New Pictures Updated

Check out the new pictures I have added to "Photos of our Adventure"

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Anchored In Roatan A Vacation From Cruising

We have been in Roatan for over 2 months now. Most of the time on a mooring in West End. West End is dive central. There are 30 dive sites just a short dingy ride away. I have been lucky enough to dive all the sites around us. Lucky meaning I have a dive partner group consisting of John and Kathy on Mystic Moon and Tim and Paula on Hooligan. Life doesn't get much better. The people here are extremely friendly and helpful. We have made friends with West End Diver who have been great. West End has a variety of restaurants and bars that make life fun. Helen has been in the states for a month helping our daughter get settled in Oregon and I have just been diving. It has been hard to update our Blog when your life consists of waking up, having breakfast, deciding where to dive, eating lunch, exploring the West End, and doing a few boat chores when it doesn't get in the way of Happy Hour. The hardest decision we make in a day is what to thaw for dinner and where to dive. The weather has been consistently in the mid eighties and seventies at night. Up until two weeks ago we had a cold front come down from the states about once a week. This meant stronger winds out of the North to West. Sometime we would move for a day or two and sometimes we would just sit tight. We have had one noteworthy storm of 50+ knots where we broke the blades on our wind generator, and lost the sunshade on our Jib. Other than that it has just been strong trade winds of 15 to 20 most of the time.

Diving has been great. We usually dive the reef wall protecting this end of the island. Our dives always involve depths of 70 to 80 ft and the marine life is incredible. We were very lucky to see a Hammerhead shark, very rare for this part of the world. Morays, giant crabs, Hugh grouper, are just a few of the common sittings. Today we dove a wreck on the north end and saw 3 green morays, 2 turtles, many large grouper, a 5ft or longer flat purple flat worm, lobster, and the biggest crab we have seen so far. Doesn't get much better that this.

Life is good I am waiting for Helen's return to explore more of the island. We will be heading back to Bocas Del Toro in May to store the boat for the summer so we can be with Kelsey when she has her baby. Our first grand child!!!!

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Roatan The Land of Clear water and many adventures

Honduras, the land of water and adventure

We arrived in Roatan, Honduras on February 3. Our first stop was Guanaja which is a small rock island, population 6,000 and a strong Seven Day Adventist following. The houses are built up on stilts, the paths between are 4 feet wide, and the largest industry is the fish processing plant which became our best friend. Following the cultural norms all businesses close from 12 to 2 or 2:30 for lunch which gave us time to stop and sip the beers. We walked to the back door of the processing plant and bought lobster meat for $4.00 a pound and cleaned conch for $2.50 a pound. Life was good. We anchored off and met friends from Canada, Idyll Island, Cathy and Derek, Mystic Moon with Kathy and John, and Hooligan's crew of Paula, Tim and Nigel. Since they all dive and have equipment Dave broke loose from the depths of our storage his gear and started diving again. His first day he dove three awesome sites, walls and lava tubes surrounding him, fish and coral life within touch, and left the water with the most amazing grin on his face for hours. Our group went exploring and we dinghy drove to Graham's Key where a fishing resort owner welcomed us to walk his island, observe his fish pens which held turtles and a 300 pound grouper, see his bone fishing grounds, interact with his wildlife, and drink cold beer under the shade of his palapas restaurant. The snorkeling out on his reef was so cool-the coral variety, sea fans, and schools of small fish abound here.

After spending a week in Guanaja, we moved to Roatan and French Harbour. There we reconnected with reality by shopping in stores, buying a modem for internet connection, and walking on paved roads. We then dropped anchor in an area near Fantasy Island Resort where the gang refilled their dive tanks daily and did some more diving. Feeling the need to see what was around the corner we moved to West End and discovered diver's paradise. With over 20 sites within 10 minutes of our anchorage the serious diving began. On shore there are 4-5 places to get refills, island food restaurants, grocery stores for the basics-fruit juice, mixer, bread, and booze, vegetable trucks, a laundry, and 6 beers on ice for $8.00. Walking the unpaved road, and seeing the local shops brought to mind what Lahaina, Hawaii must of looked like before it became "found".

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Providencia to Tha Bay Islands

The passage to Roatan has been more comfortable than recent trips, and for that we are grateful. The previous seas were square, confused, and turbulent. Many waves plowed over the dodger and dumped running water through the cockpit, which translated into many bruises and falling objects (mainly Helen). This trip however we were able to make water, hang laundry, fish to no avail, and sun bathe on the foredeck. In the first 24 hours we cover 181 miles of sea without motor power-which is a new speed record for us. On day two the winds died down to the low teens and we meandered along at 5 to 6 knots through the day and night. We sailed using the spinnaker pole to push our jib out and gain a bit more speed.
Currently we have the moon light to guide us, stars popping out from behind clouds that are moving with a cold front, and calm swells that allow the boat to sway in a fairly smooth left to right pattern. The need for long pants and a jacket made us scramble through stored clothes. We may need more of them when this cold front finally arrives in full force this weekend-the thought of needing to put on shoes to keep warm makes us grab for the coffee liqueur bottle and check its level for future reference.
Our first stop in Honduras will be Guanaja, famous for "No See-Ums", an easy, cheap, and painless check in, and a cruiser hang out called Manatee Bar and Restaurant where cruisers from around the area come together to swap books, and feed each others need for new conversationalists and entertaining stories of passages and places.

