From La Ceiba we took the Tropical Wave ferry to get to Roatan on a 1 1/4hrs ride. Together with the ticket we got a pill for motion sickness. Chrisy must have had this look on her face... Luckily the sea was pretty calm and we did no have any problems.
We had a good view on the mainland and realized how mountainous Honduras actually was. At our arrival a bunch of taxi drivers were waiting to rip us off. The official rate was supposed to be a couple of dollars and not US$20 as they claimed to be. When I started walking away one of the drivers dropped his price drastically, but I am very certain, that he still ripped us off. A 20min ride brought us to West End, a small town known for diving and many bars and restaurants. As our old couch surfing friend Joshua worked at Native Son diving shop, we went there. He was on a dive when we arrived and we checked into Chillies, which belongs to the shop. It had a wonderful garden with colorful plants and many trees. There are little wooden cottages for rent, all in a very good condition and with a lot of charm. My daily breakfast where small mangos which fell from the trees. So small fruits and so delicious...
Joshua did not feel to good this day and we made an appointment for the morning for diving and sent him to rest. We in the meantime went to enjoy the sand and a romantic sunset with frozen margarita and daiquiri. Not too bad though. Our room was comfortable and we slept very good.
Our first dive after 4 1/2 years was together with Morris, who spent the last 4 weeks here diving and this was his last dive. He choose a location called Blue Channel which was located just in view of the shore close by.
Morris and Joshua didn't promise too much when they were saying that this dive side was mind-blowing... It was not too deep with 19m and the walls at the beginning were full of coralls and fish. When we started to dive into dive throuths and little canyons it started to be very special. Thousands and thousands of silverside fish filled every centimeter. Everything was silver and it was almost impossible to see the walls as they only would move out of the way in the very last moment. We dived threw caves and more canyons. It was absolutely amazing. I haven't seen anything like this before. When I looked up towards the surface it almost seemed I could see the bones of the small fish. There were so many that I even lost Joshua for a moment as he was 1 1/2m away from me and the fish took my visibility. We found eachother again and after over an hour we were back at the boat. Wow, what a diving experience...
In the afternoon we went to another dive site with Ricardo. Another beautiful dive with fantastic weather the entire day.
The evening we went and ate Lionfish at Joshua's place. They hunt them on the island as it is an intruder into the environment and a big thread to tho local fish, as they dodn't have any enemies and over populated in the last 2-3 years. So it was a "green" meal, as we supported the environment.
Next morning it was raining and it was colder outside then in the water. First we brought our laundy next door to Jimmy who would finish it by 4pm today. To get wam we quickly went diving at 9am. This time we dived down a wall to 35m and Joshua killed some Lionfish on the way.
When the lid of the bucked with a couple of dead lion fish opened and 3 big fish floated out, he felt a little under pressure. Not only he wanted to avoid to get stung by the very painful spikes of the fish, but also he didn't want to loose his hard earned fish to predators just waiting to eat a dead fish. He was able to catch 2 of the fish and put them back into the bucket and push a big fish away which tried to catch the floating food... Just when he wanted to catch the last one, a big snapper snapped it away in front of his eyes. These one was very big and he couldn't believe what he just had to witness. I hoped he would not start crying...
He Managed to bring 4 nice exemples back to the surface. The rain made the ride back to land very cold and we had first a cup of tea before we went for our last dive. This was full of nice little canyons and many different corals we enjoyed it very much. Time flies by and this 55min were over too fast as well.
With 8 lion fish in the bucket we went back and the young captain started cleaning them and made sure to cut all the spikes off with a pair of
scissors. I made filets out of them afterwards and went to by some fruit from a car standing at the corner. When i wanted to pick up the laundry, Jimmy informed me that it was not ready and that I could pick it up at 5pm the next day. I didn't think this time was very convenient, as I had to catch a ferriy at 7am. He promised to do his best and asked me to come back at 5am, then it would be dryer... Great!
I cooked some kind of chutney ot of the mangos and the hogs plums I found in the garden. I also cooked a stock out of the bones and some vegetables. We first had some vegetable and fish stew, then lion fish marinated in ginger, lime and tomatoes and for a finale the fish with the chutney. It definely was very interesting and delicious. We had a fun evening and at the end of the night we walked back down the road with nice fresh mud high up to our ankles.
I went over to Jimmy's house and called for him. Shortly after all dogs in the neiborhood starting to tell me that it was very early in the day... As I didn't already know.
Our laundry was in his garage and a fan worked hard to get the cloths dry. With not that much affect. Everything was damp and now also smelled of petrol! Fantastic! So we took some bags and stuffed everything inside, as I told him I could live without folded wet clothes after he started the attempt to fold them up for us.
So we packed our wet clothes into the backpacks and our driver which fought with another one yesterday to drive us (then for only half of what he asked at the beginning) was waiting for us on the street. Now we are on the ferry back to the mainland and then to a bus to come to the capital with the name nobody is able to remember.
There we will have a night before taking a bus tomorrow to Nicaragua.
For pictures click here
Roatan Island
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