Until Next Time, Honduras

We were back in Guanaja!  On our first day back at our home away from home, we convinced The Parents to take a day trip around to the north shore and check out Mangrove Bight. This is one of the two small towns on the actual island of Guanaja, not part of the bustling metropolis of Bonacca town. Mangrove Bight is one end of the only actual road on the island, which passes over the saddle and ends at Savannah Bight on the East coast. There are only about a dozen cars and trucks on Guanaja, and they all ply this single stretch of road.

We were eager to see the other side of the island, so we set off in The Gloriamaris and prepped for a day of adventure diving.

11.6 nautical miles in only 2 sun-dappled hours

Conning the Mangrove Bight entrance

We climbed the mast to con the Gloriamaris through the entrance channel while Captain Dad steered to his charts. We made it through with plenty of depth to spare and anchored just shy of a small island inside the reef.

We piled in the dinghy and sped around inside the reef to the deep blue hole in the upper right of the above picture, hoping for some interesting topography. We were not disappointed. Diving and snorkeling on the north shore of Guanaja is simply out of this world. The shallow reefs and rock formations of Guanaja rival Virgin Gorda in the B.V.I.'s for the most spectacular formations I've ever seen. We came across nurse sharks on sandy flats and chased more than a few snappers and groupers through the canyons. We dove down the walls of the channels and peered under outcroppings looking for those tell-tale lionfish fins poling out of the shadows. Apparently our reputations had preceded us and the lionfish had retreated down to scuba depths, because we saw relatively few and shot every one we found. We weren't particularly concerned, on account of the snorkeling itself being absolutely phenomenal.

We tired ourselves out after several hours of diving and playing in the canyons, and made our way back to the Gloriamaris. It was time to retrace our steps and stop at Graham's Place for some fried seafood and beer to refuel ourselves after the grueling day!

Day: complete

As part of the working agreement that allowed the Parents to accompany us, mornings were set aside for projects, and afternoons were for fun. A significant amount of the new Gloriamaris flooring was installed during this time, and several of the earlier posts were written by those with delicate hands unfit for skilled labor.

The Port Royal lionfishing excursion had opened our eyes to a whole new brand of delicious environmentalism, and we were eager to pursue it to the fullest. Few things we've experienced so far compare to snorkeling in gorgeous reefs all by ourselves while simultaneously hunting for dinner and doing our part to reduce the numbers of an invasive species.

Seriously, eat those guys.

Every afternoon, we would move the Gloriamaris to the entrance of the Guanaja canal, and take the dinghy to a new dive site on the North shore for some world-class snorkeling and lionfish hunting. Our friends Wayne and Ely from Zeppelin were running a dive charter to Guanaja that same week, and they were kind enough to report lionfish sightings on their dive sites. We were hot on their trail.

Could have been worse.

We scoured the shallows, dove deep into the canyons, and generally descended on the reef like a pack of hungry apex predators. And I'm proud to report that we did our part!

That big guy in the center was the largest Captain Dad has ever caught by a pretty wide margin. We were happy to get him off the reef, and even happier at the prospect of how delicious he would be. I fileted the whole catch on the way back to the El Bight anchorage, and we stored away a healthy supply of delicious fish.

Later that night, we went in to Manati for a drink and a bit of socializing. We found most of the rest of the anchorage in there for dinner, so we sidled up and got to know our neighbors. This is one of the best parts of cruising, in my opinion. We had the great fortune of meeting wonderful people from all walks of life and all parts of the country, whom we simply never would have gotten to know in our normal day-to-day life in Milwaukee.

We announced our wonderful bounty of lionfish to the group, and found to our surprise that several of our neighbors had never sampled this delicious delicacy. We invited them to the Gloriamaris for dinner the following night, and had a wonderful time introducing our neighbors to the wonders of grilled lionfish.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. We were eager to see Joyce and Claire in Belize in only a few short days, but this also meant it was time to say goodbye to Honduras and Manati in particular. We had gotten to know Klaus and Annetta very well, and already knew we were going to miss them sorely. Their son Roland runs a lodge called Roland's Garden Guest House, and we promised we would come back and visit them soon. Roland had been a woodworker and furniture builder in the Cayman Islands, and he and Captain Dad had bonded quickly over master woodworking project talk. We would be welcome back, and soon.

We went to the immigration office on Bonacca, and set about checking out of Honduras. The office on Bonacca was very fast, very professional, and spoke pretty good English. Our Spanish was also improving by leaps and bounds, and we were able to navigate the conversation without much difficulty. The Guanaja office was a much better experience than the Utila office, and if we do it all over again we will just head straight to Guanaja first. We had two days to leave Honduras, and our weather window was approaching fast. We planned our passage to Belize and plotted our jump from West End Roatan.

We said goodbye to Manati and Guanaja, and made the jump from El Bight to French Harbor.

36 nautical miles in 6 hours: Leap was flying!

We tucked in to French Harbor for the night, and set up for the morning run to West End.

15.4 nautical miles in 3 hours, with only the jib

We set out first in Leap, and were followed some time later by the Gloriamaris.  We took a fairly leisurely pace, just throwing out the jib and settling in for a comfortable running reach all the way down. 

Just as we jibed, we received a radio call from the Gloriamaris informing us that Zeppelin was also heading to West End, and if we wanted to be sure of a mooring we had better get there first. Zeppelin is a much faster boat that Leap, so we had our work cut out for us. We tore along the reef on a beam reach in full-on race mode, and reached the entrance to West End just as Zeppelin appeared around the point. By this time, Bryna was an experienced pro steering through the West End gates. She shot us through the gap, and we bombed down to the far side of the mooring field to snap up one of the few remaining moorings. All three of us eventually found a mooring, and Zeppelin was not left out, but the race lent a bit of excitement to the trip. 

We settled in for our last night in Honduras, and planned out our jump to Belize the next day. 

Next time: Ships that pass in the night