Monkey Ambush in Honduras

Posted by Christopher

This duck is not afraid of iguanas, no matter how big they are.

We’ve arrived in a sort of marina resort called on Roatan, where tourists and boaters alike (and they ARE alike) can stay. Essentially, it is a nice resort for Honduras, called Fantasy Island where there are lots of things to do and see. Luckily we’ve seen nicer pristine beaches than the one here, and so while all the tourists are swimming and making sandcastles, we’re free to frolic around an almost empty resort doing what we will without lines!

Enjoying a game of pool in the shady lobby of the Fantasy Island Hotel.

One of the things here that we’ve kept coming back to, is a little area that they have here where they keep a bunch of tropical animals, for you to just wander around and observe. They have a wide range of animals including parrots, ducks and roosters, massive iguanas, rabbits (they’re more like big hamsters on tall legs, but that’s what the locals call them) and MONKEYS.

The locals call these things rabbits.  Their other name is Watusa, and they are members of the guinea pig family.

So as a family we decided to go in and look around at all the animals. I almost immediately spotted monkeys once we were in, and they were leaping from tree to tree epically,  as monkeys do. So we kept looking around and we were about to leave, when one of the monkeys jumped down to a tree just near me. I thought it was pretty cool that I got to see a cute little monkey that close but then It began to edge out on its branch. I wasn’t sure whether to run as fast as I could or to stand and watch, so I made a split second decision to stay- which was the wrong decision.

I stood my ground as the monkey moved closer and then realized that he was going to jump. He leapt off the branch straight at me flying at me and so I flinched away, leaning. The monkey seemed confused and so he grabbed  himself by his tail and then went back to the tree. I was immobilized by laughter and couldn’t run away, so within a second he had jumped again. This time I ran away and didn’t look back, but I’m sure he grabbed the tree with his tail because he was back on the tree again. We soon left after that, but that was not the end of the monkeys.

Hey, look, a monkey!  Cool...

... uh, oh, what's he up to?...

AAAAAUGH!

Monkey Attack!

Katie and I decided we would come back to the animal place. As we walked in a monkey leapt on the ground in front of us. I thought it was adorably cute, until it went at Katie. It started slapping her legs and as much as Katie was freaked out, I thought it wasn’t horrible, considering that the monkey wasn’t doing any real damage. and then he started to slap me in the legs as well, as another jumped down and started moving in. I realized that we probably were encroaching on their territory so I backed myself out the entrance. I managed to get myself out, but I realized that Katie had the monkeys between her and the exit. I called to her and told her to jump over them and so she did. We both started to run then, down the dirt path that lead to the marina but one of the monkeys was at my heels and another was chasing us from the trees, moving as fast as we were.

After about twenty meters of running I realized that the monkeys had let up and gone back to the animal place. So we walked back to the boat, heart’s pounding.

I guess it is best to leave the animals alone to enjoy their meal.

Mango Creek Has Good Coconuts

Posted by Katie and Scot

Mmmmm, fresh coconuts right off the tree.

Mango Creek is a friendly little hotel on the edge of a bay.    They have 4 small houses on stilts and one big house on the water.  The day we got  there I was really exited to learn how to drive the dinghy since the day before I had started driving a little.  Alexander and Mom came with me to make sure I didn’t flip the boat.  We drove around to explore and soon started to come back to the boat.

Katie is getting pretty good at driving the dinghy.

When we got closer to the boat mom suggested we pick up dad who was on the boat and go check out the hotel place.  The reason we did not pick up Christopher  was because dad wanted to see the bar but Christopher didn’t really have any thing to see much so we left him in peace.

Enjoying the downwind sail from Gunaja to Roatan.

