Sorry for the Absence!

I am back in El Salvador and will be writing an update soon.  There were a number of times on thsi 20 day trip when I did not have internet, so I took pages of notes to help not forget any of the fabulous things I saw and did in Honduras.  Unfortunately, our last camera bit the dust in the middle of the trip, so there are not too many pictures.  Now Mike can stop dragging his feet about ordering a new camera!    After being gone that long, there are a million llittle boat chores to catch up on, although I am pleased with how well the baot did while we were gone.  This is the longest time we have left Magda Jean when not at a marina.  But our neighbors watched out for us, and everything was fine.  Anyway, I will be back on here soon!

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”  (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

 

Honduras Pictures

Here are some pictures of where we have been since arriving in Honduras.  You will see why I run out of superlatives.  Unfortunately, none of our p monkey picture turned out.  I am disappointed, but what can you do?  We couldn't get too close.  I put some of these pictures on Facebook, so I am sorry for those who have already seen some of them. 

Mike dove again today and I snorkled.  I had planned to just read and enjoy the boat, but the water looked too inviting and I had to go in.  I saw new fish, new coral, new plants, and all sorts of unknown creatures - are they creatures or plants?  I feel so lucky to be seeing this stuff. 

This is the Honduran countryside.

This is the jungle canopy in Honduras.

 One of the local merchants in La Ceiba, Honduras.  She is likely selling coconut bread - delicious!

A very large hermit crab.

A wreck in the harbor in Roatan.  We wondered what happened.

Here is the Roatan waterfront. 

This is a wonderful example of a waterfront restaurant here in West End.  We have had plenty of beer here so far!

Roatan Sky - the clouds just add to the beauty.  And when it does rain, it jsut copols things down nicely. Snorkling in the rain is a lot of fun, too.

This is West End, Roatan, Honduras.  We are staying in this little gem of a community and it will be hard to leave.

So now you have an idea of what it looks like here.  But the pictures do not even come clse to really showing how it is here.  Oh I almost forgot - here is Mike and his new best friend - the self-proclaimed Latin Jack Sparrow.

     So - more pictures to come as we explore more and more of this incredible country.  I am enjoying myself here in Central America more than I thought possible.  And the food is fabulous - last night I had conch fritters!  A new wonderful treat! 

“If more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a much merrier world.” (J.R.R. Tolkein)

Roatan!

I almost hate to write this post, because I don't have any pictures ready and Idon't have too much time. I will not be even close to doing this awesome place justice.

I feel I have overused words like "awesome", "amazing", "unbelievable", "fantstic", and so on.  I can't help it though - I have been to so many places that warrent these and any other suprelatives I might be able to come up with.  I guess I will need to start using a thesaurus if I don't want to be redundant as  regards my use of language.  But this place is all of that and more.

We are in the part of the island of Roatan kown as West End.  It is funky, laid back, water-sports oriented, with a lot of young people.  Mike and I are in the minority age-wise.  There are a lot of young people here from all over the world tending bar, running dive trips, teaching various water sports, and that sort of thing.  There is a stron Garifuna influence, and the people have a strong Caribbean lilt to their Spanish.  Some of the Garifuna- descended people speak what sound like a sort of patois.  Everyone is friendly.  The island itself is beautiful - coral reefs, turtquoise water with white sand, mountains along the center in a big ridge, and of course the world's second largest barrier reef.  Hence, Roatan is a diving mecca.

Unfortunately for me, it has not worked out too well - my sinuses are just congested enough that I can't clear my ears.  This has been a problem for me in the past, and I have had problems even when I had no noticable congestion.  But yesterday I went out on teh dive boat anyway, and snorkled around the reefs while the others were diving.  It was, again, all those superlatives I listed earlier adn then some.  So many different kinds of fish, and corals, and sea plants.  I was awed last summer in the Sea of Cortez, but this is entirely different.  The coral, for one thing.  I have never really seen much coral before now, and definitely not the multi-colored ones and just generally all the different kinds.  Too bad we no longer have our underwater camera (lost\stolen at a crowded market last fall), but I think I saw a place where we could rent one for the day, so perhaps I can get Mike to take some pictures later in the week, or I will take some snorkling pictures.  The water is so clear that I could see down into crevices in the reefs that are 30 feet below me.  There were fish of all colors and markings - one kind had sharply delineated scales that made his back look like a mosaic.  I exclaimed out loud and got a mouthful of caribbean sea water.

