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March 2006 |
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25 March - Guanaja to Providencia
01 March - Roatan to Guanaja
25 March - Guanaja to Providencia
Guanaja was a really nice place to stop, it seems as though the only real tourists there are the boaters, the only down side was that the town was a fair way from the anchorage so it took quite a while to get there with our 2HP Seagull and was an extremely wet ride back. Mind you the slowness of our dingy suddenly became no problem as we lost it.
We took the boat over to a place called Josh Cay for a night, this is a really nice place the water is so clear and a beautiful colour. There is a island with a bar and restaurant run by a really nice guy called Graham. The food here was excellent and we were offered free ice and water and the moorings were also free, so it is a very good deal for boaters and a lovely place to stop. Anyhow we tied our dingy to the boat at night and when we woke up in the morning all that was left was the rope! Its a bit of a mystery as to what happened to it as it was not worth anything to anyone else, no one would be able to sell it on, so it was just a real pain for us to be stranded with no dingy.
The morning we found it missing, Stuart swam over to the boat moored up next to us and told them what had happened, they gave a shout out for us on the SSB - West Caribbean Cruisers Net to see if anyone had a dingy or outboard for sale. People were just so helpful and with in minutes we had offers of dingy's and out boards from all over Honduras. The only thing being that we had got this far and really didn't want to retrace our steps back to Utila, Roatan or La Ceiba where all the offers were from. The locals from around the Bight were super helpful to us and gave us lifts into town and advise. In 2 days we managed to get hold of 2 dingy's and a 5HP outboard. The first dingy was given to us by another boater that had just brought a new one, which was so kind of them, we had never even met them before and haven't seen them since. After getting the second dingy we gave this one back, but we got a fairly good deal on the dingy and the outboard so we were pretty happy. The outboard came to us in pieces and we had to pay someone to fix it but after a few trial and errors we now have a working motor.
Before we lost the original dingy we took it over to the reef at Josh Cay and I had another one of my crazy snorkeling experiences. We anchored the dingy in a shallow part and began to snorkel through valleys of coral. The first thing I saw as I looked over Stuart's shoulder was a pointed tail swimming in the channel parallel to ours. With my vast knowledge of sea life I recognised that this was the tail of a shark! Trying not to panic I tried to show it to Stuart, not seeing it he said 'its just a fish' so I gritted my teeth and carried on, then there to the left of me was another one, then to the right another, then in front another!! Panic! Panic! Panic! (Stuart actually saw them this time!) In 2 minutes of being in the water I had seen 5 bloody sharks in water that barely reached my shoulders and they appeared to be getting larger the further we went!! That was it, back to the dingy for me! Although swimming with 5 sharks sounds pretty brave, I have to point out here that they only ranged from about 2 - 4ft in length so were hardly Great Whites but still sharkey enough to scare me!
We met back up with Jack and Suzie from Sirena in Guanaja, and had a lot of good nights with them at the Crazy Parrot, a fantastic bar on the waterfront owned by a couple of Germans who were super nice too and another nice place just round the corner called Han's (also German) Its quite funny that one thing we never really expected to be eating over here was German food.
After one particularly boozy night at Josh Cay (where we met some crazy locals who gave us a load of Conch and Shrimp) Jack wakes up early in the morning and gives us a shout on the radio 'looks like today is the day to go!' We had been planning to leave Honduras for the last 3 days as a weather window was opening to allow to get around Gracias a Dios without being pummeled on the nose by 30 knot winds. For the past 3 days I had been preparing meals for the journey, which we then ate straight away as we decided that day was not the day. Now today with barly anything prepared and everyone with storming hangovers we set off towards Garcias a Dios.
Luckily the weather window really had set in and the seas were pretty calm. For the first day what little wind there was, was on the nose so we motored solidly all that day and night. We did 2 hour shifts all the way and poor Stu always has more work than me, what with doing the sails and with me feeling pretty queasy for the entire journey he also had the job of heating the food. A trip to the galley for me was a bit more than I could bear! I do all my watches though quite happily as this is the best spot on the boat for me to make me feel better! Although at night I do have trouble keeping my eves open and have to do lots of crazy exercises, if anyone were to see me they would think I was off my trolley!
Mano spent the first day and night very docilely in his little cubby hole, he perked up in the night a bit when he noticed that a lot of the flying fish were missing their intended target and ending up on the boat, it was like a fish home delivery service for him, so he wandered around gobbling up all the stray fish. At this point he was beginning to get his sea legs, then the next two nights he became very animated running up the bow trying to find more fish. This was not good as the boat was still rocking and rolling a lot and it wouldn't have taken much for him to go overboard, we really need to get him a harness so he can't go loopy, it makes it dangerous for everyone.
