West End, Roatan, Honduras

We picked up anchor from Utila this morning about 8am. The wind was forecast to be light SE, and maybe sail-able. But it was too light and too close ahead to sail.

But we had an easy motorsail and arrived in West End about 12:30.

There is not much guidebook coverage of West End. It is pretty much a 'fair weather' anchorage and a very small town. You have to come in through a narrow cut in the reef (marked by PVC bouys) and then find a sandy spot to anchor in off the beach. Most of the bottom is heavy grass, and not good holding. Someone told us 'don't be here in a strong cold front'.

But we had a perfect day, and a set of waypoints from the Windswept 42 list. It was an easy entry and easy to find a good spot. There are some moorings here, but right now they are all taken. So we found a nice sand spot and we are well stuck to the bottom.

The West End Reef Out Our Back Door
After we got the boat secured, Dave urged me to check to see if we had wifi... and we do. Someone with a 'linksys' wifi. It's pretty tenuous, I'm barely getting it with my external antenna. But it's enough to do email and get weather.

West End looks like even more of a diver's paradise than Utila. More later...

Infini Anchored West End

More Utila Diving with Paradise Divers

Well, after 2 more days of diving with Paradise Divers in Utila, I am happy to report that they are 'a good operation at a budget price'. They are so convenient to us at anchor... 2 minutes in the dinghy and we can unload all our gear directly into the dive boat.


Though we did do one afternoon of diving from our dinghy, we opted to take 3 2-tank trips with Paradise, to go to places further away. 2 trips to 'The North Side'... walls that drop to 500 feet, and one to the 'Sea Mount' on the east end of the island.

Paradise's boat and the equipment IS a little worn, but it all operated properly. The instructors are good, and really care about the students. And everything went smoothly on our dives.

We still didn't see a Whale Shark (but didn't really expect to, this time of year). Our divemasters (DM's), Joaquin and Daniel, were good knowlegable guys and safety conscious. And all were 'characters'.

Oli, Joaquin, and Daniel
It was interesting diving on a boat with such a diversity of people. We had students from Germany, Israel, Spain, the U.S. and Ireland. Language is an issue with the divemasters and instructors! One Divemaster told me a story about having to coach a student from Israel through the written test via pantomime, because they didn't have any tests in Hebrew, and the kid didn't understand enough English.

And of course us 'cruisers' add to the exotic mix. I'm sure they think we are as old as God. (I remember at that age thinking that my 30-year-old teacher was OLD). Dave talked about first getting certified to dive in 1970--that's about 15 years before any of these 20-something students were born!!! And they just couldn't believe we were sailing around the world for 10 years.

A couple of the DM's were interested in seeing how we live, so we brought them out to Soggy Paws for Dave's 'engineer's tour'. They were both ready to go buy a boat and sail around the world. But Dave showed them all the 'systems' he has to maintain...they understood after hanging out with us for a few days, that it isn't all 'margaritas in the sunset'.

We did a total of 8 dives... 6 with Paradise Divers and 2 out of the dinghy. We took the camera on the last dive and got a few good pics.

A Tasty-Looking Crab (6" across)
Beautiful Soft Corals
Two Banded Coral Shrimp
Tomorrow we leave for West End, Roatan, 25 miles away... the 'front' we've been expecting passed through today. We got some rain and a little wind shift, but nothing more than a 5 knots from any direction.

The forecast for tomorrow is for light SE winds, so it should be a nice motorsail further East (to windward, but only 25 mi).

Diving in Utila

Utila is widely known to be the cheapest place in this part of the world for Dive certifications. There is literally a dive school about every third building all through the town. The island is now ringed with very nice dive moorings, which are regularly maintained. We can see 5-6 dive bouys just outside the harbor within easy dinghy reach.

