Week of Feb15 Providencia, Colombia
Providencia is the smaller, low-key sister to San Andres. Beautiful mountainous island, with very friendly people.

Providencia and SanAndres have a true pirate history. Blackbeard's Cave on SanAndres is a big attraction, and his descendents are still searching for where he hid his biggest treasure. Henry Morgan used these islands as a base to plunder passing Spanish treaure ships, taking the gold stolen from the Mayans. Morgan was a Welsh Admiral and "privateer", which means a pirate operating as a sort of "black ops group" for England.

These islands are a blend of pirates, Caribe tribes, slaves brought from Jamaica (hence the strong rasta influences), freed African slaves and Spanish colonists. The islands display and honor their pirate roots in many ways. These islands off Nicaragua were part of Spain until after the Spanish-American war of Independence, when they were awarded to far away Colombia in 1821.

We did a hike to the top of the tallest mountain on Providencia with a sailor friend- spectacular view. Rented motor scooters with friends and circumnavigated the island. As usual, I like to explore every little side trail off the road. We went down one dirt side road to a beach where there was Roland's Bar. Roland is a Rastafarian, and the weed smoke was all around. For 27 years, Roland has been clearing and developing this patch of beach and jungle to create the reggae-paradise it is now. The rasta ambience was a lot of fun, the music was great, and the people were all so friendly.
All of the yachties have been downloading weather data and watching for the next weather window to depart- some going N, some S. Tomorrow is the day.
A number of the yachties gathered for dinner at a small restaurant, organized by the Bernard Bush, the agent who helped most of us get our customs and immigration clearances in and out of the island. The restaurant was unprepared for so many, and they only had beer. So we and our friends went to buy bottles of wine at a local market, and brought it back to drink. We drank our wine, and still were not able to order our food, so we left and found a great hole in the wall restaurant with great home cooking. The waitress was a lot of fun.....

Sat 20100220
Set sail from Providencia, Colombia for Roatan, Honduras. This takes us through the shoals of Nicaragua, notorious for pirate attacks. Sometime these are just poor fishermen far offshore, who see an opp to make a year's wage in what they can take from a yacht. But last year a 25 foot motor skiff with 4 men in paramilitary garb board a boat with shotguns and rifles, tied up the yachtistas, and cleaned out their boat. So we watch the radar all night long, looking at all radar targets, and tracking their course and speed, to see if they are approaching us. We see several targets, but none take an interest in us, and we pass.
Sailing north from Providencia was 15-20 knots of wind on the beam, and aVida screams.
5 other boats, 4 monhulss and 1 production cat, departed at 7am. We departed after 1PM. By 9-10PM, we see their radar targets a few miles all around us, and we scream past them, onward into the Nicaraguan night. We are doing 8-13 knots, they are doing about 6 knots, limited by hull speed.
Sunday AM we turn the corner near Cayo Vivarillo, and head West toward Roatan. Winds are soft, and we motor sail for a while to keep up boat speed. We are trying to make this 400 mile voyage in 2 nights only, and we don't want to arrive to early or too late (in the night), so we are pacing our speed and ETA.
Sunday evening the winds start to build to 15knots, then 20, 25, then by 3am they are 30+ knots sustained winds. With no mainsail, and the genoa double reefed, we are sailing at 8-15 knots boat speeed. Winds and waves are on the aft quarter, and the sailing is surprisingly comfortable and easy.
Rita and I are doing 2 hours shifts through both nights, and when we are off watch, by the time we fall asleep, and we don't sleep soundly, it is time to wake up. We are exhausted.

Mon 20100222
As dawn approaches, we are passing Guanaja, the island we first intended to go to. But our electronic charts for Guanaja are coarse at best, and we have no local knowledge to enter the anchorage, especially in a blow. So we bypass Guanaja and head further for Roatan. We can still make it by noon. Our Canadian friends on Obsession far behind us by now are expecting to find us in Guanaja when they arrive- but this is the best sailing decision for us. We email them to let them know our change of plans, and hope they don't call out search parties for us when they don't find us there.