The dingy purred around some bouys and into the harbour.  We hopped off the dingy and walked into the woods to tour the jungle.  Trees stretched down from their trunks and bugs zipped around us.  We walked across a path of stone tiles, admiring the scenery and wild life.  Birds sang and tweeted in the trees parrots glided by as fountains twinkled to our right. When we finally decided there was nothing more to see in the woods we started off to see the bar.  Right beside the end of the trail we spotted a bunch of tubes sticking out of the ground making a small dome.  In the dome a few sticks were nailed together  to make a little bird play set.  We thought it was that because two lime green parrots were stepping around on it only there wasn’t much of a reason they should have been there because the dome wasn’t keeping them in.  The pipes were still there but there wasn’t any barbed wire or any thing  the birds could just fly away if they wanted.  We talked to the birds for a bit and then decided it was bar time.

Playing darts at Mango Creek resort.

Once we got into the bar I already liked it. In the left hand corner  was a dart board and some bathrooms and by the  door was a chess board.  Just then a lady came up to us  and (just) asked “Would you like some coconut water?”  My mind went ‘Heck yeah’ and apparently my parents were thinking the same thing because they answered with a ‘that would be wonderful’ and soon we were watching a man chop open four coconuts!

Yeah!  Coconut water is yummy.

Dad adds:

The boys enjoying a game of chess at the Mango Creek Lodge.

After the extremely friendly staff at Mango Creek showed us around the property, and treated us to coconuts and freshly baked cookies, we made arrangements with them to come back for breakfast in the morning.  Normally, they only cook for guests of the resort, but since they weren’t busy, they were happy to make us breakfast.

Sailor is one of the dogs who greets guests at Mango Creek.

The next morning, bright and early, we hopped in the dinghy and headed back into the resort.  The breakfast was great, with bacon, scrambled eggs, toast and fresh papaya.  We also got to meet the resort managers, Doc and DD.

Mmmm, awesome breakfast.

They have only been managing the resort for 9 months, after having been cruisers themselves for upwards of 12 years.  They are working hard to upgrade the resort, and have plans to try and attract more boats as well as keep up their land-based clientele.  They couldn’t have been more friendly or gracious.  After breakfast, they let us bring Monashee in to fill up our tanks with the pure spring water they enjoy at the resort, for free!  This is a big deal in the world of cruisers, since on most islands they charge anywhere from 10 cents to 50 cents per gallon of water.

Doc and DD have some great stories to share about their cruising years, and about their new lives managing Mango Creek.

Filling our tanks with fresh spring water at the Mango Creek dock.

If you are planning to be sailing in the Bay Islands, or are looking for a great out of the way escape to go fishing, scuba diving, or just really get away from it all, you should check out the Mango Creek Lodge on Roatan.

About as waterfront as you can get.  Unless you are on a boat.

Movie Time!

Posted by Scot

A few days ago, Alexander promised we would post some video we shot while sailing from the Caymans to Honduras.  We finally have internet fast enough to upload video, so here it is!

If you are sick of watching dolphins swimming off our boat, and don't like sunsets at sea, then don't watch this.  (Maybe instead, you should take the time to re-examine your life, and see if you can figure out exactly when you became so jaded!)

For everyone else, join us for a few minutes aboard Monashee as we sail along with a pod of dolphins more than a hundred nautical miles out to sea, then watch the sun sink into the horizon before the night watch begins.

El Bight

 Posted by Scot

We found out the remarkable building on the rock behind us is a hotel, called the Villa on Dunbar Rock.  You can check out their website here.

So far, Honduras has been a pleasant surprise.  We didn’t really know what to expect when we came here.  At least for me, I had kind of imagined this as a stepping stone to Guatemala and Belize, and hadn’t thought too much about Honduras as a destination in it’s own right.

Some of the scenery from El Bight.

But as it turns out, El Bight on Guanaja has been one of the best anchorages we have been in so far.  It is a great combination.  There are enough boats here that we don’t have the same “end of the world” feeling we had in parts of the Bahamas.  At the same time, there is lots of room, and we don’t feel crowded.  The nice thing about having some other boats around is that we have been able to meet a few other cruisers, and have gotten some advice about what to see and where to go from here.

Channel into the jungle.  I explored up here a bit on the kayak.

The anchorage is really well protected, but we are far enough out from shore to have had a good breeze the whole time.  This has kept the temperature bearable.  Last night, we didn’t even need to run the fan in our cabin.  And it has kept the bugs down.  We have been warned about the sand fleas around here, but so far, they haven’t been a problem.

