Roatan to Utilla Island 24 June Happy Birthday Seb!

Coolrunnins
Fri 24 Jun 2011 22:07

16:11.299N 86:43.713W

 

A thousand apologies, once again we have been running around like headless chickens and have failed in our duties in updating the blog.

We just left the beautiful island of Roatan after a great 3 weeks.  Roatan has changed drastically since we lived here.  Wendy’s, Applebees, Shopping malls, not to mention a fantastic supermarket.   Roatan is still gorgeous, we spent a week in a beautiful new marina called Barefoot Cay Marina and then our wallet forced us to move around onto a mooring ball off West End which was delightful.  Crystal clear water and two 4.5ft barracudas that enjoyed the shade of our hull and swimming with us with a big grin. 

To stagger out of bed at 6.30am and fall off the deck into turquise water is one of life’s great pleasures.  

Jason did his discover scuba course and took to it like a natural fish, diving with me down to 42ft with BIG groupers, and Seb also had a go down to about 15 ft with bubble makers.  The visibility and the reef in Roatan is still stunning and the blue channel right next to where we were anchored is one of the best snorkel sites I found anywhere.   It is a 45ft. Canyon with 100ft plus visibility and beautiful fish, moray eels and eagle rays. 

A 5 minute dinghy ride into the village and you find great water front bars and the best Thai restaurant ever.  In short Roatan is simply a joy and if you can put aside Colombian cartels crackheads, armed robberies and a soaring crime rate, it is almost perfect.  To be fair West End was very safe and quiet and our three weeks here were great. It felt very secure.  

We were very sad to leave this morning, after meeting  up with many old friends for beers and fun, with a bit of fishing thrown in.

As we speak, the island of Utila is about 10 miles off our bow and we just landed a beautiful big Dorado!.  We have never been here before but intent to head ashore tonight for Sebs 8th birthday bash.  As far as presents go it was probably the least value wise he has ever had and yet he still told us is his best birthday yet, and gave us a big excited grin as he got his long wanted wooden sailing boat cobbled together by a local carpenter.  Seb has to sand it, paint it and rig it which he loves doing.

After Utila we are heading west into the famous Rio Dulce river in Guatemala, and we should arrive at the entrance on Sunday, check in on Monday and then sail 20 plus miles up into the jungle to a place called Mario’s Marina. 

Will keep you posted better than we have of late and have a ton of photographs once we have a good internet connection.

 Bye from Utilla x