Roatan, Honduras February 1st to March 8th, 2011
Misc. thoughts or stories:
We had just arrived in the area of French Cay Harbor, Roatan, Honduras that a lot of cruisers hang out so that Tom would have LOTS of sailors help him celebrate his 59th B-Day on Feb 3rd. It just so happens that there was a happy hour at one of the major resorts along with pizza night and a Cindy on Andante was also coming to the same anchorage SO she baked him carrot cake w/cream cheese frosting per his request. We had a great night! Plus since they sold alot more pizza’s than normal and another group at resort – they were delayed and SO they asked the Garifuna tribe dancers to come out to perform. Then Tom got pulled out at the end to dance with them….. So he was a tired boy.
Don and Mary Losure came to go luxury camping on Sojourn week of Feb 7th. We decided to go east to more traditional area called Jonesville when the wind died down. There are lots of bights to anchor in this area. What’s unique is that you can dinghy to all of them thru various mangrove/reef channels and not have to go outside where the waves are large with the E/SE trades in this area. You go to main bights called Hog Pen, Oak Ridge, Fiddler’s and Calabash.
I was interested in learning more about these traditional dory’s they use for taxi service as there are minimal roads in this area. So I waved to an older man and he decided to stop. We learned his name was Clyde. He ran tours thru the mangrove to Carib Point for $7.50/person and grew up here in Roatan. He told us that his ancestors came over from the UK and were pirates. He had a UK father and carib mother and appeared to have a difficult growing up but seems to be a jolly soul. He does have a few scares he is living with. as he doesn’t like that the “queer” Honduras President allowed spanish mainlanders to come to Roatan and squat on private land. He even lost some land to them. These dory’s are pretty cool as they are made of wood, have a inboard engine with line to steering wheel to rotate external rudder along with bobbin type control with line connected to the govenor for acceleration.
It is the home to the historic “Hole in the Wall” bar where we met all sorts of locals and x-pats that have lived in the area for quite awhile. They have a huge bucket of free cigars made on the mainland. They pay around $.05 per cigar. We met the owner Bob who built a traditional 20′ all varnished wood dory 19 years ago. It is beautiful! He told us that he gets bored and has had 15 different engines or modes of moving this dory. It had sails, electric motor powered by batteries charged with solar panels and currently has a 10hp diesel. The bar has a pretty tame beautiful red McKaw called Apo (short for lawyer). I went in the back to say Hi and it picked up its claw like it wanted to be picked up. So I did a few times to see how it reacted and ended up bringing it to the front of the bar. I soon found out that it normally bites and should be cautious. Oh well – another lesson.
We got back to French Harbor for some snorkeling with the Losure’s and realized that it was going to rain for 2-3 days and have North and NW/W winds so not able to go to West End. So they decided to go hang out at a resort there and we would visit. As it turns out that was the best thing to do as it rained a lot and were stuck down below with chilly weather (almost similar to spring on Lake Superior). Then our refrigerator decided to die. After 2 days of running tests and skyping this retired refrigeration expert, we determined that the capillary tubes inside our evaporator holding plate were plugged. This can be quite challenging on a couples team working skills but we endured. So we started trying to figure out how to get a new evaporator bin shipped to Honduras which unfortunately charges duty on everything. But after +5 years of cruising this is the first time that we couldn’t beat the system so I guess our odds aren’t that bad. The biggest issue is not knowing when via air it will get here. You would think that they would have manifests that could tell us that at least its at the Florida office and when they expect it to be shipped. The Honduras office says they don’t know that info and we can’t call the FL office. We will continue to pursue options to determine this as one thing we have learned is to keep trying alternatives.