Hurricane Mitch tore Guanaja down to bare soil in 1998.  The greenery has rebounded, but you can still see it's impact all over the island.

To top it all off, there are some interesting things to see around here.  I have already mentioned Bonacca, the settlement on stilts, that is just a few minutes away by dinghy.

Fly fishermen from a nearby resort.

This guy has hung out next to our boat for several days now.

Just past Bonacca, there is a channel cut through the island that takes you from the south shore to the north.  We went through there a couple of days ago, and came into a beautiful, protected bay.  Apparently Columbus landed somewhere near there when he first “discovered” Honduras.

The water here is so clear, the dinghy looks like it is levitating.

Near Columbus's 1502 landing site.

Yesterday, we took took the dinghy a couple of miles in the other direction to a remarkable little resort called “Graham’s Place”, on Josh’s Cay (also called Graham’s Cay).  If you ever really want to feel like you have gotten away from it all, Graham’s is the place.  The island is small, and the resort encompasses the whole place.  When they are full, there are only 60 guests.  You can walk around the whole island in about 10 minutes.  There are villas that are literally about 8 steps from the water on the beach.  There is a bar and restaurant on site.  Graham also keeps a bunch of “pets” including parrots, fish and sea turtles.  I don’t think the rooms are super high end, but it was a great place to spend the afternoon.
 

Relaxing at Graham's Place.

Enjoying the walk around Graham's Cay.

We have been learning about the history of bananas in Central America.  The politics are fascinating.  You can learn a bit about it on a podcast here.

We explained to the kids that "rescue turtles" did not mean that they were specially trained to rescue people.

I Don’t Think We’re In The Caymans Anymore!

Posted by Alexander

I made a new friend on the beach on our last day on Grand Cayman.

We left the Caymans something like three days ago. We were supposed to reach Honduras a day ago. Food supplies are running low. If this reaches anybody please send help.

Naw I’m kidding, we made it so you can quit phoning the Coast Guard. The passage took three days and it was tiring and sort of cool. We left the Caymans prepared to be sick and tired by the end, but Mom and Katie had gotten something to help with that. Sea Bands. These cool little wristbands with acupressure knobs that push against your wrist. They’re supposed to help you not feel seasick and they worked! I don’t know if they are actually doing anything or it’s all just in our heads but one way or another nobody got very sick.

Cuddles, modelling the Sea Bands.

Katie, also modelling the Sea Bands. 

While we were under way we had a system for watches. I would do the first watch which was early in the night. This would give everybody a chance to rest a bit. Then Dad would watch for the middle of the night, Mom would go till morning and then Christopher would let us all rest and take over. It worked well and nobody drowned so that’s a success if you ask me.

We stopped on a little island called Isla Santanilla, or Swan island. This was a tiny little place that probably didn’t even appear on most maps. We decided to stop for a few hours, have lunch, take a break and head on out. We had to deal with Hondurans however.

Christopher, keeping watch.

Mom had to dodge these guys during one of her watches.  Good thing she was keeping a close eye out.

They had a little shack and a dock but no boat. They were there for the government. To keep an eye out for rebels or something like that. They told us they had been there for two months. They must have been really bored and we went over to show them our papers and stuff. They only spoke Spanish so Dad and I took a radio with us in the dingy when we went over to meet them. That way Mom could translate if needed. So Dad and I were over there and there were only a few problems. One was no one spoke English. Two was our papers were written in English. Three, it was very unsettling to be in these people’s presence because every single one of them had a huge rifle slung over their shoulders.

I was able to provide some help with the Spanish, Mom helped out too. Another man came up and was smarter than the others. He looked at the papers and would make gestures like “Is that the size of the boat?” Dad would nod. “That’s the name?” Dad would nod again. In this way we managed to work everything out and be on our way again as planned.

Coming in to anchor for a break at Swan Island.

The day after that was the day of the Dolphins. In the morning Dad saw a huge pod come and swim with the boat. Two more came in the evening. It was quite exciting. Dad thought that we could hop down and ski on the Dolphins but nobody really gave it a try.  We got some video of the dolphins, which we will try to post tomorrow if the internet is fast enough. The next day we arrived at Honduras.

