November 25, 2007
Barefoot Cay Marina
Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras
What a great day!
Yesterday we took a taxi down to West End,
a spot that isn’t mentioned in any of the cruising guides
for Roatan. It’s essentially a marine sanctuary, and the
town consists of alternating dive shops and bars along a
road, of sorts, that’s nothing more than graded beach sand
with gigantic potholes every six feet to keep traffic under
control.
After meeting up with Bob and Annette
from Tempest, we strolled along the street and poked
into some of the shops, ending up at Eagle Ray’s for lunch
and an unobstructed view of the ocean. We picked up a new
snorkel for Ole and a set of dive skins for Jan after the
dubious pleasure of being stung repeatedly by jellyfish
plankton in Utila. We decided to come back today to rent a
scooter and take a little tour.
O’Neal from Captain Van’s scooter
rentals gave us maps with the highlights of Roatan, and off
we went – first, out to West Bay, where most of the gringo
development is going on – and boy oh boy, development there
is. You can get a 5,000 square foot villa with beachfront
for a cool million, or a 1200 square foot condo for
$250,000. Everything is first class – granite, marble,
hardwoods, stainless steel, grand architecture. But they
forgot they’re on an island in a third-world country, where
the electricity is considered reliable if it only goes out
once a day. We chatted with a woman from Maui who moved
here with her sister to start an espresso shop, who said
that starting a business on Maui is prohibitively
expensive. She and her sister put together a great little
place called Cool Beans in West Bay, and rented a house for
a few months, finally tearing their hair out over the lack
of infrastructure. The shop owners in the mall got together
and built condos above the shops and chipped in on their own
generator so at least they have reliable power. Finding
groceries is a different challenge, as the one big grocery
store is in French Harbor, on the other end of the island –
and they get stocked once a week from the mainland.
Once we left West Bay, we stopped a few
places on the crest of the island for the obligatory view
shots, and noticed a jungle zip line tour with 20 zip runs
through the rain forest canopy. Nope, said Ole. So we
worked our way to the first recommended stop – a local
artist called “Mad Marvin.” Mad Marvin got his name because
he used to sign his work “Mad by Marvin,” leaving out a
crucial vowel. A charming, happy man, he greeted us with a
grace and formality that seemed really out of place in his
rough front yard/studio. He apologized profusely that he
didn’t have much small work to show us as the cruise ship
passengers buy him out every time they come through.
When we finished with Mad Marvin, we
started looking for a place to have lunch, and stopped at
Coral Cay – a mega-buffet restaurant with marine park
obviously cruise-ship inspired. Sundays feature an
all-you-can-eat Caribbean buffet for $10, and we were
pleased first of all that there wasn’t a ship in, and second
of all, that there were a lot of local families enjoying the
place. It was a bit sanitary, but perfect for its intended
audience, with a huge beach laid out with rows of
identically pristine beach chairs and raked sand, just
waiting for the two ships that will call in on Tuesday.
After lunch, we went east just past French
Harbor, to Sherman Arch’s “World Famous Iguana Farm and
Marine Park.” Sherman and his son, Henry, were having a
family Thanksgiving, but welcomed us in and gave us a
personal tour of the place. It seems that the native
species of black iguana has been hunted nearly to
extinction, and nearly 30 years ago, Sherman and his family
began feeding and protecting a few iguanas on their
property. Their charges now number in the thousands. When
we parked the scooters and walked just 25 feet past the
sign, we met what must have been 25% of Sherman’s iguana
population. The photos can barely do justice to how amazing
it is to see so many of them in one place.
Sherman has named many of them,
and considers them his friends. He told me that when you
stroke their foreheads, they close their eyes in pleasure
just like cats. Once we had hypnotized a few, he asked us
if we wanted to see an iguana stampede – and tossed a
handful of ripe bananas into the pack – the video speaks for
itself. (Note: It's a 7 mb file and may take
awhile to load.)
As we headed back toward the west end of
the island, we passed through the outskirts of French
Harbor, your typically gritty Caribbean settlement. When we
passed the power plant we understood why one power outage a
day is exceptionally good. The power plant is a series of
diesel generators that live in old boxcars, strung together
in an almost symmetrical way,
We were really looking forward to the last
stop at Anthony’s Cay for a free dolphin show at their
marine park. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told
there would be no show (dolphins don’t work on Sundays).
Although we were disappointed, we enjoyed a look around the
property. It would be a great place to come spend a week.
In addition to the “swim with the dolphins” activity that
has become very popular, they have a couple of more advanced
activities, including working with a dolphin trainer for a
day and getting to know your own personal dolphin – which
would be an amazing thing to do.
Given it was moving on toward 4:30 when we
left Anthony’s Cay, we opted to turn in the scooters and
walk to the end of the road to the Barefoot Bar and Grill
for pina coladas (best so far on the trip, far surpassing
the homemade ones), a sunset, and 8,462,573 mosquitos.
Thank god the Barefoot Bar and Grill hospitality included
complimentary Off on request.