View of Utila Harbor and Closest Dive Bouy
Dive Bouys Along "Black Coral Wall"
It is also well known as a great place to see (and dive with) Whale Sharks. Whale Sharks are the world's largest fish. Try this link for more info

I was really excited about seeing some whale sharks. However, the main 'season' for seeing them is not til March and we will likely be long gone by then. Though the websites say they can be seen any time of the year, the dive shops didn't seem so encouraging.

We stopped in several dive shops in the center of town and asked about dive trips and dive tank refills. The standard price for a 2-tank dive seems to be $50 US. (The going rate in Florida is about $65-$75 now).

But Dave found a place on the water that he dealt with 5 years ago, owned and operated by native Utilians, that offered us 2-tank dives for $30 with our own equipment, and $35 for our friends without their own equipment. And tank refills at $2.50 apiece!!

Dave and Sue Getting Ready to Dive
So we did a 2-tank dive yesterday with Paradise Divers to the north side of the island (too far for us to dinghy). Mike and Sue on Infini hadn't been diving in 4 years, so this was a nice easy refresher dive for them. It was kind of an overcast day so it wasn't as pretty as it could have been. But visibility was good, and there was lots of live coral and a few interesting fish and wiggly things.

The dive operation was a bit low-rent... the boat slow and not well maintained. The rental equipment kind of ragged. The captain, divemasters, and young students all seemed well hungover from a night of partying. But we circumnavigated the whole island in the course of the trip, and the crew were real characters and gave us lots of information about places we could go diving on our own. We had our own equipment and so were just looking for a cheap ride, so we didn't care too much.

Dave and I plan to try to do at least one or two dives on the dive bouys off the harbor in the next day or so, and maybe another dive on the north side with Paradise.

It has been squally in the mornings here. While we were in the dive boat, we saw a cloud with 2 waterspouts. Fortunately they were not heading for the harbor!

The WaterSpout
Mike and Sue from Infini, headed ashore between showers
Lickety Split left here today for Roatan. They are trying to hook up with some other friends waiting for them there. We'll probably catch up with them in a few days. I think we are targeting a weather window on Tuesday to head east to Roatan. We have a few more dives to make before we leave here.

Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras

We actually had a low opinion of this place when we arrived. The 'Coconut Telegraph' tells us that there is an ongoing problem with thefts on boats in the harbor. Usually at night while people are gone. It seems the typical unsolvable Central American problem. Everyone knows about it. Everyone agrees it is bad and something should be done. But no one seems to have the power to do anything about it. The Mayor says it is because the Police are Federales, and he can't get THEM to do anything about it.

Anyway, we had planned to just stop in here and clear in. It is supposedly easy to clear in here, because all the people you have to clear in with are in the same building. In Roatan you have to take a bus or taxi to the big town which isn't a nice boating place.

But the other problem is that the Immigration guy hasn't been seen in Utila for a couple of weeks. Most boaters who were here when we got here, only stayed overnight, and just didn't clear in. They told us 'nobody here cares, we'll just clear in in Roatan'.

But Dave, being the upstanding guy that he is, felt he should at least attempt to do the right thing. It turned out well. Dave and Don from Lickety Split went in and had a nice chat with the Port Captain, and got their paperwork done. The Port Captain told us that the Immigration guy would be there tomorrow for sure. So we finished off with him the next day. We got our passports stamped and a 90-day cruising permit. It was free and very painless.

The Port Captain's Office on the Town Pier
The little town on the the little island of Utila is very charming in a Bahamian sort of way (sorta reminds me of New Plymouth at Green Turtle). Most of the people here still speak a Bahamian kind of English, but most also speak Spanish. (The Bay Islands used to be part of British Honduras).

The town has some pretty good grocery stores. We were able to find some brand name things here that we couldn't find in Guatemala (like Cheerios). We bought some Honduran rum, and more granola bars. The fresh veggies weren't quite as fresh as in Guatemala, but not bad (when the supply boat comes in). Still haven't found any whole wheat flour, but I still have a pretty good supply aboard from the States.

