We tried to post a music video but this Third World internet has a issues. We will try again. Here are some pictures we hope everyone enjoys.
Iguana Standoff
Tim working hard making new bracket for an autopilot he is installing for sailboat “TEKI MALO”
“Look at this!”
We plan to be back cruising the first of July but for now we are still at the dock in French Harbor. This has its privilege.
“Pamela Ann” at the dock Brooksy Point Marina
The wind blew here this week and people in the anchorage drug. “We sleep good.“ Most people dreaming of going sailing never think of having to set up and watch with the wind blowing hard to make sure you don’t drag. It’s called “Anchor Watch.” It’s not so bad as long as the anchor holds but when it lets go you go into almost panic mode trying to get the motor running and get control of the boat with it turning side ways. Trying not to run over your anchor line or someone else anchor line and not to hit another boat. The more it stays up in to the wind the better the anchor is trying to get a-holt. We have had the Pamela Ann going straight down wind dragging the anchor. Down here a lot of places it’s just a little sand over rock where you can anchor. Remember we have been in an anchorage one time with 3 boats dragging at the same time down through the anchorage. It’s not anything to be proud of but we were one of them. One time long ago I ran to the cockpit saying we were dragging and the boats were coming along side us from the front of the boat. Pam said “You can’t drag forward.” The two boats in front of us were dragging by us and we were holding find. As a man said to me one time. “If you set your anchor well you won’t drag.“ He obviously had not been any where. Here as in a lot of places you can get big swells coming in with the wind. The worst is if you are behind something to try to brake the swell and the swell comes in from another angel. Maybe you are setting to the wind but the swells hit you from the side. This is where one hand for the ship comes from because you can’t even walk around the boat and you can have this for days. But living at the dock has disadvantages to like ants. Here they have an ant that is so small you have to look hard to see them. Maybe the biggest is smaller than a 16th of an inch. People here call them cocaine ants because they run from one side to the other like they are going crazy. There is always new things to see here. The other day we got up to find Rusty our cat laying on the table. We discourage this and he doesn’t do it often. He was looking at something so we looked to find what had him watching so close. I thought it was a tarantula spider on the door frame I had just come through but it was a dock crab inside the boat. Maybe it was there watching Rusty. This will get your day stared and your heart rate up.
Dock Crab on door frame
Living so close to a jungle in a lot of places there is great sounds coming from any place that has not been developed but here it’s sound like a Tarzan movie because of some pet peacocks near by. Even with them being in a lot of people yards back home in the states and we have lived around them as pets their cries sound like something deep in a jungle. In our past blogs we have said we like the food here but it cost about double what it cost in the states. Something else we love here is some of the music we hear. It’s called Island Music and it’s old Country or old Rock & Roll before it got loud and hard.
Bay Island Entertainers
We are happy here and want to share what we are seeing and what we are hearing so this week we are going to try to put on our mid week blog a video so you can hear some of the Island Music if we can. We need help on the computer so we will try to get some help and see if we can put it on our blog.
We are still in French Harbor Roatan Honduras at the dock living like we have money but we are taking time to see some of the island. It cost more to live here than most of the places we have been in Central America. One reason is the tourist and what you can buy here. If you go where there is very little to sell, you can live cheap. Remember most of the local people live on beans and rice. What can you buy here . Steak are pork ribs, Jimmy Dean sausage all available here. “At a price most locals can’t afford.” Really a lot of good stuff we have been missing. Maybe you think finding food you love is not a big deal till you have been gone for a couple of years then you see why people write back home and tell about finding it. Most people back home want to hear about what you find there that’s good. So one of the things I do like down here is coconut bread. It don’t taste like coconut, it taste like a beer bread. Coconut chicken is good over rice. They make it like stewed chicken in coconut milk. You can taste the coconut in the stewed chicken. I can eat plantains cooked like potatoes. Not as good as North American potatoes but good enough to eat. I was surprised. I have developed a taste for plantains but they cook them a lot of ways down here They are best fried and I like them while they’re still hot with fresh strawberries. Local oranges and grapefruits my not look so good but most of them taste better than the big almost prefect fruit you buy in the states. Water cost a lot here to take a shower. Water at the marina here is metered and not to drink. They bring it in on a water truck from the main land. So why are we as poor as we are still here. It’s nice here and we will leave if we have to. There is a lot to go see near here. There are islands near here and places where there is no great grocery stores and mostly just local people live. The rich tourist don’t go there. We love places like that. We are looking forward to going there. But for now we are doing a lot of what cruisers love to do and that is pot-luck suppers or going some place to socialize.