Coming in to the Settlement on Guanaja, Honduras.

To be more specific we arrived in the Bay Islands. To be even more specific the island called Guanaja. It is a very green place and I like it. Dad and I did customs again and thankfully no one was armed. After that we went and found a nice anchorage and here we are. It’s very nice even if it’s rained a lot. It’s very cool to be in Honduras because my friend Nik is from here ( Shout-out to Nik!). Anyway I have some math to do so I will write to you all next time.

The Bay Islanders seem to like to build houses on top of things.  This building is on a big rock, just behind where we are anchored.

The Guanaja Ha Ha.

Posted by Scot

There is an annual cruiser’s rally from California to the Baja peninsula in Mexico that is called the “Baja Ha Ha”.  So I am officially calling our trip from the Caymans to Guanaja, Honduras the “Guanaja Ha Ha”.

While it may not seem that far to seasoned sailors, the 300 mile crossing from Grand Cayman to Guanaja is by far the longest we have undertaken to date.  It was surprising, then, that neither Sara or I felt too much trepidation leading up to it.  In fact, it was one of the least stressful crossings we have had.  Maybe we are beginning to get used to this sailing thing.

We started by leaving the Barcadere Marina and heading around to the West Bay side of Grand Cayman, so we could check out with customs.  The Caymans have thoughtfully made a provision for departing sailors, so that they can purchase their fuel duty free.  This saves about 15% on the total cost, which can add up to quite a bit.  Unfortunately, you can’t get duty free fuel without your departure papers, and you can’t get your departure papers without going to the customs office, which was about a 4 hour trip by boat or a $50.00 taxi ride away from the marina, where they sell the fuel.  So, in the end, the duty free fuel turned out to be a nice idea in theory, but difficult to implement in practice.  We filled up before we left the marina, and decided to just pay the duty.

Monashee, back in West Bay on Grand Cayman, hanging out with the cruise ship crowd.

After a big night on the town in Georgetown, taking advantage of all the great things we wouldn’t be seeing for a while (Dairy Queen, Subway, and back to the boat by 6:00 p.m.), we turned in early.  Sara and I set the alarm for 2:30 a.m., and by 0300 we were on our way.  Interestingly, this turned out to be a popular time to set out.  Two freighters left at more or less the same time, and we had to alter course almost right away to avoid getting run down by one of them.  It was a good thing I had overhead them on the VHF telling Port Security that they were leaving.  Otherwise, it would have been easy to confuse their running lights with the lights of the city, and not see them at all.  Although our AIS showed them clearly, so I guess it was not really that close a thing.

One last paddle on Grand Cayman before heading out to sea.

We also went for one last snorkel, on a wreck near our mooring.

After helping me get us underway, Sara went back to bed, and I stayed up to finish out the night and early morning.  We had timed our passage with a mild weather window, and true to the forecast, we had very little wind, which meant we motored through most of the first night.  While it is always nicer to sail, on the longer passages, it is great to have calm seas.  Everyone sleeps and eats better that way, and is generally happier.

Leaving Grand Cayman at 3 in the morning.

The next day, the tradewinds came up, and we were able to move along nicely under sails alone.  In fact, we were making such good time that we started to be concerned about arriving too early, and getting to Gunaja in the dark, although it was still too far away to estimate accurately.  The day was straightforward, with everyone taking turns watching for ships.  At one point we crossed what seemed like a freighter lane.  In the matter of a few hours we saw AIS targets for 4 different ships.  None came closer than 3 miles though.  The rest was just empty ocean, all day.  Katie kept her usual spot on the bow, where she seems happy to while away the hours “imagining”.  The rest of us kept ourselves busy with books, video games, naps and meals when we weren’t taking turns on watch.  The wind remained steady, so we didn’t really have to adjust the sails at all.

Snug as two bugs, on a comfortable passage.