We made to Providencia in under 72 hours and after the first day managed to sail the rest of the way. Everything went pretty smoothly and there were no major incidents. The only almost incident that occurred was day 2 off the coast of Nicaragua. We saw a boat in the distance, so kept an eye on it, it got nearer and we could see that it was a fishing boat. Then we all got fairly scared as it came straight toward Sirena and circled them (we had heard far to many horror stories about boat boarding around this neck of the woods involving guns and stuff). They started calling on the radio and after a while we realised that what they were saying was 'would you like to buy any shrimp, Lobster or Conch off of us'. It was still pretty worrying as pirates probably wouldn't tell you in advance that they are pirates and would like to rob you please! Anyhow, I think Jack answered them and said 'no thank you' and they turned around and carried on with there business. Turns out they are just fisherman doing there job! Big sigh of relief!
So we are now in Providencia and having a lovely time. The people are so friendly. All the paperwork was sorted out no problems, every thing appears to be dealt with here by the 'Bush agency' so it is all very easy.
We were told to pop in and see the Port Captain just to say hello, usually seeing the Port Captain can be fairly stressful, hoping he is going to be a nice one and not try to do you over by charging you for things you don't need to pay for. We have had good experiences so far but nothing like this guy. He was just so super friendly he gave us a chat about the island, where are good places to go and how to get there. He told us about his wife and his dogs and his time in England where he made a really good lady friend but when he went back there again she had vanished and he never got to see her again! He also spent time sailing on Colombia's Tall Ship called Gloria, which he loves and he got the Colombian Government to bring over to Providencia so all the locals could have a tour round! Gloria is mums name so this has to be a good omen!
We have found a place to call our local 'Miss Amparo's' a really nice lady who always comes out for a chat and a laugh. We had a tour around the island on the local bus which was fun and yesterday we hires a couple of mopeds and went round the island stopping at all the lovely beaches. We still have plans to climb Morgans arse and to go and see that horse races hat they have on South West Beach every Saturday.
Happy Mothers Day Mum!
01 March - Roatan to Guanaja
Wow we finally left! We headed off on the 25th the trade winds were still fairly strong and against us so we managed a quick sail over to La Ceiba where we spent the night. We caught up with some friends and all went out to dinner in town which involved far too many beers considering we were leaving for Roatan early the next morning. Felt pretty bad the next morning but we headed off early anyway, luckily the weather had completely changed and was very calm, there was no wind so we had to motor all the way but we still made fairly good time.
We had a bit of a detour before we got there, we had the radio on and heard a distress call from some friends of ours. Their engine had broken and due to the radio being fairly crackly and a strong French accent we thought we heard her say that her husband had had a heart attack! So we changed course and headed towards them, letting them know. We arrived 2 hours latter at the coordinates they had given us to find no one there! We radioed them up again and they told us that they had got a tow into the island.
We saw them the next day the engine was running fine and no one had had a heart attack thankfully, we now think she must have said (in full French accent) "my usband as bad back" (if you say art attack and bad back quick enough in a French accent they sound the same!!) Why the engine couldn't have been fixed at sea or why they couldn't sail in is still a mystery to us along with why they never called us to tell us they had a tow. I don't think we will ever know the full story!
Anyway we spent our first night in Roatan in Coxan Hole, which other boaters have nicknamed Toxic Hole! The water was fairly dirty but the town looked quite pretty. The next day we moved over to French harbour as we felt a little uncomfortable being the only boat in Coxan hole and we had the impression that French harbour was a nice place and most of the boaters anchor there.
It was a horrible place the little harbour we were in was filthy, you couldn't see the shorelines for rubbish. The town was more like a shanty town, all the little wooden houses were falling down and the place was covered in rubbish. Its soo odd though as all the people have really fashionable clothes, their labeled tops and jeans, the latest mobile phones, the satellite dish, the kids had fancy toys and play stations but the place is a tip and all the property is disheveled. They seem to have leaped from having nothing to having nice things with a big hole in the middle. Its very strange.
After seeing the town we decided to skip Roatan whilst the weather was still in our favor and make it to the last Island down Guanaja. We made this in about 6 hours of motoring as no wind again and have anchored up at El Bight. Its nice here, its not a tourist island like the last 2 and seems a lot less populated. We have only been here 2 days and due to us finding a nice little pub off of where we are anchored and meeting a lot of nice people and drinking too much beer, we haven't done much exploring yet! That is all to come!