Wednesday, February 6, 2008

French Harbor, Roatan, Honduras

We had a relatively easy passage upwind about 10 miles today from West End to French Harbor Roatan. We motored the whole way in about 12 knots of wind, with the mainsail up just as a steadying sail.

We had good light coming in to French Harbor and worked our way in among the boats anchored here to a nice spot behind the reef. The 'Windswept 42' waypoints were very nice to have to help us in.

View of Inner Harbor and Anchorage from FHYC

We went ashore to what used to be French Harbor Yacht Club, and is now Roatan Yacht Club. It has just changed hands again and is barely functioning, but mostly intact. There is water available here.

French Harbor Yacht Club


We walked a short block east to the supermarket and found a REALLY FANTASTIC supermarket--lots of name brand U.S. goods we haven't seen in awhile. We went sightseeing among the aisles and found all kinds of stuff we didn't know we needed, among the aisles. It was really like Christmas. It's hard to describe what it's like after a year of third-world 'tiendas', to see all the American goods on the shelves. Dave got another large thing of Cheerios, I got some good cereal of my own, some whole grain brown rice, a new package of Amoxycillen (for the next time I need antibotics on short notice), a package of Pretzels, etc.


We saw so much stuff there that we are staying over a day tomorrow to do a good shopping before we move on.

We couldn't pick up any free wifi in the anchorage in French Harbor. You can take the dink into Fantasy Island Resort (at the east end of the anchorage) and use the wifi in the bar there. The word around the anchorage is 'blend in with the divers'. The resort is big enough that unless you announce (verbally or otherwise) that you are using their free wifi, they don't care. There is also wifi up at French Harbor Yacht Club. But we can't get it on the boat from the outer anchorage.

The wind was mostly mild all day, but just at sunset started to pick up. Now it is blowing 20-25. Some boats came in while we were shopping and one anchored quite close in front of us. That's bad enough but he also doesn't feel the need for an anchor light. We have taken our 'weed burner' (big spotlight) up on the bow and flashed him a few times, in hopes that he will get the message and turn some lights on. He's French. Probably won't get the message. It's really rude, no matter how amp-deprived you are, to not show any anchor lights on a really draggy night.

So far everyone in the anchorage is holding OK (including us). We have our Garmin zoomed in to 80' view, and the anchor alarm on. It would really suck to drag tonight. It took us a half an hour to find a decent spot to drop the anchor (not too deep, not too shallow, sand spot, swinging room, right distance from other boats) in broad daylight and good light. I can't imaging trying to re-anchor tonight with the wind blowing 20-25. Fortunately we have an 80lb Delta anchor. Its pretty unlikely we'll drag.

No comments:

Post a Comment