I kep thinking we ought to bring our boat here and find someplace to anchor.  But then I remember the main reason we are not planning to take the boat here - HURRICANES!  It is not as big a problem on the Pacific side.  (The only other problem:  it would be pretty easy to slide into alcoholism - but that is pretty much the story of this lifestyle, however, that is for another post.)  Mike is terrified of hurricanes because he has been in them while at sea, and found it frightening even on a aircraft carrier, let alone a small boat.  Magda Jean is safe where she is - we are out of the Pacific hurricane belt - and we are anchored in an estuary, so the biggest problem is wind, rather than waves.  And the estuary is well protected on all sides.  Which, of course, is why so many people leave their boats at the Bahia Del Sol for the hurricane season. 

Well, it is time to head out for the day.  Mike is diving, and I am going to ride along on the boat, swim a bit, and read a book.   I really enjoy being on a boat that I have no responsibility for running or sailing or cleaning or anything.  I will download some pictures as soon as we can!

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”   (Jacques-Yves Cousteau)

            

Enjoying Honduras

Here I am in Honduras at Macaw Mountain Bird Sanctuary. The birds were amazing but a little scary, they were so big. 

Honduras has been wonderful.  it is different from El Salvador - no volcanos, so the architecture in the towns is older because they have not been destroyed by eruptions.  There are some problems with earthquakes, and Hurricane Mitch did a tremendous amount of damage in the late ninties and a lot of people got killed.  It is very rural, and there is a lot of agriculture which has led to a lot of deforestation.  In fact, El Salvador is the only country in Central American that plants more trees than they cut down.  But they do have awesome jungles here - we will be spending three days at a jungle lodge in about a week or so.

This little guy was not very nice.  He kept trying to bite Mike's shoes.  Toucans are very bad flyers, so they jump from tree to tree. They also jump quickly on the ground, too.  When he started looking at my feet, I backed away quickly. 

We also went to the Mayan ruins at Copan, which is close to the border with Guatemala.  The ruins are not the tall, imposing structures one sees at Chichen Itza or Palenque in Mexico, but the quality of the carvings are superb.  Here is an example.

There were many of these all over the grounds.  The detail is phenominal.  We have been to so many of these ruins that we are starting to recognize the different deities, even though they are a little different at every site.  Tlaloc is the rain god, and he always has big teeth.  He is our favorite - we always offer up a thought or two for more rain. (Rain cools things down considerably, and for a small but wonderful amount of time after the rain, the humidity is down as well.) 

Honduras, being on the Caribbean instead of the Pacific ocean, is more humid than where we are living in El Salvador.  And  the water is so warm and nice!  We took a tour of a national park here yesterday, and got to swim and snorkle in the warm water.  Because it had rained recently and we were near an estuary, the visbility was not great.  but it was great anyway.

Our driver, however, needs practice swimming!  When Mike and I jumped off the boat (we brought Ernesto on many of our tours and stuff) Ernesto followed  along.  He immediately started a strong, fast crawl and was very soon exausted.  Mike and I had to pretty much babysit him all the way to the shore. 

