live here in a heartbeat!). But Water Cay is completely uninhabited.
How to get to Water Cay
To reach Water Cay, you’ll need to take a boat from Utila.
There are a couple of tour companies on Utila that run (usually) daily excursions to the cay.
It’s not a tour as such, it’s basically just a water taxi transport that will take you to and from the island, and you’re free to spend your day how you like.
The two main options to choose from are:
- Bush’s Bay Island Adventure Tours and Charters
- 📍 Tour shop located next to Bush’s Supermarket on Main Street here
- Sunbliss Tours
- 📍 Shop located on Main Street here
We went with Bush’s, so we can speak personally about how they work. As far as I know, Sunbliss operates in a similar way.
The companies will run trips to the cay every day, but there needs to be a minimum of 6 people for the tour to run.
When the first person enquires about a date, they get to choose the time they would like to leave Utila (usually it is around 8:30 am or 9:30 am).
Bush’s then advertises this trip time on a blackboard sign out the front of their shop. Once enough other people sign up for the trip to reach 6, they’ll message you via WhatsApp and confirm that the tour is good to go.
The boat trip takes around 20 – 30 minutes to reach Water Cay, depending on the conditions.
We had a relatively smooth trip over, but the trip on the way back was crazy. I don’t want to scare you, because it totally depends on the day, the tides, the wind and other weather conditions.
But man, it was one of the scariest boat rides of my life! We were literally flying out of our seats and holding on for dear life when we hit the waves. Our captain was doing the best he could to navigate it, and the waves didn’t look big at all, but it was full on.
I hope you have calmer seas than we did, and honestly, it was worth the 30 minutes of terror for the day we had. It was easily the best thing we did in Utila. But just be braced for a rough ride!
How much does it cost?
Both Bush’s and Sunbliss charge 540 Lempira or $20 USD per person.
This includes your boat transport there and back, the entry fees to the island and a cooler box for your drinks and snacks. If you need to rent snorkels, that’s a small extra fee.
Amenities on Water Cay Utila
Water Cay is tiny and uninhabited, and when we visited, there was practically nothing on the island.
They have since added a few more amenities, but it is still very untouched, laidback and natural.
There are a dozen or so wooden picnic tables and chairs, a few scraggly hammocks and some small caretaker huts.
They now have a proper toilet hut with flushing water toilets, which makes your day trip a bit more comfortable!
There were a couple of doggos running around the island too. They were quite timid but seemed to be well cared for. I wish I bought some food for them.
A reader who visited recently said the dogs were entirely uninterested in the food they bought and seemed happy and well-cared for by the locals who look after the island, so that’s good news!
Pack assuming you’ll have nothing on the island.
What to bring
Anything you want for a day at the beach, you need to bring with you. There is nothing on the island.
Bush’s (and as far as I know Sunbliss) provide you with a cooler box if you want it, and snorkel gear (this is a small extra fee).
This is what I suggest packing:
- 🎒 Waterproof bag: put all your things in a water bag, we got splashed a lot on the boat ride back
- 💧 Water bottles: lots of drinking water for a day in the sun
- 🍻 Beers: or whatever other beverage you’d like to enjoy
- 🧊 Ice: to fill the cooler box, they sell this at Bush’s Supermarket
- 🌯 Picnic lunch: groceries are pretty pricey on Utila, we bought some avocados to make guacamole with corn chips, sweet biscuits and other snacky things. I’d recommend grabbing a baleada or two to take instead (La Casita is our favourite baleada restaurant in Utila)
- 🐶 Dog food: I wish I knew there were some dogs on the island, I would have brought some treats for them
- 🧖🏽♀️ Towels and/or beach mat: to find a comfy spot to chill on the island
- 👙 Swimmers: come wearing your gear, there isn’t really anywhere to get changed
- 🤿 Snorkels: if you want to explore the offshore reef
- 🩴 Water sandals: I wish I had worn my Teva sandals, as getting out to the reef is very rocky and sharp with exposed corals
- 🏖️ Beach accessories: we have an inflatable doughnut and blow-up beach pillows, bring a hammock if you have one
- 📖 Book: you’ve got a lot of time to enjoy reading under a palm tree
- 📷 Camera: drone, GoPro, phone, camera whatever you have, you will want to take photos of this paradise
🗑️ Please bring all your rubbish back to Utila with you! There are some bins on the island, but it’s a lot easier for everyone to carry out their own trash to help keep Water Cay clean.
What to do on Water Cay
The exact amount of time you have on the island will depend on what time you leave, and what your tour operator decides for that day. We ended up with around 4.5 hours on the island, you can probably count on having at least 4.
This might sound like a long time on a tiny island, but the day went so fast. I did not want to leave Water Cay Utila! I wish we could have stayed, like at Tobacco Caye in Belize.
- 🏝️ Explore the island: this will take you all of 10 minutes, but be sure to walk the whole island when you arrive to scope out the best spot to set up! I was squealing the entire time, everywhere you look is like a scene from a postcard!
- 🌴 Relax under a palm tree: find a comfy spot to claim and set up for the day. It’s not like there are hordes of tourists on the island, but when we went, there was one big group that was quite noisy and had a speaker, so we opted for the other end. We found a big piece of driftwood, which we used to lean on, the perfect beach set-up!
- 💎 Swim: the waters are insanely beautiful here. Like I couldn’t stop pinching myself all day, they were so clear and blue and calm. The best place to swim is off the northern point of the island. There is a sandy lagoon area that gets a bit deeper. A lot of the island is surrounded by reefs, so it can be rocky and corally to walk in.
- 🤿 Snorkel: if you want to snorkel, head for the south side of the island. The reef begins almost straight off the shore, and it can be a little tricky to get in as it is quite shallow with sharp rocks and corals. But if you can navigate yourself over the shallow parts, it drops off quite quickly and there are some deep coral canyons to explore. The water here was the most insane electric blue colour, it was heaven diving down and feeling like the water was almost glowing around you.
Water Cay Utila: Paradise on Earth
Promise me if you’re in Utila, you’ll spend the day on Water Cay.
Unpopular opinion, but I loved our day here more than the dives we did. I am a tropical beach bum who would sell her soul for palm trees and calm blue water, but still.
Water Cay Utila really is a slice of paradise in Honduras, and when it’s so cheap and easy to visit, there’s no reason not to add it to your itinerary!
MORE UTILA POSTS
- Complete Travel Guide to Utila Honduras: The Scuba Island
- 16 Best Things to Do in Utila, Honduras (Diving & More)
- Complete Guide to Scuba Diving in Utila
- Renting an ATV in Utila: Self-Guided Island Adventure
- Our Top 10 Restaurants in Utila, Honduras
- Roatan vs Utila: Which Honduran Island is Right for You?
The Comments
Jakob Stary
Thanks for the post. Water Cay was such an amazing experience!
Bush’s price is now 520 Lempira or 20 USD (maybe they increased the Lempira price due to conversion changes).
The island is still absolute paradise, but they improved facilities – so there are about 20 tables on the island and a hut was build with real water toilets (2 toilets one for men, one for women).
The 3 dogs on the island were well fed and were not interested in the dog food we brought 😅. Some locals clean the island, they also have a hut with beds and kitchen and probably feed the dogs.
Event with the small changes still definitely a MUST-DO.
Sally Rodrick
Jakob StaryAhh you’ve got me dreaming about Water Cay! It is PARADISE isn’t it. Thanks again for the updates, all these changes sound positive, improving the island without turning it into anything too developed or commercial. Gosh these doggos are fussy aren’t they! If they didn’t want the food they can’t be that hungry, glad they’re being looked after. Hope you had a good a day as we did here. Sally