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Providencia, Columbia

OK we thought today was Saturday, and kept thinking tomorrow was Sunday, and we honestly have no idea or need for the numerical date. So we check the computer for affirmation. Nope, we created an extra day this week by now realizing tomorrow is the real Saturday. Hey though in our defense, we always knew this was still January and not yet February!
Today we walked out to the fort and cannons, around Morgan's Head on Santa Catalina, and up and down the edge of the small island. Saturday, we will be renting scooters, touring Providencia island, and going out for lunch at a roadside restaurant with a couple on a one year hiatus from Massachusetts (she is a meteorologist professor from Rutledge University who is an expert on arctic climate research and global warming impact studies) and their two barely teenager kids...fun, fun, fun. Sunday we will snorkel, swim, dinghy around the bay and look for Captain Morgan's famous treasure cave. Out there is a great reef with hundreds of fish--this is a preserve site so the fish are abundant.
Next Thursday or Friday the weather will allow us to go to Honduras and meet our other friends. In Honduras the diving is suppose to be clear 100 feet deep, warm, and some of the best in the world. We think we will be there for all of February through April. Utila is one of the islands, has a night life, and is a preferred spot for young people looking to dive. Roatan has Fantasy Island and great snorkeling; French Harbor is a must see spot as well. In mid to late April, we will be taking the boat out of the water for a survey before heading back to Panama in early May. Early May we will go to Bocas Del Toro, the European hippy hangout, put the boat up, and then head for Texas and Arizona. However, we are cruisers who have trouble keeping track of the day as well as the week so we may actually do something totally different than our current plans that are obviously written in shifting sand. Life is good and we are still having fun in the sun.

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Northbound to Roatan

It is midnight and we are trekking at 6-7 knots over 3-8 foot rolling seas. Earlier the seas were 7-14 feet and that gave us quite a crack the whip/toss and drop ride for about 10 hours. Since the moon has set, the stars are our only companion out here 150 miles off the shores of Costa Rica. With no interference from other lights, the stars are bright and clear. Orion's Belt is prominent in the sky as is many planets and satellites. It is still warm enough to be in shorts and barefooted and my watch has started. Our AIS, ship identification program, shows no traffic, our maps show depths of 3-4 thousands of feet, and we have seen only one other large ship out here since leaving San Blas this morning. There was a suspicious "other boat," not lit, and traveling in the shadow of the large boat earlier that we noticed. All is good.
P.S. Another companion turned up-phosphorous looking like fireflies, as densely packed and bright as the Milky Way. They dot the surface of the waves that break upon our hull. Like tiny dancing fairies, they shimmer and disappear from sight as we sail north through the moonless night.

San Blas Islands, last visit for this year…
We waved goodbye to the San Blas Islands on January 18th and must say they should be counted as one of the Wonders of the World. These island number in the hundreds, and the Indians that live out there are gentle, soft spoken, and mild mannered in most cases. They show entrepreneurial skills and a strong work ethic. We spent one week off an island and watched a house being raised in the tradition of barn building in the states. For two or three days the man of the hut worked hard chopping and cutting wood each afternoon. A launched arrived one morning with a work crew of men who hopped out and began to raise timbers for a roof, laced rope into a lattice on the roof braces, and then wove palm fronds into a roof. At the end of the day the building was half done. Every week, every anchorage had a launch make the trip to bring fresh vegetables, eggs, meat, fish, beer, and of course the hand made molas that these islands are famous for creating.
The anchorages are getting crowded now with people from the Arc Rally and from all over Europe who are getting ready to cross over into the Pacific and head further west. Most of the anchorages that had seen 3-5 boats are now 15-30 boat crowded. The flags are mostly Italian, French, and German, but other European countries are in there as well.

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Leaving Linton for the second time

Leaving Isla Linton

After three weeks anchored behind Isla Linton we are ready to leave. I got my rebuilt autopilot back a few days ago and everything is working great again. We have had a great time here seemingly busy doing something everyday. Thanks to Owen and Betty on Hiatus, we were able to make several trips into Colon without have to take the two and one half hour bus ride. We did take the bus a couple of times and it makes a long day. These really are the only mode of transportation for most Panamanians and the buses will haul anything. The last bus we rode had a full size mattress in the back with everyone's groceries piled in the last three seats. We are glad to be back to depending on the boat instead of the local busses.
We had a great New Years on our boat with a couple of other boats, Nim Tai, Hiatus, And Renegade came over for pizza and New Year's. We actually found ourselves awake and still partying at midnight. That was a first for us in a long time. We also enjoyed a few great meals at the local cruisers restaurant and the French Restaurant in the next bay. At the local restaurant you bring your dingy right up to the break water, stern tie off on a buoy, and nose tie to a line. From there you can either grab a swing tire or rope then pull yourself out of your dingy about 5 ft from where you sit to eat. They serve Great Columbian food. Hans, the owner is from Holland, and his wife, the cook, is from Columbia, his 18yr old daughter is studying Law in Cartagena, and his math whiz 11 yr old son helps with the bills and serving meals. It is a real family enterprise.
Our plan was to leave for Providencia, Columbia on Sunday with a very short weather window. Sunday we woke up and decided instead to go to San Blas and make sure the autopilot work first. The weather window was only two 1/2 days long with a very cold, cold front moving in behind it. Temperatures in the LOW 70's, winds to 30 knots, and a lots of rain didn't really sound like fun. So here we are, back in the San Blas Islands where it is 82 to 90 every day with snorkeling and 40ft visibility just waiting to be enjoyed. Providencia can wait.
Our trip down from Linton was great. We had steady 15 knots of wind with a little lumpy 5 to 7 ft seas. It actually was the calmest we have seen so far. We had a great 9 hr sail only using the engine to leave and enter the anchorage. That is why we own sailboats! We used less than a gallon of gas!

Later we will describe our La La life in Kuna Yala…

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