As the second night fell, we decided we were going a bit faster than we wanted.  Instead of slowing our sailing down a bunch, we altered course slightly to head for the Swan Islands, which are two small Honduran islands in the middle of the Caribbean, about 150 miles from any where.  They are really remote, and there is pretty much no way to get there other than by private boat.  Take a minute and look them up on Google Earth.  If you didn’t know to look for them, you wouldn’t really know they were there.

The plan was to pull in there the next day for a few hours, and reset our timing for a better arrival in Guanaja.  As the sun came up, we could see the islands in the distance.  As I took over the watch at 0630, we had our first dolphin visit of the passage, with a pod of about 25 dolphins coming to play in our bow wake and welcome the day.  Sara delayed going back to bed to sit on the bow seats and watch them with me.

A welcome sunrise after our second night on passage.

We pulled into the small, semi-protected anchorage on the west end of the Swan Islands (also known as Isla Santanilla, or Isla Cisne) at around 11:30.  We had read about the small military presence that keeps a watch over this Honduran possession.  Still, it hadn’t occurred to us how it would feel to be in such a remote place with seven twenty-something year olds, all greeting us with very serious looks and automatic weapons hanging at their sides (M-16s?  I’m not sure, but that is what they looked like to me, based on my movie knowledge of guns).

We actually got kind of a weird vibe from these guys.  They really didn’t seem all that welcoming or friendly. After we anchored and brought our dinghy over to their dock, they wrote our details down in their coil bound notebook.  Then, they asked us to bring the big boat over to the concrete dock.  They didn’t really seem to have a reason, and we politely declined, since we didn’t want our boat scraping up and down against the huge dock in the swell.  Maybe we were paranoid from lack of sleep after a couple of nights at sea, but neither of us felt like we really wanted to spend too much time there.

The dock at Isla Cisne.  Not the most welcoming place to tie up our boat, although the beach was nice.

Once again, Sara’s Spanish came in very handy.  Without her, I wouldn’t really have had much idea what was going on.

We were comfortable enough to relax for a nap and a meal, though, before heading out at about 1430.  We had calculated that even with a strong tradewind on a beam reach, that timing would be sure to get us to Guanaja in the daylight.

Of course, after having stopped and killed a few hours, it turned out the wind had stopped as well, so we ended up motoring or motor sailing the rest of the way.  We had two more dolphin visits that day, for a record number of three in one day.  One came about an hour after leaving Isla Cisne.  Then, once again just as the sun was setting, we had more dolphins come to wish us goodnight.

CBC podcasts helped pass the time.  I think Christopher is listening to "Laugh Out Loud."  Note that pajamas are apparently appropriate attire for an entire 3 day passage.

Our last night of the passage was pretty straightforward, with little wind, and again, little waves.  Everyone slept well.  Before he went to bed, Alexander and I turned off our running lights so we could see the bioluminescence in our wake.  It was beautiful.  It looked like we were shooting tiny little green fireworks out behind us as we went.  I have no idea what the adaptive advantage is for sea critters to bioluminescence, but I think it is one of nature’s greatest tricks.  Any biologists out there care to enlighten us? 

The rest of the night was dark, with almost no moon, but lots of stars.  Towards morning, the wind came up, as did the waves, but it clocked around behind us, so we had a nice downwind sleigh ride into Guanaja.  The passage was capped off with the usual frustrating running back and forth between customs and immigration.  “The Settlement”, which is what they call the town on Guanaja, is a remarkable place.  It looks like they started building it on land, but as it grew, instead of building back up the mountainous island, they figured it was easier to build out over the shallow water.  So about half the town is built on stilts.  There are no cars, and no roads, so the whole thing is a warren of alleyways, and all transport to and from town is via little run-about boats.

Land ho!  Guanaja, Honduras.

The Settlement, on Guanaja.

By the time that was all done, and we had gotten money changed, it was 2 p.m.  We headed over to the anchorage at El Bight.  We could tell we were finally in a more common cruising destination at high season, since there were already 12 other boats in the anchorage.  There is plenty of room though, and we are well protected by the fringing reef, so we settled in for a much needed rest.

Glad to be back at anchor, looking out to the reef from our boat on Guanaja.