Good Ribs
We made a deal to pay for our dock. We don’t have the money to live this a way and we have been busy getting that done. We made a trip down to West End and walked around. Did the tourist thing there. The beach is small but pretty. The streets are like most streets in Central America. Not very wide but they do have most of it paved. This like most of the places down here are very clean and we have not seen even one policeman or a police department. Like all of Central America even the churches have bars on there windows.
Church at West End
All of Central America sleeps “every” night locked up. We have a big plan this week to do some things. Living like the well to do in what ever one says down here is paradise for a little while till maybe the rent is due. But for now we won’t worry about what we don’t have.
Anchorage “French Harbor”
When Pam and I stared the blog. We have tried to tell what we see as honest as we can and share what we see with all that read our blog. The bay Islands are not what we thought they would be. The islands are a two sided coin. There is lots of money here. Maybe more than we have seen along the coast of Central America.. Then there are the local people that make very little and live the way they have for centuries. We didn’t come here to see well to do tourist but they are here and we are hooked on some of the thing that are set up for them. We love what you can do here and what you can buy here. “If you have money.” This is the first time in my life I feel like a minority. The word Minority is always set aside for the poor but this time we feel like we are part of the well to do minority here. Here with our boat and staying at the dock gives us privileges. They have washing machines here. No more washing our clothes in a bucket and wringing them out with Pam’s hand cranked wringer. We can ride the bus for free twice a week to the grocery store. The grocery stores here are supper modern for being down here. Remember here you are happy if you can find anything you wanted on your grocery list. They’re big and air condition. Something else you never see down here. Most of the time when Pam and I are shopping in Central America,I have to go out side to cool off and let her shop it’s so hot in most stores. There is and Ace Hardware store here. We paid 9 dollars for a roll of masking tape. It’s that way down here. Remember most local make about 15 dollars a day. We have herd all our life that you can go to a third world country and live cheap. You can if you can live like they do. Eat beans and rice “every” meal every day but if you want a good cut of meat or any thing else, “It will cost you.” If you work here at a local job you may can buy a pocket knife with what you can make in a week. If you need a part, maybe you can find it but it may take weeks too get and cost two or three times what you would pay in the states. Remember if you come this way. If you pay for something and you find it don’t fit or there is something wrong with it, you will “never ” be able to take it back and get your money back. When you pay for it. It’s yours. We are enjoying being here. We are trying not to spend to much money. We are going to some of the events set up for cruiser that don’t take a lot of money. Pot-luck suppers are cheap and Pam’s banana pudding is always a hit. Bananas are cheap.
Jam session after pot-luck supper
Bus ride to grocery store
Grocery store, Dog waiting on it’s master
They bring in cruse ships every day but we never see the people on them. They bus them to see thing set up for them. In Coxen’s Hold you can see the ships come in but you never see any of the people in town. We like going there because there it is mostly local people. There we can walk up side streets and shop with the local people. Down here you can buy a lot of things that have been rejected in the states and brought down here to sale cheap but this too don’t mean you can find a good deal. There is usually something wrong with them. I need a par of new shoes. Down here most local people are little. Remember I once measured a good looking young grown woman that was normal as she could be and 4 foot 3 ins. I ask a woman here where I could find shoes to fit me and she ask every one there then said “Miami!” We don’t know when we will leave here but for now it good steaks and fun people. The Caribbean Sea is just outside the marina. We will stay here a little longer and hope we don’t run out of money. This maybe Paradise and some times it cost to be in Paradise.
