16:21N 86:26W

 

We had an uneventful overnight sail from Hunting Cay in Belize to Roatan....apart from a school of pilot whales accompanying us for part of the way.  Winds were not favourable so we motor sailed most of the way – when we did sail it was in the wrong direction!  Roatan is a long skinny island and we headed up to French Harbour which is a sheltered anchorage inside the reef about half way along.  The reef here is a protected marine park and it is amazing to snorkel and be able to se and touch crayfish crawling on the bottom – they are completely unafraid of humans.

 

Roatan is a nice enough island – very green and lush.  The people are mostly Caribs and very dark skinned although in recent years thousands of people from the Honduran mainland have come here looking for work- mostly unsuccessfully contributing to a serious unemployment and crime rate.  French Harbour is very safe however, mainly due to the large number of cruising boats in here.  There is a morning VHF net, regular cruisers’ get togethers and activities including yoga.  Sadly, because David has come with shingles, we haven’t participated in many.....just taking it slowly and trying to get him right.

 

We plan to have Christmas here and have bought crayfish tails ($2 each) which we’ll have on Christmas Eve then celebrate Christmas with cruisers at a pot luck dinner ashore.  Hopefully David will feel well enough to move on to the Cayo Cochinas in the next few days – a group of islands between here and the mainland.