Having a driver has its ups and downs.  We have spent way too much money on him, mostly because we are weak and unable to draw proper boundaries.  I am going to have to learn that there needs to be a distance between service providers and us - I know this sounds terrible and snobbish, but without strict boundaries, things get too blurry.  He was beginning to act as though this was a vacation for the three of us, rather than him being our driver, for which he is getting paid quite well. But because we like him, well, it is hard at times.  While we are certanily not rich by US standards, we are rich by  Central American standards and even by cruising standards, since many people are living off a kitty and periodically return to the US to work and rebuild the kitty.  We have an income stream that is more than adequate for this part of the world - we can pretty much afford the best of everything.  That sort of makes people think they can take advantage of that, knowing that we can technically afford to do what it is that they want us to do.  I am not used to that - not used to being thought of as a cash cow.  I don't really like that and am not comfortable with it.  I don't want to have to think about whether people actually like me or are just interested  in the money they think I have.  Mike is the king of the tippers, so that doesn't help us keep a low profile.  But so be it. This is something new and I will learn how to handle it.  I never thought that actually having money could be as big a hassle as not having it - but as the saying goes, I have been rich and I have been poor and rich is better.  I have no idea who said that - maybe Groucho Marx.

Anyway, the national park was also amazing.  We saw howler monkeys in the wild.  I have never seen monkeys outside of zoos.  These guys are bigger than I thought they would be, and the howling noise they make is pretty intimidating.  The tourists were urged not to smile at them, because when you smile you show your teeth, and showing your teeth is what monkeys do with each other when they are getting ready to fight. 

Honduras has more different ethnicities that I have seen in El Salvador.  There is a group of people known as Garifunas, who are descended from African slaves and Arawak Indians.  These people escaped from slave ships and settled here in Honduras and Belize.  They have their own music and dances and customs.  The mixture of European, Garifuna, Indian, and Mestizo makes for really attractive looking people.  Hondurans are a bit more reserved (except for the Garifuna who are quite outgoing) than Salvadorans, but once they warm up, they are wonderful people who are interested in everything we have to say.  I have used my Spanish with excellent results.  They really like it when I speak Spanish, and have paid me many compliments on how well and clearly I speak Spanish.  Mike is getting better too - he does not speak much but his comprehension is soaring the longer we are here.  In fact,  he is better than I am at understanding when people are giving us directions.   Which makes sense because navigation in all its forms is one of his strengths.  

The big cities here in Central America are (so far) noisy and crowded with blaring traffic and loud music.  They can be dirty and smelly at times, with wires crisscrossing the streets from  power pole to power pole. The curbs are high, there are lots of holes to avoid stepping in, and hawkers are calling for you to buy everything from live chickens to strange herbs to clothing and watches.  You can find a kiosk doing almost anything.  A friend got his watch fixed while he waited.  I found towels for a fraction of the price Wal-Mart wanted.  There are food stands cooking up everything you could want to eat.  I immediately forgot the warnings not to eat from the street vendors way back in Mexico and have not been sick yet.  You can  buy sliced mango and pineapple in a bag, tamales, sliced cucumbers with chili powder, roasted corn on the cob, and on and on.  I love it, even with the noise and the confusion.  Like El Salvador, there is a heavy secuirty presence here, with armed guards everywhere and all the buildings protected by concertina wire over cement fences.  But I am getting used to that, and those armed guards are good sources of directions.  We aren't stupid though - I keep a close grip on my purse, and we don't wander around at night at all, choosing cabs if we want to go somewhere.

They do have all the American fast food places - McDonalds, Wendys, KFC, and Burger King leading the charge.  The food is the same except they have local foods too, like fried plantains and refried red beans.  We were surprized, however, to find Popeye's Chicken here in Honduras.  of all things!  But fried chicken is big here - there is a chain we have seen everywhere called Pollo Campero.  I have tried it and it is pretty good.  But then I love chicken.  I had chicken last night with a crreamy garlic sauce that was to die for.

Here are a few more pictures of what we have been seeing on this trip.  This is a tunnel in the ruins at Copan that had bats in it.  You can see them if you look closely.

Here are some of the ruins that have been only partially excavated.  Depending on the materials, letting the air get to the ruins could damage them.

