Slow Week

Thing are beginning to look up for us again. We are leaving soon. We have one eye on the weather all the time now. We are still in the Bay Islands. Not a good place to be in a hurricane. We hope to be cruising maybe a little further east to Guanaja before we go back to the protection of the Rio Dulce. Up the river in Guatemala. You are safer there than any place we have seen down here. There has not been much going on this week.
We have got into a routine living at the dock. Even going to a hardware store has gotten routine. I went this week to get a plug end for and extension cord and one hardware store said “They don’t make them.” Another one had the female end but not what I need the male end. I just smiled and went on. That’s routine down here. A lot of the time you just can’t get the simplest thing and if they don’t have what you need. There answer is always, “They don’t make them.”
We hope we will have a lot to share soon but for now here is some pictures we took this week.

 

 

Getting ready to go out to the reef

Blue Crab at night

Freedoms?

This week has been about the same as last week. Living in paradise. So maybe this week I can take a little time and tell what it’s like to go cruising. First no one can tell you what cruising really is. Books are written every day about what cruising is like but dose it really tell you what it’s like. It’s just the way someone sees it. To us cruising is when you don’t have to work and have a little time to do what ever you want and you are doing that while you are going some where. We can and have cruise around the country back in the states on our old motor bike. If you look at it the way we do. It doesn’t have to be on a boat. If you are going some where and have to be there at a certain time. I am not sure that is cruising. That’s more of a delivery than a cruise. The biggest question every one ask is “How much dose it cost to go?” No one can answer that either but this is how we have done it for years on a low income. We have never made a lot of money. When we are working we load the boat with what we needed to not work for 3 months or more. Any less time off is almost just a vacation. We load the boat. Can corn and sweet peas. All the can goods we need, flour and cornmeal, soap and toilet paper. We only put in maybe a days running of fuel. This way we can stop and buy enough fuel that the marina don’t mind giving us water and us leaving our trash. Maybe every 2 weeks we try and find a cheap dock or dingy dock. We can have a major laundry day and fill up on water. Do some shopping. Walk around and see the place. We have even found some quick little jobs to make our cruising kitty last a little longer. Its like we once fixed a sail on a schooner that took out people on one hour sails and the owner paid for our dock for the night. Gave Pam a tee shirt and filled up our ice box to the top with ice. We had to use up some ice before we could put any thing in it. All money is not green and you can only find little jobs like that at the dock. We are famous for sailing a lot and not going very far. Maybe no more that 20 miles a day of sailing. “Not motoring.”To get there and stay a day or two. Going slow has worked for us but we know people that want GO. If they can’t make a hundred miles a day. That is why no one can tell you what it like and really how to do it. How much dose it cost to cruises this way. We have made a lot of trips with less than a $100 a week but remember the boat is already loaded. It’s hard to explain how good it feels to be leaving Virginia or the Carolinas. “Going south” in December with the boat loaded with groceries and maybe $800 or less in cash in your pocket. Taking the winter off. We may start thinking about getting a job in the spring. That time of year a little snow storm can make a good day even better. Anchored in some little place with our little wood heater going. We have no place we have to be. How has it changed since we left the states. It cost more. People that say it cost less. I don’t know how they live but if something breaks it cost more to fix it. Getting it shipped in cost and you have to wait weeks or mouths. On top of every thing else you have to pay duty tax on it. Then finding someone skilled enough to fix something “right” can be hard. Fuel is higher and sometimes dirty. Trying to get the water and dirt out of it. Will cost you if you don’t. So why do people say its cheaper. Some of it is. It cost you a lot less to get sick down here. We have no problem with the doctors in Central America. Remember that most people don’t work by the hour but by the day here and a days pay is less most of the time than 20 dollars a day. So a trip to see a good doctor is less than 10 bucks. You don’t need a prescription for medicine here. They don’t sell hard drugs here in the pharmacies but if you need an antibiotic you can by it cheap. Just walk in and buy what you want. If you know what you want. If you don’t a good doctor will tell you. In the right place you can buy vegetables cheap but not all the time. Some time it’s higher and not really good. In the Rio Dulce in Guatemala, there is a lot of vegetables cheap but it’s recuts from the fields in the valley, it’s what is left when farmers sell there crops to be shipped north and then sell what is left that won’t ship. Maybe to ripe or to big. A lot that is sold in the Rio is to big to be really good but it’s cheap. Remember this. Most people in Central America eat rice and beans with tortita bread every meal. Sometimes they have some eggs and some times a little thin cut meat. “ There is no trained butchers here“. but always rice and beans. If you can live off that. You can live cheap. If vegetables are cheap to us it maybe high to some one that makes a buck fifty an hour and has 5 kids so they eat rice and beans. If it cost more to live “well” down here and it always “ hot “ here. Why is it that every one call this paradise. I believe it’s just so different than the way we live in the states. So much slower. It’s definitely simpler to live here. People that don’t have much don’t have to work as hard as people with a lot. Maybe the biggest thing is how free you are here. There is some rules but not many. There is no one complaining that you have a clothesline. That you are riding in the back of a pickup. If you buy some land here and build a hut or a house there will not be anyone coming to inspect it. There is no one telling you how many people can ride on a bus or a motor scooter. The rule in most of Central America for how many can ride. “ At least one more.” That is the way every thing is down here. If it works for you. Do it. Nothing runs on time here. If you go to see a parade. “ No One” will know when it’s going to happen. They will say sometime this afternoon. When will it happen. When enough people show up. Then they will have a parade. There is always something different to see when you are cruising and remember you are going some where else soon so if you like it where you are you stay longer but if you don’t, You Leave. That is a freedom in its self. I truly believe it’s the freedom that makes people say it paradise. There is a Spanish word. “Tranqullo” “Tran- kee- low” It means, “ Take it easy.” There is a freedom in taking it easy sometimes. Even if it has been only for a few month at a time for us but we have done it for most of our lives now. We are reminded often of that in the states. That is why people there say we don’t have any money. We spent to much time taking it easy. How that we are living on Social Security. Come to think about it. We are not to far from the people that live on 20 dollars a day and take care of there families. There is a freedom in not having to have a lot to fit in with your neighbors. We will never really fit in down here. They think we are rich being retired and my feet are to big. Most people are small here. A ten and half is a big shoe size down here and with Pam’s red hair, she’s not hard to find in a crowd of women with long black hair but we do fit in well enough that I get to use what little Spanish I know every day like “?que es eso” “What is that?” They will always stop laugh and take time to show you. Maybe that is the biggest part of this being paradise. How easy it is to live with these people and just how easy it is to live here. Remember my favorite word in Spanish. “Tranqullo” Now all you have to do is learn how to do it and maybe you will find paradise. Where ever you are.

