Thursday, May 10. Today we moved from French Cay Harbor to West End. There has been some controversy about West End. For several years there were many moorings put there by the Marine Park to avoid damage to the turtle grass from anchoring. Anchoring was not outlawed, but discouraged and the moorings were free so cruisers mostly used them. This year, the mayor decided he didn't want cruisers on the moorings and so told them all to leave and removed the balls from the moorings. Rumors as to WHY he did this abound and range from wanting to drive cruisers in to marinas (his daughter owns one) to something about cruise ships that really makes no sense to me as the cruise ships could never get in to West End – the “cut” through the reef only carries 10'. In any event, his actions caused an uproar. Several cruisers went to the port captain and he said the mayor had no authority over the moorings – that was HIS authority and he said the cruisers could use them. So they did. And the mayor had the police come out to their boats and tell them to leave. Not wanting to argue the finer points of marine law with heavily armed police, the cruisers left. And then a few returned and seemed to get by OK, no hassles. That was the situation when we arrived in Roatan. As we were debating going to West End or skipping it (and all its great diving) and going straight to Utila, we contacted a friend on Fineline who had been at West End with no troubles, went to Utila and recently returned to West End. He said, “No, problem.” Most of the moorings have been identified with soda bottles for floats and no one is getting hassled. Great. But on this morning's net someone said that the Port Captain has just been recalled to the capital and the mayor is back in charge and “the next thing you know they may be impounding boats.” (The final quote, it turns out, was not based on anything but the speaker's paranoia.) We were ready to weigh anchor when we heard this and stopped to reconsider. The Suzie from Cabaret, an old friend from Bocas came up on the VHF. She new a gringo who was living in West End, knew all the locals and could give us the straight story. She called him and reported back, “No problems. Todo tranquillo.” So we weighed anchor and left. The winds were light, 5-10, but we were determined to sail with spinnakers (Salida came with us.) I wanted to try the spinnaker with the main as Craig insisted it was faster, so I raised the main first and then fell off and popped the chute. As we trimmed the spinnaker and steered to our course, we found we were nearly 90* apparent – not nearly as deep down wind as we expected. The spinnaker was not real happy at that angle, but there was a very large shoal (called “Breakers) 4 nm away that we needed to avoid before we could turn more down wind. As always happens here, the wind gradually shifter N throughout the day, making it deeper down wind. Spinny was happier. I was happier. But the wind also dropped – both the real wind actually dropped and the apparent dropped even more as the deeper down wind we went, the more of our speed was subtracted from the real wind. Now the main wasn't happy. As each wave (they were only 3') rocked the boat, the main would flop, spill, and upset Spinny. Finally I ditched the main. We were only making 3 kts at the time and dropping the main made Spinny much happier and did not effect our speed at all. Craig was having similar problems keeping his spinnaker filled. Finally he gave up and dropped the spinnaker. He sailed for a while with just the main and then called to say he was “firing up the iron gennie and heading for the barn.” I told mi that i was going to persever a bit longer and that he could check the waypoints through the reef for me. As the wind shifted further North, it also filled back in a bit. We were up to 4 kts sailing by the lee. Then it was too far North to do that any more, so I gybed - pulled down the sock, unhooked the sheet block, walked it around the forestay and back to the other side, and raised the sock again. Spinny was once again happy. I was happy. The wind continued to fill and our speed climbed to 5 kts, still nearly dead down wind. When we reached the SW tip of the isalnd, our course called for a 110* turn to North. I eased us around gradually trimming Spinny as we went. We got up to 90* apparent again with a speed of 6.4 kts, but our course was only NW and although we were going mor than 6 kts, our VMG to the waypoint was only 1.2 kts. We enjoyed the fast sail for a while and then doused Spinny in his sock and motored in through the reef. Salida was already on a mooring (though had actually just arrived only a short time before us despite motoring) and confirmed that the waypoints were good and that we came between two sticks on the reef ends – about 75' between them and 10' of water. It actually was no problem and as we came up along side Salida, Craig jumped in the water and handed Deb the painter of the mooring next to them as it had no float. It was attached to a HUGE engine block (Dave, it made your old Perkins look small.) and the lines and shackles all looked good. It even had a piece of fire hose for a chafe guard. We rigged our lines and settled in comfortably. I dove the line just to see for myself and then we relaxed and enjoyed the surroundings. West End is a beautiful bay totally enclosed within the reef. Here again, unlike Belize, the reef doesn't break so the water is flat. The only indication of the reef is the color change, AND the dozen or so dive balls strategically placed along both sides. Depending on the weather (it is supposed to blow for the next couple days) we are going to have some great fun with the hookah here.