Sorry we have been having problems with internet.
Large tourist tree
Feeding time at the Iguana Farm
Look for the iguana in the tree
We are still in French Harbor Roatan Honduras. We have been here now long enough to see how the island works. But not long enough to really go see the island. We have been working on stuff. What we have seen is a lot of the same as all of Central America but ever place we have been is a little different. When we were in Mexico there the land crabs were blue Here they are red.
Red Crab
Here they are a lot of what the locals call in Central America. “Tourist trees“. They’re red and peeling.
Tourist Tree
It’s hilly here so you can see how the island was formed. Any where they are digging to build any think. This is important to see why it is hard to anchor here. It’s sand over rock and some times its just a little sand over a lot of rock. This is why a lot of people dive down to look at there anchor. Me I cheat. I can’t dive down as far as I could when I was a teenager so if you can break the surface and get your head under you can normally see your anchor. This is good for us old people that the water is that clear here and you don’t have to go all the way down to check your anchor. I have put this in our blog before that if you meet some one here they greet you with “Welcome to Paradise.” Can you really find paradise? Here the water is clear with reefs. Reefs mean fish and things to see. The wind blows. So it’s cooler when the wind blows. I don’t like it when the trade winds blow strong but it’s cooler. One thing I miss here in Central America is food like a good steak. They have it here and it’s not any more expensive than Key West. Imported from the states. This week we have some new “hope to be our friends” from England coming over to have pork ribs the way we cook them back in South Carolina on the grill. They say they may show us something they cook in England. This is “some” of the best part of living out here in the cruising world. We have not had ribs since we left the states. Finding good pork ribs and cooking out with maybe new friends from places like Europe is what we have spent a life time dreaming about. Where if you want to see the Caribbean Sea you just look up from what you are doing and there it is. Where it so deep its so blue it looks all most black and where its shallow it’s green. If it’s over white sand its all most white. Being here you can see tourist at play, spending lots of money. Boats pulling parachute with people hanging below the chute. Boats taking people diving. Or you can see local people going to sea in long home made boats with very old motors and no safety equipment, Not even a life jacket. Going to the main land bringing back what they can to sell. Putting to sea with out any thing. Not even a compass. A man we met brought back plantains. A six hour trip out to sea one way with a old Lister diesel. Remember it’s about 12 hours of day light here most of the year. So if he tries to make a round trip, some part of it in the dark. We have seen these boats out to sea in the dark with only one light and we think it was just a flash light
Plantains from the Mainland
This is a stopping off place for people going to Panama and some of our friends have just left. We hated to see them go and wished we were going with them. This too is part of this world. People say that you make new friends the next place you go but that’s not true. You meet new people but you only make a few good friends and some of our friends left this week to go on. We plan to stay here for a while. We will see if this is paradise and then we will go. Tonight we are safe. We ate steak again. We just learned that one of the boats maybe coming back with autopilot troubles. It’s a long way to steer to Panama. We are a part of this world now and we know how hard it is to steer a boat for days. For anyone that has not steered a boat for days and are thinking about going with out a autopilot. I would rather dig a ditch with a table spoon than try to hold a compass cores and steer for days. Remember you can’t stop and sleep. You can’t get up and walk around. Take your eyes of that compass and you are off course. Where your day is not 24 hours any more. It is. Can I possible make 4 hours before someone comes to take over. Pam and I have changed places every 30 minutes and tried to sleep in the cockpit it was so ruff. It’s hard to tell how tired you can get out there. Tomorrow the weather is forecast to be good and we are safely tied to a dock. Maybe we will go snorkeling on the reef or maybe we will go hunt some more wild monkeys. Maybe we will go shopping. I don’t really know what we may do tomorrow but maybe we can do it in our dink. We can get to what we need here in Dumpling. It’s getting hard to remember the last time I drove a car.
Maybe it is true. Maybe this is Paradise.
We found one monkey
schoonerpamelaann 