February 12th 2009 - Roatan, Honduras

Beaujolais
Fri 20 Feb 2009 11:49

After our rude awakening with the Buoy, Roger decided to err on the side of caution, not only tying on with 2 ropes but also putting the anchor out as well. It turned out to be just as well, as the wind got up again that night.

 

Lo and behold the next day we heard that our friends on Odessea had actually pulled the whole mooring buoy up and were floating around. Luckily it happened early morning and a couple of the boats are early risers. So for any boats thinking of picking up a buoy in West End Bay, Roatan, be warned, when they say that they are fair weather moorings, they aren’t kidding!!!

 

We headed ashore to check e-mails, dump to rubbish and then have dinner. While Roger was at Barefoot Charlies(great place to exchange books), online, I went walkabout.

The first shop I came to had a young girl weaving the beautiful table runners and cloths that were displayed in the shop.

 

The loom she was using must have had over a hundred strings to it.

 

She told me (in Spanish) that she uses the same pattern each time, but varies it and also the colours depend on what she has at the time.

 

I asked how long each piece took and was shocked when she said 2-3 months.

 

She explained that it is because she is interrupted when she has to serve in the shop.

 

Everything displayed on the walls were made by herself and her family. I was amazed how she could just pick it up and carry on, knowing exactly where she had left off.

 

Roger and I decided to celebrate Valentine early, as he was flying back to the UK on Valentines day.

We went to a Thai restaurant on the seafront, called Tongs Thai Cuisine. It was wonderful.

The food was excellent, the waitresses were very friendly, the location was very romantic (our table was at the end of the jetty, great to watch the sunset) and it was reasonably priced. It was quite a luxury to have good Thai food.

 

What was also great was that Roger had gone and brought the dinghy over and tied it up next to our table!!

 

 

 

When we got back to Beaujolais, we were just tying up the dinghy and in my peripheral vision I could see something in the water, it looked like a cross between something shining on and something shining in the water. I dismissed it thinking I must have imagined it.

 

But then it came again, together with lots of tiny lights twinkling up at me. At first I thought it was phosphorescence, but then I dismissed that, as you need agitation in the water to see it like this. No this was luminous creatures, but what, squid perhaps. So I grabbed the torch and shone it on the water……Jellyfish!

 

Dozens of large jellyfish with lots of tentacles floating past, it was the tentacles that shone, that and the little fish feeding on them. It went on for a good 20 mins, a tide of them. I wished I could take a photo, but it was too dark. It is things like this that I enjoy, because they are like an unexpected present.

 

Well, it turns out Jellyfish are turtles favourite food, so it was, the next morning, swimming round the boat there wasn’t 1, nor 2, but 3 big turtles, just swimming and sunbathing.

 

Roger and I sat and watched them for ages. It certainly made up for the poor snorkelling. I think they should rename the bay Turtle Bay. We had seen one each morning, just popping up for air before we could get a photo, but they must have been attracted by the jellyfish we had seen the night before and were still in the area.