After spending 1 week in French Harbor which is on the middle west-side of Roatan, we decided to sail to the island's south-west and anchor off a town called West End. This town is very touristic, attracting a lot of young people and backpackers as it is fairly inexpensive to dive and vacation here.

To enter the harbor, we had to go through a cut in the reef that surrounds this part of the island and anchored behind it, with the land on one side and the reef on the other preventing waves from coming into the anchorage. Anchoring behind a reef, which by now we had done a few times, made for a very pleasant and beautiful harbor from which we could see many shades of blue in the water coming from the white sand patches, green sea grass, coral heads, deeper and shallower spots.

The three days we spent in West End were very relaxing. Daniel and Kim went on a Canyon dive one day and very much enjoyed it, reporting wonderful marine life. One evening we met Dave, owner of s/v Goenplaces, and his friend Barbara. Dave crewed in s/v Walkabout owned by JoAnne Norton whom we met coming down from Hampton, VA with the 1500 Cruising Rally in 2007. This year, JoAnne helped Dave bring his boat to Belize and there his friend Barbara (prior owner of Goenplaces) had come to help Dave take the boat to Honduras as this gave her a chance to sail, something her husband no longer wanted to do. Varied are the stories and walks of life of the many people we have met since we started to cruise. What unites sailors is a keen love of the sea and sailing, and their willingness to be a part of and invest their time, effort and money into sailing and the sailing community. The majority of sailors we have encountered are very interesting, giving people and we just cherish their friendship.

Pictures of West End can be found in the gallery of pictures icon under the album named Roatán, Honduras.