The weather here in January/February has been a bit odd from other areas we have been. We had a glorious full moon and the next day the spawning of TONS of jelly fish larva and jelly fish in general along with higher tides and garbage floating left over from the previous rain. Before the 4 days of constant 20-25kn wind we did get some great snorkeling and diving in. We hadn’t been since Bonaire so was good to experience how easy it felt. You probably don’t realize that salt water is never your friend anywhere on the boat. Well try keeping your clothes from getting salt spray or better yet drenched from the dinghy ride to/from your boat. So it takes abit of a driving/parking skill to minimize the salt water experience.
French Harbor is the cruisers central activities center of Roatan so at times it gets abit much with always something you could participate in. So there goes my Spanish time but I guess I could ask if anyone knows of a local teacher that I could hire. Because these islands were once ruled by the UK the older speak English, Creole and Spanish but the younger mostly Spanish as it is now part of mainland Honduras. What helps this recreation center is that we are anchored next to a marina and high end Fantasy Island Resort. This resort just got purchased and is being renovated so doesn’t have a lot of tourists. The grounds are wonderful and close to fill our scuba tanks and rinse off once we are finished diving. Plus I initiated Yoga early mornings on the beautiful fir tree point with varied blue water to look out at while you breath thru the poses. This is a wonderful and thankful to leader Kathryn on Pelican!
The resort is not where you can get a local bus or collectivo (low end taxi) so you dinghy to the commercial repair dock for shrimp boats and walk a short distance to the road, grocery store, etc. You see horses and steer tucked in between resorts and local homes along with pine trees whistling in the wind which reminds us of MN as well. BUT you have to be out of here around 4:30pm as that is when they let out their night security attack DOGS. So its not just weather and pirates that we have to be careful about. Speaking of pirates – they just caught the Javier Marten from Spain who has killed 2 single handed male cruisers in the San Blas, Panama. He was able to illegally transfer title of both sailboats to his name and tried to sail away. That didn’t work so he stole what he could and hide out in the Darien area of Panama via horse.
During this windy time, we decided to rent a car with another cruising couple and go explore that back gravel roads of Roatan. It really is a beautiful island with many vistas and has the indegenous Garifuna living here. We still had time on the car early the next AM so my Venezualan friend, Marie Helena (S/V Not So Interim) and I drove via gravel rutted road to Cerro Brazil (235 meters) to see the views. At the top we found the Cesna central navigation station for the airport behind guarded fence. That doesn’t stop MH as she went right up and asked if we could come in to take photos of the views. We saw awesome views as we climbed the towers that Juan’s family living there were guarding. A lot of the employment is built around tourism created from the cruise ships, diving vacation packages and x-pats building their dream home or businesses. There are a lot of cruisers that leave the states and stop here. They sail between Honduras and Guatemala where they stay during hurricane where its reasonably cheap. Its abit of a journey and slog against weather to keep going east toward Panama.
Well we got our new evaporator bin from Defender thru customs with much expense but at least it came and not damaged. It took us 2 days of ripping out old holding plate, freezer walls, adding more insulation, cut tubing and add flare fittings for the new filter dryer and installing evaporator. It was abit of a jig saw puzzle but we got it in only to find that it wouldn’t work after adding freon. Also realizing during this rip out process that Adler Barbor gave us bum info and possibly wouldn’t have had to replace evaporator holding plate. Oh so emotionally deflating. Plus while we were pulling vacuum to remove any moisture we were running the generator along with charging batteries. Pelican offered dinner that night and when got back to boat we saw that the batteries were boiling as the charge/regulator had malfunctioned. So we both just wanted to cry! We decided we couldn’t do anything that night so went to bed. The dreams that night were not good! 🙂
The next day we started again and finally did get the evaporator to start cooling!! Yes – I am so thankful for my wonderful husband who endures when it gets tough by reading and is so smart! I do the – let’s call this person, what about this idea, etc. Not always helpful but I feel better. So we started putting all the stuff back in the quarter berth, starboard lazarette and rear locker. That is when you realize that we have a lot of STUFF – but we continue to use most of it. Over the years however our rechargable batteries for the drills, etc. are dieing so we need to buy new.
More Later….