Dragonfly is reporting in from Roatan, Honduras. A new country means a new courtesy flag raised up the halyard. We spent the last week in French Harbor, Roatan. Prior to that our last weeks in in Belize were all about diving as you’ll read below. We had a straightforward passage from Glovers Reef, Belize to French Harbor, Roatan. We covered the 80 miles in about 19 hours, not bad since we sailed entirely upwind in lumpy seas (that create a hobbyhorse motion on the boat as it is assaulted by each wave). After cruising Belize for more than 2 months it was a bit peculiar to be passage making again, especially when the available charts are not known for their accuracy -- I found myself comforted when the sun came up and Roatan was in sight.
We had a good chuckle the other day. We met a threesome of young sailor lads who were sailing a trimeran the same route from Glovers to the Honduras Bay Islands. Being young, high spirited, with no fear they didn’t think twice about departing the anchorage at 9PM. This was a bit curious to us knowing how easy it would be to hit the reef on the way out of the anchorage without light to see the shallows/coral. Being older and wiser, we wished them luck and left in the late afternoon with enough light to easily see the cut in the reef.
We had a bit of excitement entering the cut for the first time at Glovers Reef atoll, the third offshore atoll in Belize. We headed for our approach waypoint, which we had calculated from the cruising guide’s detailed view picture, but realized that something was definitely wrong when there was no visible break in the reef and the islands inside the reef were on the wrong side of the boat. We could see a sailboat anchored in the placid looking bay so we turned back and worked our way to what seemed like the most likely location for the cut. Finally, a calm-looking area bounded by white water & a substantial stake marking a shoal came into view -- since the wind was light we went for it and were relieved that it was the actual pass through the reef. Our cruising guide was off in the longitude of the pass, we were fortunate that the day was clear and the weather settled or it might have been too difficult to find the entrance visually. We had targeted this particular anchorage in order to dive with the Isla Marisol Resort dive operation (recommended to us by friends we met last year). We had so much fun during our 1st day that we ended up staying three more days! This resort has beautiful surroundings, very nice staff, great food, beautiful snorkeling and something like 70 dive sites in the area. I don’t think we would have left even after the fourth day except we were legally cleared out of Belize by then and were looking over our shoulder for the Coast Guard. We hope to come back to this area in March/April for more diving (whale sharks usually come in around the full moon to feed on the snappers that are spawning) and encourage you to checkout www.islamarisol.com for any future diving/snorkeling vacation needs. Here is an even tastier way to cook conch from the chef at the resort.
We did 6 wall dives and each was beautiful. We were fortunate to be there during a slow week at the resort, so there were only four of us on each dive. The highlights included (1) diving around towering coral formations, with huge varieties of coral, sponges and tons of fish. (2) Chad, our dive instructor, was terrific – he could actually mesmerize the sea turtles with a certain movement of his fingers, to the point where the turtles were swimming in a circle with him. (3) He also found the tiniest fish: blennies poking out of the coral, their heads smaller than a pea; newly hatched spotted drums whose bodies were no bigger than a pinkie fingernail but have 4 inch plumes streaming off of them. (4) We saw two black tipped reef sharks, both on the small side (3-4 feet), who had no interest in us. (5) We swam across a canyon and found ourselves in an area thick with black, nassau and tiger groupers actively protecting their territories. (5) Queen Angels, my favorite fish, were everywhere. (6) We finally saw a seahorse too!
Another first occurred back in Placencia: we were sitting on the patio at the restaurant “Habeneros” with our friends Tom & Mary when one of the wait staff casually asked us if we’d like to see a crocodile. A six footer was cruising the shallows below the patio looking for table scraps. If you are ever in Placencia, you want to go to Habeneros for dinner – it was the best meal I have had since leaving Key West.
