I feel sort of delinquent in writing this blog. The reason for not updating it is because the past 2 anchorages we've been in don't have any internet in the harbor. And we've figured out that we don't particularly like internet cafe's. But I think I've put it off for long enough!

From Guanaja

Thinking back to last week....we had to leave West End sooner than we wanted because the weather was supposed to get rough- again, so we moved back to French Harbor, along with all the other cruisers in Roatan. The last couple of days in French Harbor were fun. We did a swell dive just a little further down from the previous one, still right outside the anchorage, but this one was totally different. The bottom gently cascaded down to about 70 feet where it leveled off to a sandy bottom. There were 2 turtles, one of which had absolutely no fear of divers. We swam along with it for a while. There were lots of fish, a huge crab (these crab are sold in restaurants here as King Crab- the Caribbean version), and the reef was very full and colorful. We watched the Superbowl at Fantasy Island resort with a great bunch of cruisers, so many of whom we know. Though I have to say that we really missed watching the game on John & Karen's boat at Shipyard Quarters with the old gang of Pendragon, Windbird and Merganser. Those days were so fun and even though we don't really root for any one team, we were totally with you John- GO STEELERS!!

The next morning, we reluctantly tore ourselves away from the anchorage and our close friends. We've been traveling with Tashmoo & Sea Tryst for months now and have had so much fun together. But everyone has their own itinerary and we were starting to feel like we needed to get going. Plus, speaking of Pendragon, we've been anxiously waiting to meet up with Carolyn & Andrew again after leaving Shipyard Quarters at the same time to start our respective cruises back in 2007. So, we motored the 36 miles from Roatan to Guanaja, the easternmost Bay Island of Honduras. And now we're anchored right beside them.

From Guanaja

Guanaja is an interesting island. It has virtually no tourism and I imagine it won't until Roatan is completely built up. The world economy would have to improve before that would happen since there are already numerous halted developments on Roatan. Guanaja is a high island about 8 miles long and 3 miles wide and aside from the residual damage from hurricane Mitch in 1998, it is lushly vegetated with a special kind of pine tree and loads of beautiful flowers and plants. The funny thing is, 80% of the population of Guanaja doesn't live on the island itself; they live all packed in on a tiny cay just offshore that is no more than a ½ mile wide. There's no bridge to it- everyone has a boat. All of the buildings are on stilts. There are little canals running through the cay so there's little bridges on the walkways that wind through the town. People are very friendly and they seem to take pride in keeping their cay clean. The harbor is pretty and lined with shrimp boats. The morning after we arrived here, Carolyn accompanied us into town to show us around and we lucked out spotting some fisherman selling fresh shrimp and king mackerel. The shrimp were $3 a pound, heads off, and they were delicious! We made shrimp cocktail and shrimp risotto with them. So tomorrow we plan to go back in to get our produce, and hopefully load up the freezer with as many shrimp as we can. The mackerel was $1.50 a pound but we haven't eaten it yet.

For one day we were basically stuck on the boat all day with high winds and overall crappy conditions. That evening, things calmed down some and we had Pendragon over for dinner. You could tell that I'd just provisioned in Roatan because we had steak, roquefort potatoes and a romaine lettuce salad for dinner. Yum!

From Guanaja

The past two days, we've taken long hikes for most of the day. Yesterday, we walked along the Southern shore of Guanaja on the little path that meanders much of the length of the island. There are basically no cars on Guanaja and very few scooters. People walk or take their boats wherever they need to go. The paths remind me of greenways, since at times the path runs right through someone's yard. There are lots of little makeshift bridges and stones to keep your feet dry, but with all the rain we've had lately, even that wasn't enough. This island is made of beautiful stones- most of them marble and some kind of glittery gold stone. The trails are made of these colorful rocks along with people's walkways, walls and water gutters. There must have been some volcanic activity that caused this. It would be nice if there was a museum here that explained the history of this island. We kept hoping to find a path that climbed way up to the spine of the island and indeed, we found one that was the access trail to the cell phone towers. From there, we had a perfect 360 degree view of the island- very pretty, especially on such a beautiful day. We hiked back down and had happy hour with Carolyn & Andrew.

From Guanaja

Today, we took the dinghy around to the small town of Savannah Bight on the eastern side of the island. We'd read that there was a good road to walk on that led across the island to the northern side. We asked for directions in the general store and found out there isn't just a road- they refer to it as "the highway". Sure enough, it is 2 lanes of perfect cement, lined with paint, reflectors like on US interstates and full signage. We walked on it for 3 hours and saw the same 3 cars going back and forth between the two towns that this highway serves. Most of the people on the highway we on foot like us, or on bikes. Making plans for a huge expansion?! It worked out for us anyway! The landscape was so pretty and it was such a nice change to not have the usual traffic and fumes. I love the lush green foliage and the sprawling fields with cattle, and the mountains set as the backdrop. We ended our day doing some little boat projects and then made lasagna for dinner.

Tomorrow, if the seas aren't too rough, the supply boat will hopefully get here with some fresh produce so we can reprovision. There's a short hike to a waterfall that we'd like to do too. Saturday is a big day for a restaurant here in the harbor called the Manatee and they supposedly have a good set meal of German food so we plan to go there with Carolyn & Andrew. Then on Sunday, we both plan to move to Josh's Cay- a long trip of about 2 miles from here so we can do some diving and snorkeling. There's a little resort there that is reported to be very hospitable to cruisers. After some time there, we'll be getting ready to check out of Honduras and wait for weather to head "around the corner" toward Panama. And Pendragon will be heading to Roatan and on to Belize. Looks like we'll be starting all over making friends.