Passion Fruit

Street Food

 

Fried Plantains

Island Time “Late Blog?”

It’s raining here today. It’s been raining here for a week now. I am sure the people that have come here for a week of fun and sun are disappointed. Roatan is the biggest of the Bay Islands where people fly in for a week of sun and fun and it’s set up here for that. It’s a relief for us to have rain. In all of Central America along the coast the weather is almost the same. It’s always hot. It may be hot and windy. It may be hot and raining but what ever it is, “It’s hot!” We have learned to live with it. They say you will get use to it. We have not. You find shade. We have a canvas cover over half of our boat. You need that here to make shade. We wear big straw hats. If you go to a restaurant, you set where the wind can hit you. “Less bugs, Less flies.” If you go shopping, you go about 10am. They “May be open” and it’s the coolest time of the day. Almost no store has air-condition. Go before 9am, you will be rolling the dice on when they will be open. The people here have lived with it being hot all of there lives. They stay in the shade or they time when they are doing something to stay out of the sun. If you go to where there is a lot of cruiser together you will find at least some that will tell you quickly that they love the sun and it being hot. They will go on for a while about not ever going back any where in the great frozen United States. Where ever you go down here you never see people trying to be in the sun. If you do it’s always people from across the border from the states and Canada. I don’t understand why any one would want to look like that. There is a man here that will be in your face if you say you miss a little cool weather. His face is so sun burnt his face bleeds if he washes it. I hate to look at him when I talk to him. When you see local women here, hey never stay out in the sun and they are some good looking women here. Most of the Latino women are pretty. Even the older women. They don’t seem to gain weight here as fast as they do in the states. There is a lot of different people in Central America. The Latinos are the ones that are trying to live in a more modern world.
Here is a beautiful Latino girl that is 19 with a full time job and going to school taking more classes. Working a side job as a clown. Working a birthday party to make extra money. She is not 5 foot tall and a ball of energy. We thought she was wonderful. Remember she could speak two languages English as well as Spanish before she stared school. I wish her the best in the world she will help create.