We have sampled a couple of the local restaurants. With the theft situation, we feel more comfortable being aboard after dark, but we've done lunch in 2 places. Several people told us that the Jade Seahorse was 'not to be missed'. An artist lives there and has made an Alice in Wonderland garden out of glass bits. We had some nice burritos and some cold cervezas in the garden. Muchies is on the main drag in the middle of things and looked like a popular place. So we ate there after our dive yesterday. (we liked Jade Seahorse better).

Part of the Art at Jade Seahorse
Our friends on Lickety Split read about RJ's BBQ in their Lonely Planet. They are only open after 5:30 on Wed-Fri-Sun. So yesterday they went there and got T-bone Steaks for take-out and were back aboard just before dark. ('BBQ' in Central/South America often just means 'grilled', not BBQ with gooey sauce). They said it was a great meal, and we may do the same thing on Sunday evening.

Underway for Utila

Yesterday turned out nice... the sun came out and the wind went down.

We took advantage of the nicer weather to go ashore and do a short hike around the bay. This area is some kind of nature reserve, so there are howler monkeys and lots of tropical vegetation. We heard but didn't see the howler monkeys, and some of the tropical birds.

Soggy Paws in the Sun in Escondido
We climbed to the top of the highest hill for an overlook of the bays, but the vegetation was so thick we could only glimpse water occasionally.

Exploring Ashore
Dave on the Beach
We picked our stern anchors up yesterday in anticipation of leaving early today. Good thing we did it yesterday! They were dug in so far that Dave had to break out the Scuba gear and help get everyone's anchor up. He spent 10 minutes underwater, just getting our anchor unstuck. And then went and helped Infini and Lickety Split with their anchors.

Dave and Don Pulling Stern Anchors
We left the anchorage at 0700 this morning, and anticipate arrival in Utila this afternoon around 1500 (3pm).

We are motorsailing right now in very light southerly winds (coastal wind effect) and a knot of current behind us. Our strategy is to stay along the coast for a couple of hours to take advantage of the early morning offshore breeze and the countercurrent, and then turn and head for Utila.

Better Weather Today, I Hope

The cold front that wasn't supposed to get here is still lingering around our area. But the weather looks much better this morning.

The forecasters are still saying the winds should be N-NE, but all day yesterday we had W-NW winds, sometimes as high as 25 kts. We hung in our little exposed anchorage by our fingernails, because it was too dangerous to try to leave. It rained on and off all morning. And it was too dicey on board to leave the boat and go ashore.

The Grib File (Wind Forecast)
We amused ourselves by watching the waves breaking on the rock that looks like Gibraltar, in the channel next to us. "Whoa, did you see that one!?"

We did a few 'projects'... tracking down leaks and stowing more stuff--continuing the process of transforming our boat from the floating condo that it has been for the last 6 months to a truly seaworthy vessel.

Dave amused the rest of the boats in the anchorage by playing with his anchor setup every hour or so. We broke one snubber during the night, so he rigged a backup snubber and was playing with variations of snubber arrangements. (For the landlubbers... a snubber is a 10-20' piece of heavy stretchy rope that is connected to the anchor chain to provide a little 'give' to the anchor chain as the boat strains on it). He rigged a second line to our stern anchor, to try to distribute the load a little.

The 12v adaptor for my laptop that we had bought in November didn't have the right end plug on it, so Dave cut off the wrong one and put the right one on. Now I can run my laptop directly off the 12v without going through an 'inverter' (transforms power from 12vDC to 110vAC) and the 'brick' that comes with the computer (transforms the 110vAC to 19vDC). The adaptor boosts the 12vDC to 19vDC directly and is more efficient. priorityelectronics.com for $35 for a high amp one and $25 for a lower one. Or EBay, $15 for an any-volt any-plug adaptor. The EBay one 'smoked' on my big laptop (not high enough amperage when we ran the DVD).

