Here we are on the 24^th May 2013 and still anchored in Isla San Andres harbour. We hope we are finally on top of our mechanical issues. The replacement engine mount is fitted, the transmission installed and alignment complete. For the last 10 days we have been waiting for a ‘tropical wave’ to pass by and are hoping for a weather window to open up early next week to allow us to make the run to the Bay Islands, Honduras. A ‘tropical wave’ is a trough of low pressure (squalls and thunderstorms), which moves from east to west in the tropics and in some cases, can develop into a hurricane, but this is more likely from July through to October. The wet season arrived early this year, although we haven’t seen too much rain here as yet. This may change in the next couple of days as the ‘tropical wave’ passes over us bringing wind and rain. The rain catcher on the new bimini will hopefully be put to good use and the anchor alarm on the new handheld GPS allows me to sleep without constantly waking to check our position. We will travel north in the company of Jens and Dani (S/V Arwen).  It will take us about 48 hours or so to sail to a tiny island group called the Vivarillos, which are located right on the corner of the Nicaraguan/Honduran border. The islands are used by the Honduran lobster fishing fleet during lobster season, and as a storage place for their pots in the off season, and apparently is a good anchorage to take a break before heading west for the Honduran Bay Islands, the closest of which is Guanaja, about 150 nautical miles away.  The winds and seas are looking OK early next week, although there will still be some isolated squalls hanging around.

Our social life continues to be quite busy spending very pleasant evenings with Dani, Jens, Jocelyn and Roland either visiting one of the local restaurants or eating wonderful meals on each other’s boats. We headed across to a small island (cay) off the north tip of San Andres for the day a couple of weeks ago.  The place was packed with tourists, but we had a snorkel and a fried fish lunch, quite a good day. We all ventured to San Luis last week on the local bus at a cost of 1600 pesos (<$1) visiting a art/craft shop then walking to a Restaurant on the beach for lunch. We stopped a local roadside stall and bought bush mangoes (stringy but the flavor is wonderful) and a fruit called a Marma. These fruit have a tough skin with a fibrous underlayer which has to be removed, then the inner flesh is rubbed with the outside skin to completely remove any left over fibre. The flesh can then be cut away from the large seed inside. It is an unusual taste but yummy – sweet and refreshing.

Most afternoons we have a swim around the boat, the water temperature is perfect and the visibility is usually very good.  We have found an abandoned fish trap about 40 meters in from of our boat, not too far from our anchor.  John dives down to check the anchor every now and then to make sure it is well set, and then has a look at the trap.  It has several fish that seem to consider it home, obviously oblivious as to its original purpose.  One of the residents is a lion fish, which is the "cane toad" of the caribbean; a venomous invasive species which is decimating local fish populations.  They are quite an impressive looking fish, covered in venomous spines, and are popular in aquariums.  Native to the South Pacific and Indian tropical waters and coral reefs, they have somehow been introduced to the Caribbean and West Atlantic waters and are now considered a major pest species.  The last time he checked the trap there were two of them - they are edible and apparently quite good eating, but great care needs to be taken with them as the sting is apparently very painful.