Actually, I just discovered the internet is starting to act up, so I will end this now.  Tomorrw we leave for Roatan and seven days of scuba diving.  So we are seeing the above ground jungles and will see the underwater ones as well.  I love it here.

  “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”   (Lao Tzu)

              

 

Disaster!

There was no disaster for  us,  but there was for our friends - minding their own business below decks, working on the computer, reading, thinking about getting ready to go to the pool when all of a sudden there is this strange rumbling noise.  What is that?  Rushing up  on deck to discover the mizzen mast has fallen over.  Whoa!

For those who don't know, a mizzen mast is the smaller mast that is behind the main mast in the stern of a sailboat.  If the mizzen is in front of the rudder, the boat is a "ketch."  If it is at the very end of the stern, behind the rudder, the boat is a "yawl."  I have not seen very many yawls, but ketches are popular and I would consider having one if I wasn't so lazy I do not want to handle anymore sails.  By the way, a "sloop" is a boat with one mast  and one headsail.  A "cutter" has one mast directly in the middle of the boat, with two headsails.  We have a cutter.  Sloops have the mast a bit further astern, and some of them do have two headsails - making them "cutter-rigged sloops" rather than a true cutter.  A schooner has more than one mast, but the masts get bigger as they get further astern.  Ketches and yawls have more than one mast, but the stern mast is smaller than the main mast.  I should get some pictures, but we all know how good I am with the picture posting process.

Anyway, all of us jumped into our dinghies and quickly raced to help out.  We (I mostly stood around watching) got the mast secured and got it on board the boat.  No small task - thank goodness the water was fairly calm, there was little wind, it was broad daylight and all those things that usually never happen when something goes wrong  It usually happens in bad weather and at night.  Our friends are pretty shook up, but since they are sailors, they are looking immediately forward as to how to get the problem solved.  It is obvious what happened - a chain plate failed - so no need for a lot of  post mortem. 

Otherwise, things are fine and gorgeous in El Salvador.  Mike and I are leaving in two days for what has turned into a 27 day trip to Honduras.  Of course we are doing this just as two hurricanes are kicking up in the Caribbean - but their trajectories appear to be in our favor.  But I wonder - if we are stuck in our hotel on Roatan without being able to dive, will they still charge us for the diving part of the trip?  It was a package . . .

Here are some pictures of Mike's fishing trip.

This is the fishing group - from left we have Jason, Hugh, Santos, Mike, Rogelio, Ron.

He fought this fish for an hour and a half.   

And a fine fish it was - and is, because it was catch and release.

Here, Mike is using his toes to help hold the pole because his arms were exhausted holding the pole.

It was a very exciting trip.  I think it was one of his best birthdays ever.  The guys were talking about it for days later.  Ron caught a sailfish as well - here it is.



Mike did not bring his fish on board - it was too big.  This fish is about 150 lbs.  Mike's marlin was between 350 and 400 lbs - it was likely it would kill the fish (or hurt someone!) to try and pull it into the boat for a photo.  The fish was cut loose once it was caught and brought up to the boat.

Anyway, other than getting ready for the trip and feeling bad for our friends, there is not a whole lot of news.  I have fallen in love with the tropical lifestyle - and who would ever have guessed that I can be perfectly happy in a cabin that is over 90 degrees?  Amazing, that is for sure.  (I am still worried about the dying fans - one thing I CANNOT live without is my bedroom fan . . .

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” (Ernest Hemingway)





   

As Time Goes By

Things have been so much fun that I hardly know where to start!

We went down the estuary with a group of friends and had crab and shrimp and fish.  It was amazing as usual.  I have never eaten crab like this.  In the past, I have had only Alaskan King Crab legs, and was never even sure how to eat other kinds.  Well, it is not hard, only messy.  Depending on the size of them, of course.  If they are small enough, you just eat them shells and all.  The crab at this estaury restaurant was steamed or boiled and then sauteed in a tomato-pepper sauce.  To die for!  I now am a lover of crabs of all sorts.  I want to get some and try cooking them myself.  I have cooked live lobsters on this boat, so I think I can handle crabs, too.  Here is some soup we had.