Looking out the porthole of my bunk this morning, I got pretty excited because it looked like the skies had cleared. But now that it has gotten lighter out, I can see we still have a fairly thick layer of low stratus. In the anchorage, surrounded by high hills, it is hard to tell what the wind is doing out there. The winds are light and variable in the anchorage, and the trees don't look like they are getting strong winds either, so maybe today will be a better day. The seas are still running very high--they are still breaking clear over the top of 'Gibraltar'.

I think we'll hang out here another day and let the weather settle a little more, and leave for Utila early tomorrow.

Crappy Forecast!

This morning's GRIB file still is forecasting 10 knots from the north, but we had 20-25 from the WNW for awhile, in this small enclosed anchorage that is open to the west.

Fortunately it didn't really kick up until about dawn. Things got kinda hairy for awhile. Infini, a Westsail 42, was anchored on a lee shore with 5' waves under their bow, and only about 2' of water under their keel.

We've finally gotten all repositioned, and fortunately the wind has swung around to the north, so we are out of the wind. But it's blowing like stink out there and the waves are still huge outside.

There's such a high hill on the north side of the anchorage, that once we got in the lee we were getting backwinded, and there's also a funky circular current going on in this bay.

So for awhile we were drifting around on our anchor, back to the wind, and sideways to the considerable swell and rolling like a, like a... well, rolling a lot!

With stuff flying all over down below. (Even though we were mostly stowed from the previous day)

We finally (with some difficulty under the conditions) put a stern anchor out to put the bow into the swell. We also dropped our dinghy, and got Infini and Lickety Split repositioned in a better spot and also with stern anchors out.

We didn't get breakfast or the first cup of coffee until 11am! We will probably keep an anchor watch tonight unless the conditions get considerably better. It does seem to be improving some.

The longer term forecast has the wind clocking around to NE-E and blowing 15-20 for a couple of days. So we'll probably be here for a couple of days. There are howler monkeys here, and a hiking trail, so once the conditions stabilize, we'll get off the boat and explore a little.

Sherry & Dave

Puerto Escondido, Punta Sal, Central Honduras Coast

Anchored safe, but crappy weather...

We arrived here at 2:45 pm yesterday. This is an 270 degree enclosed anchorage and open only to the west. You can look it up on Google Earth at 15-54.6N 87-37.9W.

The weather was gorgeous last night. Nice sunset, nice moonrise, clear skies.

The forecast up north where the cold front is supposed to STALL is 25-30 kts. But here along the coast, they are *still* only forecasting 10 kts out of the north. Well, we have westerly winds right now at 20 kts and its raining a cold rain. It's kind of uncomfortable, but our anchor is well set and we are hoping the winds will soon move around to the north, where we will have good protection.

Anyway, we are sitting tight here today.

Escondido, Exposed to the West
Infini, Almost in the Surf
Another Boat Coming In

Motoring East Along Honduras Coast

We left the anchorage at 0530 this morning. Our friends on Infini left at 0230 and Lickety Split at 0415, but Dave insisted we wait for daylight. And we motor faster than they do.

The offshore forecast is for 15-20 kts and there is a front up north by the Yucatan. But we expect light and variable for most of the day close-in along the Honduran coast. We currently have about a 1kt counter-current, so our ETA at Punta Sal is about 3pm local time (but I expect we'll slow down later when the afternoon winds pick up).

All is well aboard.

Out of the Rio!

Yes, we really did make it away from the dock.

We crossed the bar at Livingston at about 2pm Local Time and were anchor down at Cabo Tres Puntas about 4pm. Dave and I jumped in and scrubbed the river slime off the bottom and enjoyed a nice candlelit dinner in the cockpit (the first in months... no bugs here!)

Our First Glimpse of the Ocean in 6 Months
Buddy Boat Infini at Livingston
The Livingston Sea Bouy
Our plans are to leave here at 5am for Punta Sal, Honduras for a long (12 hour) motor up wind along the coast.