05/01/2012, Mangrove Bight, Guanaja, Honduras, CA
Monday, April 30. Early this morning as I was making coffee (about 7:00) I saw a couple fishermen pass close by our boat. They appeared to be looking in, but didn't see me. They stopped at Silver Sea and tied up. I could see that were doing something in their boat. Curious, I called George on the VHF and asked “What's up.” "Oh, they have some small black fin tuna that they are fileting for me. They want 50L apiece. We only want one but I don't have change so I was going to get both and hope you wanted one.” "Fantastic. I'll take it". Shortly, the fishing boat came over to Always with the nicely fileted fish in a plastic zip lock bag. I greeted them in Spanish and the man beamed, “You speak Spanish!” “Un poco.” “Como esta?” "Bien, et tu?” “Bien, bien, gracias.” His English was much better than my Spanish, so he explained in English that George had already paid for the fish. I thanked him and wished them well on today's fishing. It was a great way to start the day with such a friendly interaction (and profitable – 3 meals worth of tuna for about $2.50!) Later we ran errands. I took my two tanks in to be filled with propane. There is a small “marina” that caters to the fishing boats and they sell gasoline, diesel, and propane. They even have a floating dry dock – sort of like a king size version of those ramps you see for jet skis, it is floated on many 55 gallon drums. When we went by it was holding a 30'+ fishing boat high and dry while workers did repairs to the hull. I'd never seen anything quite like it. They filled my 10# tank, no problem, but the fancy fiberglass tank would not take more than 15#. Apparently the safety valve in these takes a special fitting to over come and he did not have the correct fitting. Oh well, 15# is better than nothing and I have a new 20# on the stove now anyway so I am sure we will have plenty. After returning the propane to the boat, we went to a different dock and tied up the dinghy to walk to the veggie store. Ginger had said, “It is a large white house on your right just a short ways up the road. Turn left at the dock and follow the road until you see it.” OK, sounds easy enough. The road was concrete (No frost heaves down here so concrete makes a very permanent road.) and mostly in the shade of large trees. Some we could identify as almond or mango, but several were new to us. There was one that had what looked like huge cat-o-nine tails on it. Very strange looking tree. As the road climbed up the hillside, the views were great. Shortly, our road joined the “main” road and we continued more or less ahead. The first house we came to was white and on our right, but there was no one in sight and a very large, mostly german shepard dog was asleep and apparently unchained on the porch. Maybe we'll try the next house. A couple houses down, we found a young child playing in his yard and asked him where the “legumbreria” was. He did not seem to understand so I asked for, “la Senora que vende legumbres.” He indicated down the road a ways where there were some workers in the road. We walked to there and found a little “tienda” - not white and on the left, but a store. It did not have veggies but we did get eggs, bread, and minutes put on our phone. And the boy in the store indicated the veggie woman was directly across the street. Indeed, a big white house set well back from the road. It appeared that it had once been a very fine house or mansion,but now seemed a bit in disrepair. A very nice English speaking woman. (Most of the original Bay Islanders are of British decent coming from either Jamaica or the Caymans. The rest are Spanish so it is about a 50/50 chance as to what language will work with whom. General rule is that the lighter the skin, the more likely to be English, but that rule is often broken.) She apologized that she had little left as the boat from La Ceiba came on Wednesday only so next Thursday she would be well stocked. She did have 31 oranges. We took them all along with her last cantaloupe and a couple avocados. I doubt we will still be here on Thursday, but the same schedule should hold for veggies anywhere on the island. Just as we were returning to the dock (Deb had to stop and pick up some horse droppings on our way back so she could fertilize her plants on board!), George & Pixie were arriving. They had moved Silver Sea onto a mooring that Clearwater Paradise had just installed and wanted “tested.” We explained that we had wiped out the veggie lady, but that there was what was supposed to be a good store a bit further down the shore. We took our dinghies there. It was a surprisingly nice grocery for such a small town. Pixie was in heaven as she found both tomatoes and