The clown made us a green balloon dog

The young lady out of costume

We have a little time left on our rent at the dock. When that is up we want to go on cursing but its hurricane season. Where can we go cruising. Where can we go if one comes our way. When you live on a boat like we have for a long time you check the weather daily to watch for any disturbances.
As always we will be leaving our new fiends behind when we leave and Pam has made a few that she will miss. She has a humming bird feeder on the post near the cockpit of our boat and they have found out that there is a connection with her and being fed. If it runs out they will fly in the cockpit or fly in your face if you are walking down the dock. Remember they can hover like a helicopter. Have you ever looked a mean hungry humming bird in the eye. “It’s scary”

Hummingbirds are always hungry

 

July 4th?

When Pam and I were dreaming about going cruising. We wondered what it would be like being so far from home on a Holiday. We know now. There is no holiday. It’s just another day. Christmas is Christmas in a lot of places but the 4th of July. Just another day. The island of Roatan, Honduras where we are is a tourist island. It’s beautiful here. That is why so many tourist come here and the island is dotted with resorts. If you were born here and live here. You can’t go to these beaches or resorts with out paying big bucks. They’re private beaches now with guards. Set up to keep the people that come here busy and in the resorts. You can leave but no one wants too. These resorts are set up to take your money keep you busy and happy. Tourist never see what the island is really like. You see very few tourist in the towns or the stores. The resorts had some little fire works for the 4th for the tourist. The locals only know it’s something the tourist do. We saw a little fire works across from Fantasy Island on French Island. Another resort. We have a Satellite TV at the dock here with a few programs in English so we watched the hurricane go by Southport, NC this week. Think about this. What if you have to get all of your news from CNN or Fox news. We had not seen TV in two years when we came to the dock here. The world was falling apart the last time we saw a TV and if you watch the news down here it’s still falling apart. We hope Southport made out okay. We have some great memories of the 4th of July there. When we were in Southport building our boat. We wondered what it would be like to be here in the Caribbean. Now we are here wondering what is going on in Southport. Southport has the State 4th of July Festival. It’s a big deal with days of thing to do and see. We may have celebrated a little in our on way down here. We had hot dogs with Pam’ own home made chilly. They have wieners and buns through out Central America. Pam made chilly the same way our family and we have always had chilly for hot dogs. To top that off add a side off French Fries. No 4th of July is complete with out hot dogs and French Fries. How ever down here they fry plantains like potatoes. Let me make this clear. I can not speak Spanish. Just words and I can not tell what is what with things that grow here. I have to ask but there is a plantain here that taste like a potato. The owners here cut down a tree and gave us some. That is how most locals get banana or plantains. They say, the tree is finished so cut it down. The cook at the marina helped us cook some the first time. Peel them, slice them, Fry them in hot oil add salt and ketchup. Right from the tree to the pan with in minutes. It’s hard to tell the difference from a good potato. Its hard for me to believe this because I have had some real bad plantains in restaurants down here. There are not the same every time we have eaten them. They know the different ways to cook them and the different type of plantains to cook. I have had the little ones that were awful looking. Black mushy fried with a little sugar sprinkled on top served with fresh strawberries. This is very good. We have had plantains cooked like mashed potato. Not so good but eatable if you are real hungry. I maybe could learn to live with that. Remember this. Potato are definitely not the same every where down here. A lot of potatoes we found in Mexico, you just couldn’t bake it long enough to get it soft. There is a sweet potato here that is hard as a brick and don’t look so good but when baked, it’s soft, it’s good. It is a sweet potato. We cook them all the time with pork.
People say. “When you miss out on something you can never get it back.” Maybe we have made up the difference by going to their Independence Day Parades in Guatemala and Honduras. It’s not the same but it was fun. We hope where ever you are at, whether you celebrate the 4th are not, you had a good week.
I like potato pan cakes. I wonder what a plantain pan cake will taste like?

Fried Plantains

 

 

More Pics, Honduras

A Good Day we just got our cruising permit for 90 more days

We just cut plantains off the tree. Now we fry them.