We have been having quite an amazing time in Guanaja.

We had a lovely trip over and used good waypoints for an easy access through the reef and past the huge (unoccupied) hotel that sprawls all over Dunbar Rock to the large protected anchorage at El Bight. Boats come and go but there are usually about a dozen here – from Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Canada – and a couple of long term unflagged ones that we think are American.

We had the anchor down for only about half an hour when Ken and Karin (mv Bagan) came by to say hello. They are from Vancouver, and know the neighbourhood where we lived in the 90’s (Karin taught in Lynn Valley), Ken was born in NS and lived for a while in the Wedgewood area of Halifax where we lived back in the 80’s. And even more than that, their son’s favourite professor at Mount Allison was … wait for it … Jim’s brother in law, David Beatty. Can you believe such connections way down here in Guanaja? We enjoyed a most wonderful evening with them at Manati, the German restaurant we heard so much about from Steve and Sandi (Yonder). We were so sorry that they had to leave the next day on their journey north.

Manati lived up to its reputation as a friendly place to gather for beer, wine and good hearty food – we opted for German sausages. Claus and Annette were wonderful hosts. The large open space is colourful and homey with a large take-one-leave-one library, drum set and music area just waiting for musicians, and big wooden tables with hand crocheted granny square coasters and table runners. I had a fine time chatting with John (Mermaid) – an engaging long term solo sailor who kept me smiling with his witticisms and wide ranging knowledge on all sorts of topics!

We’ve got the “holding tank blues” again this year. Really – if it wasn’t so smelly and irritating and never-ending, it would be boring the way this happens every single year. Once again, the tank doesn’t seem to be clearing the way it should, so we spent the morning problem solving – trying the simple things first to see what might be wrong. It is especially annoying this year since Jim installed a new, more expensive and heavy duty pump in the fall that was supposed to prevent this problem. Grrr. We eliminated some possible issues and then decided to leave it alone for a while.

So we dinghied to town – or the settlement – or the cay – or Bonacca. This has got to be the strangest community we have ever visited. Guanaja is a collection of several cays – one mountainous one (18 km long) containing the bight where we are anchored, where small houses, restaurants, boathouses and large shrimp boats are scattered along the shore, another group of sandy cays curving along the outside of the coral reef, and then Bonacca – the cay that holds the town. One report we read is that of the 10,000 people who live in Guanaja, 8,000 of them are on Bonacca.

It is overflowing with buildings, the ones along the edges are on stilts out over the water, those on the interior are wooden or concrete. There are no streets, only concrete alleyways. “Main Street” is a couple of metres wide and most buildings are 2 story. The temperatures are in the 30’s most days right now, and it must be blistering hot in the summer time. Little canals reach in from the edges but are pretty much covered with concrete. You can walk around the whole thing in less than half an hour and it is so compact and winding that we immediately got lost. There is a Banco Atlantida with an ATM, several small grocery stores, an internet café and several places to top up our phone and TiGo stick.

We had heard that it is a bit like Venice – we can’t imagine that – there is no room for boats in the interior. We had heard that it is mostly English – we didn’t find that either. Most folks answered Hola to our greetings, and we heard lots of Creole and some English. It is nothing like anywhere else we have ever been! Reason enough to come and see it! The whole area was badly damaged by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and we can still see some evidence of submerged pilings and walls, but the local folks have built up their community once more.

After finding our way back to the fuel dock and buying some gas for the outboard, we headed back to Madcap to do some more exploring. We snorkeled the small collection of coral heads near the anchorage and then went to Manati for drinks in the evening where we enjoyed chatting with Hinnerk and Kenga (Paulinchen) from Germany and discovered that Hinnerk solo sailed from Germany to Halifax before making his way down here. Thomas and Ulrike (Toriba) also from Germany arrived today and Vibeke and Poul (Pi) from Denmark are anchored right behind us and are great sources of information about what’s where.

It is so exciting to be among folks from so many countries who have sailed so many places.