A couple days later, Mike and five of his friends went on a big fishing boat - we chartered it as a way for Mike to celebrate his 53rd birthday (he is a mere child compared with my 56 years!) in style.  He has never done anything special for his birthdays since we have been together, and before that spent most of them on Navy ships.  So this year I wanted to do something nice for him.  And it turned out great - he got a 350-400 pound black marlin!  Of course they did not keep it, catch and release all the way.  Then his friend Ron caught a nice sized sailfish.  This was a first for Ron, and we were so happy to have been a part of it.  It took Mike one and one half hours to fight that fish!  I have pictures, but they are on the other computer (of course!) so I will have to post them later.  Too bad.  I did have some stuff on Facebook.

Last night we took a night time dinghy trip into the mangrove jungle.  It was me and Mike in our dinghy, and Ron and Rogelio (one of our local friends) in Ron's dinghy.  It was absolutely incredible.  We turned off the engines and just drifted with the tide and current, listening to the sounds of the jungle - all sorts of noises.  The moon was full so there was plenty of light, even through the clouds.  The jungle at night is completely different than the day time jungle.  I would have been a bit hesitant to go if not for the presence of Rogelio, who grew up here and knows it well, and Mike's GPS chartplotter that leaves a Hansel-and-Gretel type trail to follow back.  There are so many twisting turns through these mangroves one could get lost.  We almost ran aground when we weren't paying attention, but we pulled up at the last minute and running aground in a dinghy is not a big deal anyway.  Worse case scenario you have to get out of the boat and into water with a yucky bottom to pull it back into deep enough water.  There are no dangerous underwater rocks here - the bottom is like an underwater dune.  but muddy.

It is getting hotter by the day - well over 90 each day and lots of humidity.  We are not getting the rain we are suppposed to have - it did rain nicely two days ago, but other than that, there has been nothing substantial for weeks.  It rains everywhere but here - I guess that is why this area is called Bahia Del Sol.  The locals are telling us this is very unusual.  Dare I say it?  Global warming????

So anyway, I am having a nice time and really enjoying things.  We are planning to leave next week for an extended visit to Honduras, which will include seven days of diving off Roatan in the Caribbean, which is supposed to be some of the best diving in the world.  We will also see Copan, a large Mayan ruin site.  I have heard great things about Honduras, and look forward to the trip.  I still have some reservations to make, but it should be fine.  We will have a driver, but in some ways, I wish we were taking the bus.  I have created a monster with our driver - gotten way too familiar and now he is taking advantage of us.  I hate having to be the bad guy, but I may have to.  I guess I need to keep some boundaries up - but it is hard for me to do that.  I am a horrible judge of character - if someone is but civil to me I think and proceed as though they were the absolute salt of the earth.  Not that our driver is a bad guy, but I am beginning to feel like an ATM with arms and legs.  But I will work this out.  It was sort of a good lesson, but the truth is I probably have learned nothing and will continue just as I am, making friends with all and sundry.  The best I can hope for is that I am no longer going out of my way to befriend crazy people.  That would be a big step forward. 

I can't believe it is already August!  We will be here until sometime in October, then head south to Costa Rica and then Panama.  We think we will leve for the Marquesas and Society islands in the early spring,  but who knows, we may stay in Central America for another year as there are so many wonderful places here left to explore.  Plus it is muy barato (very cheap) to live here -  not to be disregarded by any means.  There are so many options!  The one thing I know for sure is that I do not want to be in the US until after the election - it would make me crazy to have to hear all the ads and complaining and lying and distortions and all that sort of thing.  Our plan is to visit around Christmas.

So anyway - that is it for today.  I have no plans but to swim in the pool and stay cool.  Steak and avocado and tomatoes for dinner!

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."  (Soren Kierkegaard)