We arrive in Roatan by noon- less than 24 hours of sailing.
Our customs agent when we arrive looks at our departure date and questions how we got here so fast. "good winds".
What they say about drunken sailors is so true. Once we got the anchor down and set, we headed for "Fantasy Island" dive resort adjacent to our anchorage.
As we walked into the resort, we were greeted by giant tail-less rodents as big as a small dog everywhere, collecting their palm seeds and small pipa coconuts and burying them in the sand. Very timid animals.
Then there were dozens of giant iguanas, probably 3 feet long head to tail. These were orange colored, with dark black strips. Very photogenic.
Then the palm leaves above us suddenly swayed and rustled, and a number of spider monkeys started accosting us. We had some nuts, and they came down and took them from our hands. Rita held her hand out toward a monkey, and we held a nut above her head- the monkey climbed down her arm and sat on her head, to get the nut. It was quite happy to sit there for a while for a photo or 2. We played with the monkeys some more, then moved on.
We got through the wildlife, and sat in the outside bar. Met a guy named Hank from Illinois, and talked a long while. He was on an "unlimited" plan, and proceeded to bring us drink after drink.
Then a giant peacock strutted up into the middle of the bar area, and was eating peanuts out of our hands. Unreal. No wonder they call it Fantasy Island.
They played great salsa and reggae music in the bar, and then a couple of rastafaris came out start started dancing to get the tourists involved. Of course, Rita and I are the only ones who danced, and we might have made quite a scene, but we don't care, and it was very fun.
We had the diver's buffet dinner and some wine, and a bit intoxicated motored back to aVida. As we approached, the neighbor boat tells us that we are too close, because they are on a mooring, we are on an anchor. They are totally right. I didn't notice their mooring ball when we came in. So, with a bit too much vino in us, we start up the electronics (for depth and nav data), and both engines, and pull up the anchor, and start motoring around the anchorage among many other boats on one side and the reefs on every other side, to find a new spot. Somehow we do this, and in a 28 feet hole in the water among the shallows, we drop the hook, it seems to set well enough, and we go to sleep.

Tues 20100223
Slept in. duh. Took the dinghy to explore the long channels behind the reefs of French Harbor. Went into town a bit and checked out the grocery and other stores for provisioning to come. Had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the bay- not the best local experience. As we get farther into the Caribbean, the workers here are starting to get the resentful carib attitude we see so many places, but did Not see in Columbia, Panama, Galapagos, Chile, etc.
Back to Fantasy Island resort, for a swim in the bay, and a nap on the beach. We considered venturing into town to find dinner, but it was far more comfortable to have the buffet dinner and vino (of course) at Fantasy Island, and go back to the boat earlier.

Wed 20100224
Spent the first half of the day flying in a small open cockpit seaplane. Took off within 200 feet of aVida, took some great pics. Flew SE down the south side of Roatan, and got a visual tour of the towns and ports, and landed at the west end of the island. The pilot Neil had a booking to take some tourists up for a 45 minute flight, so we explore "West End". Then we took off again, and flew NW up the north side of the island the full 30 miles to the NE corner of the island, out to a pair of small Cays, and landed at Pigeon Cay, motoring right up onto the beach, and put out an anchor. We set up an umbrella, had a picnic, and went snorkeling among the reefs S of the Cay- nice. Took off again, and flew SE again back to Fantasy Island, where we are anchored. There is a weather front coming in from the NE, and the winds coming over the mountains of Roatan created some "mechanical turbulence" creating a roller coaster ride. We buzzed the Fantasy Island anchorage and aVida several times, to get photos, and then landed within 100 feet of aVida. What a great way to spend a day.

We took the dingy back to aVida, and could see that once again the spade anchor was not holding in the grassy bottom, and aVida had dragged back from 28 feet of water, to 4 foot shoals. Just in time. We motored forward to reset the anchor, and it would not set solid. So we once again put out the Fortess anchor, that seems flawless in grassy bottoms, in tandem with the main space anchor. The weather Grib data we downloaded predicts 30+ knots of winds from the NW, and we don't want to have a sleepless night. Anchors seem to be holding well again.

So we went to the Fantasy Island resort (again) for some internet work in the outside bar area. The damn spider monkeys got hold of a bottle of suntan lotion, and climbed into the palm tree above our heads. 5 monkeys were biting the bottle to let the fluid out, and were competing to rub the oil all over their heads and bodies. We were all amazed at how they know to do this- it must truly be "monkey see, monkey do". For 20 minutes, they dribbled oil all over our table and computers and papers while we were working Many other people were crowding around laughing at the whole scene, and so were we. Then the monkeys moved over another table, and started leaving another kind of droppings. Not so funny- those people moved real fast.
Back to aVida for dinner and a movie on the boat. The 30 knot winds are coming in tonight around midnight, and we want to be on board and prepared for whatever.
The winds build from 20s to 30s to 40s. We watch the wind and the anchor until 11pm, then go to sleep. Other sailors tell us in the morning that the wind peaked over 50 knots. Quite a blow.

We found an excellent experience at Barefoot Cay, a luxury marina. We started with a deep tissue and relaxation massage, followed by dinner in their restaurant. This was probably the nicest fine dining experience we have had since last October.

We intended to spend our last day in Roatan doing 3 dives, but the weather front that came in made diving impossible. So our our last day in Roatan was spent doing internet and prepping the boat for the voyage to come. We verified weather data, and departed at 9am the following day for Livingston, Guatemala, and the RioDulce gorge, on the tail of the passing weather.