Guanaja, Honduras – 1/19/11

Departed Vivorillos for Guanaja, Honduras 

Arrived around 1pm after a 155nm, 30 hour passage with beautiful full moon, no squalls, following wind/seas which at times made it slightly difficult to deal with sail combination (wing on wing – like a butterfly) but sailed most of the way. Good thing we had the moon to assist with walking around on deck. We anchored at El Bight and waited a few days before checking in at Bonnaca as you only get 3 months. Met up with other cruisers when arrived and went for pizza at Hans (german hippy man along with son) that lives here since 1995 and has a farm (grows lots including ganja). Very interesting. He makes wine, vinegar and lots of other stuff. 

We were surprised to see that Guanaja was so tall and most of the 10K residents live on a TINY Bonacca reef poured with cement to make it larger. The houses are crammed and have only cement sidewalks (no roads) and some canals to place their boats next to their houses. So sorta like Venice. Most of the homes on Bonacca survived the hurricane Mitch in 1998 but the rest of the northern part of the island and its trees were destroyed. The island is 11nm long and about 4nm wide with beautiful hilly sights. We’re going to go dinghy exploring thru the island via a canal to do some hiking on the north side. They get their provisions from mainland about 20nm away.  This is the first island since leaving Trinidad that hasn’t charged us immigration/custom fees to enter their country.   It’s not like this country doesn’t need the income as economically they are challenged as well. 

We went to Annette’s 50^th birthday party with husband Claus (another german couple) at Manatee Restaurant. They played old-time german music and I got to meet a lot of x-pats from US that have lived here a long time. Met 1st x-pat that moved here 40 years ago – Duluth, MN raised, 75 yrs old Capt. Al who brought a BUM boat from Lake Superior down the Mississippi to here. He told me that we should go meet Susan Henderson who lives here from TN that did the diving for most of the Discovery series and has a museum near Michaels Rock on the west side but found out she wasn’t here. 

We went on the north/west side of this island Michaels Rock Channel/anchorage to go on a hike to waterfall and for great snorkeling. Can only do it when weather is settled but even still the hills are high and night land breeze was pretty windy. The hike was in the jungle and up, climbing rocks, etc. with limited path markers. A collie type dog decided to come with us and it was a good thing as when we took a wrong turn it just sat there until we went the correct way OR he would start heading us the correct way. It was pretty cute so we fed him some of our lunch in gratitude. It was wonderful to swim and bath in fresh water. Guanaja, Honduras has some fir trees and very hilly so quite beautiful. 

We came back to El Bight for another cold front. It rained, so we have been bleaching/washing teak of mold and then put on lemon oil as heard that actually against my initial thoughts may help reduce mold growth. I haven’t been oiling for a few years. But this area in the summer is very humid so hope it helps. We are also collecting rain water in our tanks as a few of the watermaker fittings are leaking so need to work on that. We got internet on the boat via a used USB modem stick with Tigo SIM we bought from Andante. Living the high life now but then of course you are limited by how much battery capacity you have to run the computer. We also went snorkeling in this area which has very nice reefs but limited big fish like most places.   There is a dolphin that visits El Bight most days during his feeding rounds.  So I decided that I would go in the dinghy with my snorkel mast to see if I could watch it.  It sorta worked but they move pretty fast!  Never did get all the way in the water before it took off.

We took the dinghy to Savanna Bight to hike on the ONLY road in Guanaja going to Mangrove Cay to see the sights/bays and Columbus monument. It was pretty cute to see a few cars, horses, mopeds and enough population to support a taxi! The hurricane really devastated this area during Mitch and for some reason the Governor granted some land to the Hispanics from mainland Honduras so a new town called Mitch got created.

We had hoped to go around north side to Mangrove Bay to do some diving with Makai but determined that a STRONG front is coming so thought we better starting moving to French Cay, Roatan to prepare for Mary/Don Losure MN guests coming Feb 7^th.

Keep us posted as to your lives. We miss and like to hear from you!

Our Love