broccoli. Deb found corn tortillas to fry up for nachos and I found some grapefruit. The grapefruit I had found in Bonacca were great, much better than in Panama where they don't seem to be able to grow them, so I have high hopes for these. All in all a much better morning of provisioning than one would expect in a tiny town like this. After lunch, I added two more hoses to the hookah and the four of us went out to dive at Clearwater Paradise's site. We tied off the dinghies, got the hookah going, adjust George & Pixie's weights (no one believes how much weight it takes to counteract the air filled hoses), and dropped to ~15'. There was a small patch reef there that was quite nice with lots of fish. Now supposedly there was an arm of reef that extended all the way out to the main barrier reef, but where did it begin? We couldn't see it. Although geologically the reef along the North side of the Bay Islands is an extension of Belize's barrier reef, it does not continuously break like Belize's, especially in these calm conditions. That makes it much harder to identify,especially from water level. We swam around for a bit over boring grass at ~20' and then suddenly saw a wall in front of us. It went up ~18' and down 30-40'. Impressive. It was almost like two separate dives. The top 10-15' was very healthy coral, both hard and soft with tons of reef fish. The lower depths were mostly dead coral with pelagic fish. The “architecture” of the deep reef was fascinating. The bottom of the canyon was white sand and fairly narrow – 10-20', 5' in places. The edges were nearly vertical and mostly dead but with very healthy outcroppings of coral scattered along the wall. Very interesting. We saw several large groupers of various varieties, a large snapper, another large fish I have yet to identify, and a huge eagle ray. His wing span must have been 6' or more. They are so beautiful gliding through the water so effortlessly. We all agreed it was a great dive and we should return tomorrow and try to get to the outer reef and maybe cross the top and check out the other side. We returned to our respective boats and had a delicious dinner of fresh seared tuna. What a great day!
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04/29/2012, Mangrove Bight, Guanaja, Honduras, CA
Sunday, April 29. Day 45 Sailing. The day dawned clear and bright with a light (8-10 kts) Easterly breeze. By 9:30 we had weighed anchor and then motor sailed through the deep but narrow channel that leads out of Savannah Bight into the Caribbean. We followed the 10 fathom line that took us several miles off shore, but the guide book recommended this due to stray coral heads. The first half hour was a motor sail to East, the next half hour was a broad reach North under full sail at 5-6 kts., and the final hour or so was a Westerly downwind spinnaker run at 3-5 kts. The seas were gentle and it was a wonderful sail. As we were nearing Mangrove Bight, George of Clearwater Paradise Resort hailed us on the radio to welcome us and say how nice the spinnaker looked. Finally we had to douse the spinnaker and motor in through the cut. The cut is deep but narrow and curves as it goes in. We had good waypoints from George of Silver Sea, but had over-run the first one taking down the spinnaker. Rather than risk an entry from where we were, I steered a course back to the entry waypoint. Apparently that looked from shore like we were headed for trouble (it did take us directly toward the reef before we turned 90* to starboard to enter the cut), so George of Clearwater came out in his dive boat to guide us in. It was not really necessary, but certainly was a nice gesture. After we got anchored, he came over and introduced himself and invited us up to see the resort. After lunch, I went ashore with George & Pixie to see the resort. George & Ginger have only been on Guanaja four years, but what they have accomplished in that time is amazing. The resort has several guest rooms as well as a bar/restaurant. All are very nicely appointed. The grounds are spectacular. We had a couple beers and chatted with Ginger for an hour or so. She told us of a couple good snorkeling/diving sites and offered that we could use their mooring ball to tie off our dinghy at one the dive sites. Before we left, she insisted on giving us several eggplants and both hot and sweet peppers from her garden. She and George also told us where to buy veggies in town and where we can get gas, diesel, and propane. Not bad for a tiny little town. I grilles the eggplant with our chicken for dinner and they were great. Right at the end of grilling, the propane tank went dry. I had changed out the stove propane a couple days ago. Guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.