Checking out of Belize in Placencia was an adventure as well. One must allocate the better part of the day to the activity. We took the local water taxi called the “Hokey Pokey” up the creek to the village of Independence. The ride was very pretty, a route through the mangroves, down one creek to another with many locals aboard. We have been told you can dingy there but it would have been tough finding our way. A taxi took us to the immigration office in Independence and then to the customs office in Big Creek. The customs officer scolded Rick because the renewal paperwork from our last customs visit neglected to renew the boat’s permit (it renewed only the people), which could have resulted in a $600 fine. Rick apologized and explained that we had told the renewal officer that we lived on our boat and he provided the stamped ships stores paperwork to prove that it was covered during our initial check-in (the renewal officer must have forgotten to give us the appropriate stamp). Then back to the Hokey Pokey for the return to Placencia.
Our check-in into Roatan was very straightforward, a relief since we have heard stories of difficult check-ins in Honduras on the cruiser radio net. We have been cleared for 90 days in the country for no fee. It seems that the duration of the permit and the cost is completely random, some cruisers get 30 days for free and renew for a fee, and others pay for the initial 30 days and the renewal. It seems to be at the discretion of the immigration officer. We were advised to “push back” if immigration attempted to charge us or to forgo the check-in altogether as inspection seems rare; I guess we are not in Kansas anymore!
Our first goal was to meet some of our neighbors in the anchorage (4 boats) and learn more about the cruising here. Once thing about the cruising population is they are extrememly generous and helpful. We arrived without a cruising guide and with limited detail on our charts we knew that we couldn't cruise the area without further knowledge. We went boat to boat introducing ourselves and found that all 4 of the boats have been cruising this area for many years. ' Shamal' loaned us their cruising guide (which is out of print and almst impossible to find) while 'Queen Mary' gave us a CD filled with charts, waypoints, guide information. We spent the week getting to know Edith/Hans from Vienna & Henry from Germany from whom we learned lots about cruising this area as well as Cuba and The Med. Checkout Henry's website at www. sailing-the-world.com for fascinating films of adventure sports and single-handed cruising in the Med and Caribbean.
We also had two fabulous experiences touring Roatan. We decided to visit the "Iguana farm" which was located across the bay from our boat. We were intrigued by the groups of people who came down on the dock, staring and pointing into what looked like a penned in area. Turns out that Shermon Arch is attempting to protect the native green iguana as they are disappearing from the island (often eaten by the locals), he raises them, feeds them and lets them roam around on his land, charging tourists $5 to see them up close and personal. It was a hoot to be able to touch an iguana, and just observe them as they clamored around us looking for a handout. The mystery of the pen at the dock was solved: Sherman rescued a handful of tarpon fry when a local bay was being filled by developers and they live happily under his care, along with some French angelfish, turtles, trunkfish, lobster and whatever sea creatures swim into the pen. After leaving the farm we walked up the road into the hills to stretch our legs and along came Sherman and his family offering us a lift to a local restaurant, later her took us on a 3 hour tour of the eastern shore of the island, telling us about the Garafuna population, his family history on Roatan (relatives left the US after the civil war) , and answering all our questions about Honduras and Roatan. This man's hospitatlity was endless.
We then spent the better part of a day with Hank, a local taxi driver with great knowledge of the island and fluent in English and Spanish. Roatan is quite hilly and the forest is made up of oak, mahagony, pine and more. Since we are just at the end of the rainy season, it is very lush and green and the hills drop down to water that is every shade of blue since the reef shoals very close to the island. The Bay Islands were originally British, but Britain traded them away for Belize! The island still feels somewhat lost in time, but it is focusing on it's tourist and real estate business so things may change quickly. Roatan has 1 or 2 cruise ship visits weekly but they are building a new cruise ship dock soley for Royal Caribbean Cruise lines. Building and real estate development is taking place all over the island, house lots and condos with spectacular views are available on every shore. The islands seems to be counting on these sectors to improve the local economy. Historically their livelihood has come from fishing and shrimping, with some tourism from scuba diving. But now the waters are overfished, fuel prices are high, shrimp farms are flooding the market with low priced product and local fisherman/shrimpers cannot stay in business.
It's difficult to know what the future will bring but the folks we have talked with are excited by the opportunities they see as Americans and Canadians show interest in the island; we hope there is a balance struck as there certainly is something unique and authentic here that can easily be obliterated by development (there is no McDonalds or KFC type joints here to date).
Stay tuned for more from Honduras...we'll be diving here soon.
