Where deet is referred to as island perfume!
As I often say, February is the hump-month of the winter, similar to Wednesday as hump-day of the year, and I prefer enjoy the warmth of an island or the southern hemisphere as a cure to the impatience for the advent of Spring. This year, Lance and I rented a house on the east end of Roatan, a small island with a fading reputation for diving, off the coast of Honduras. Since you probably don’t know, the east end is where mostly locals live, and tourists visit (via airplane and non-stop cruise ships), hotel and dive with the plethora of options on the West End.
Our house is lovely, with our own private dock, palapas and lounge chairs:
Here’s my view while enjoying:
We have a rental car, a pair of nice, talkative landlords who live next door, and incredible peace and quiet. It takes a week or so to get the lay of the land; the dive shop is a 5-minute drive down the road, the same amount of time walking on the beach lands us at a local beach club, with jet skis, kayaks and snorkel gear for rent, as well as a restaurants, horseback riding in the water and massage on the beach tent. One day when I leave for the store, the horses are on break:
We alternate dive days, and are delighted to return to the dive shop for all intervals (rest time between dives) because sites are only 5 – 10 minutes away.
Valentine’s Day dinner is a delightful seafood extravaganza with a view of the shoreline:
After a week or so with them, we decide to be more adventurous, and we head to the West End for a day to dive with Roatan Divers, one of the best operations I’ve ever experienced. The coral and marine life appeared to be better than on the east end, so the drive was worth it. Toward the end of the second week, we decide to take the ferry
to the smaller island of Utila. The ferry ride itself was fun, and we took a taxi to our hotel and to the dive shop we’d identified as qualified and convenient. After a long lecture from our hotel proprietress, we settled into our room at the hotel:
and then walked the main road – not many cars here, mostly tuk-tuks. It was astonishing to me how many dive shops there were – one after another – and the fact that almost every one had a low-slung building extending toward the beach that housed dorm/hostel-like rooms for the hordes of twenty-somethings that seemed drawn like flies to the light to this tiny island for diving certification. If Roatan enjoyed a large population of ex-pats in the 45 – 65 age range, then Utila was the beat set: all 20 – 35ish, and having plenty of fun. Friday morning, as we were setting up for the dive, a young woman stumbled out to the dock to tell the dive master that her friend wouldn’t be able to show up for the day, and by the way, she’s heading back to bed. I chuckled and quizzed the dive master “hungover”? He responded that Thursday night is ladies’ night and the biggest party of the week on the island, so she hadn’t even gotten to the hungover stage yet!
Days and evenings were way casual on Utila: walking to dive, back to hotel, through town into little snack shops and then out to dinner again. Lance was right that this island would have been the place to be, but hard to know ahead of time.
Ferry back to Roatan and prepare for arrival on Sunday of Stacey, Jeff and Jake. All arrived smoothly – Stacey and Jeff’s plane was delayed enough that they all landed within 10 minutes of each other! A stop at the store and then they settled into the house. Scuba sistas:
snorkel buddies:
lounge lizard:
and then one night spent on the West End so Stacey and Jake could enjoy the difference over on the other side. Dive briefing with Natalia at Roatan Divers:
and on the boat ready to go:
Jeff was a great sport and found himself a comfortable spot to hang while we all went out for an hour+. We still returned to the dive shop for our surface intervals and could visit with him and share our dive experience.
All through these 3 weeks, we received varying amounts of bug bites. I had researched and brought along the top 3 remedies, from all-natural to hard-hitting Deet. However, none of this worked for poor Lance, who was bitten even through the night in bed (and I was in the same bed, but suffered nothing. Thanks for being my decoy, honey!). He’d taken to sleeping on the sofa, where he’d get few, if any bites, and I decided enough was enough. We spent our last week on the Beach Hotel on the West End – and after a small leak in our ceiling the first night, we were moved to the uber suite on the top floor; the only room there, with 3 different beds and a balcony from which we had a spectacular view (and I could lay out nekked and no one could see). Final two nights at a more exclusive resort, with a lovely restaurant
and beach.
One day, we were sitting in our room enjoying the view (see featured image. THAT’S the view from our bed!), and saw two boats docked out on the reef for a dive (there are over 169 buoys marking dive sites around the island). Then 2 turned to 4, then 5, 6 and 7. We had never seen more than 2 boats at a dive site and the fact that more kept coming made me think there must be something going on out there. Whale shark? What? So i kept saying we (meaning Lance) should get out there and see what it was. Finally he got ready and headed out. I said to myself: “what the heck are you doing? get off your duff and go see for yourself!” And so I did. We jumped into one of the hotels’ inflatable kayaks with our snorkel gear, paddled out to the inside of the reef, anchored the kayak on a buoy and then I followed Lance as he found a swimmable path among the coral channels out to where the boats were anchored. As we came out the other side, we yelled to a boat captain about what was going on. Nonplussed, he said all the boats were bringing divers to check out the wreck that was about 100 yards away. Really? So we consoled ourselves with one of the best snorkels we’d enjoyed on the trip and had a fun adventure on our last day in Roatan.