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04/29/2012, NE Cay, Guanaja, Honduras, CA
Saturday, April 28. The day dawned beautifully – puffy white clouds in a deep blue sky – the perfect day for hookahing. So that is what we did. In the morning we checked out the patch reef between us and the barrier reef (which was too shallow on the inside to be accessible). The bottom was ~15' of sand and the coral rose to nearly breaking – too shallow to swim over the top. But it was breath-taking. Very healthy hard coral, lots of brain coral, some elkhorn and staghorn, but tons of soft coral. I now realize that is what had been missing before, no soft coral. The gently undulating fans and branch coral make it so much more alive. And there were lots of fish as well. The large grouper that I had seen yesterday, stayed well away, but there was a whole school of snapper, mostly yellow tail. Towards the end of our dive, I singled out one and shoot at it but missed. I didn't get a second chance as they all scattered to deep water. It turns out there was far more coral than I had seen yesterday snorkeling. We found several additional large patches, just as beautiful and a bit deeper so we could swim over at least part of the tops. Fantastic. I couldn't wait to do the cut after lunch. Cuts through a barrier reef are usually spectacularly alive and beautiful. The narrow opening funnels water and nutrients through resulting in exuberant growth along the sides of the cut. Or at least that is the way it is supposed to work. This cut was boring. We beached dinghy and tied him off and then did a beach entry as the cut begins only a few dozen yards from shore. It dropped quickly to 30-40' with a nice sandy bottom so everything stood out nicely. But the wall was nearly all dead! I know Mitch devastated this area, but that was 14 years ago and I would have expected some regrowth by now. I wonder what the problem is? This is truly the first cut I have seen that was not a real treat. Anyway, we made it out to open water and the surge was tugging at the hookah so we turned and went back. We took the “high road” back and it was much nicer. In 5-6' of water there was a veritable sea of fans, all waving in the surge. Mostly purple, but some green, red, black too. It saved the dive. Deb was still up for more so we went back in front of the boat and found some more patch reefs that we had not seen that morning. They were just as beautiful and let us end the day's diving on a really positive note. Back at the boat we learned that Dave had mailed Deb's meds so we will need to be prepared to pick them up in Roatan in about a week – THANKS DAVE! We really could not be doing all this without his help back in the states. Deb called Curry whom we had missed earlier and we had a delightful evening on our boat, at anchor, in a fantastic anchorage, all to ourselves.
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04/27/2012, NE Cay, Guanaja, Honduras, CA
Friday, April 27. For the first time since we left Bocas, we are actually alone. This morning we moved about 1.5 nm to an anchorage by NE Cay. Silver Sea decided to go around to the North side of the island to Mangrove Bight and Albatross stayed put. Salida is in Roatan but thinking about coming back. It has been fun being with other boats, meeting old friends, making new ones, but it is also nice to be just us. That is what cruising has always meant to us – just the two of us somewhere in paradise. This trip has been very different. We have been more social than ever before. We have had a lot of fun and done lots of things we might have missed, but it is nice to be alone again. We motored across glassy water and anchored in the lee of the reef by NE Cay. To our port we have the big island of Guanaja running more or less E-W. In front of us is a breaking reef that calms the sea but doesn't detract from the nice Caribbean breeze. To port we have the little island of NE Cay, behind us Savannah Bight. We took dink over to the little island and walked all the way around it. Deb found lots of shells and such. I found a perfect heart of coral. (We have been finding hearts for each other on beaches for years.) After lunch, Deb had a nap while I read in the hammock and then went snorkeling. I just went to a little patch reef in front of the boat, but it turned out to be great. The bottom was 12-15' deep over sand and the coral patch rose straight up to within inches of the surface. There was a lot of soft coral too – beautiful fans and sponges, something I had missed elsewhere. And lots of fish including one large grouper who would have been dinner if I had had my spear gun with me. Maybe we will go back there tomorrow with the hookah and a spear gun. I also want to take the hookah out to the cut that leads between NE Cay and the reef that includes Graham's Cay. It is quite narrow, but 50-60' deep. It seems that cuts like that always have great coral and fish due to all the nutrients that course through the cut. We'll find out tomorrow.
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New album - Dolphin. Just a few of the 200+ pics I took of a very friendly dolphin plus a couple more in the Bay Islands folder.
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