Fantasy Island, Roatan

And where is that little ‘Apu’ character anyway?

When Guatemala say’s you must get out for a while and get a different countries stamp in your passport before you are OK to return, where do you go? Some think Belize.
Certainly, the brochures and beautiful water lead one to believe that paradise lies just a few hours north and east of the Livingston Bar. However, checking in there is quite expensive and difficult. You not only need to check in with the Port Captain and Immigrations, but Customs and Agriculture as well! Then, we must remain there 3 days before you can check back in to Guatemala. The Guatemalans have not liked Belize since the British stole it (Belize) from them! Now, recent activities there indicate unfriendliness toward cruisers in general. In general, their attitude is, while you are here, leave all your $$! Then get out! In addition, the weather is a factor as between the winter storms and summer’s hurricane season, anchoring in not too good holding ground behind a low laying island; off a lee shore is nerve wracking! (Roatan is a very tall island and a decent wind block.)

The Mexico and the Caribbean Rivera is just too far away! Therefore, that leaves Honduras!

Now while we cannot speak from experience, to cruise the Honduran mainland coast can be very beautiful as well as daunting. There are very few charts of the bays and inlets and those that exist are rough drawings in cruising books with “not to be used for navigation” written all over them. Also these anchorages are on a ‘lee’ shore with North facing entrances and questionable holding ground, therefore, during any one of ‘your’ winter storms, it can be uncomfortably lumpy to downright dangerous in any of the bays open to the North!(Which is most of them!)

Now, our plan has been to watch the weather for a favorable wind and do a 24-hour motor-sail from either Tres Puntas or, like last time, directly from the Livingston Bar to Utila. Once we have " made landfall" at Utila, we have been able to get a good nights rest and complete the last 40-mile son to Roatan the next day. Getting back to the Rio is easy as long as the trade winds are blowing! In addition, while in Roatan, French Harbor and West End are both our favorite places until now!

I say until now because this year we discovered dockside living at Fantasy Island to be delightful! We moved into the marina the week before Christmas to get set up for Jeanie’s mom, who spent the holiday with us. Stepping onto the dock is a lot easier than climbing into my inflatable dinghy and using taxis’ is a whole lot easier than clambering up onto a ‘working’ shrimp boat dock! Especially for an octogenarian and, it seemed to work even better for us ’just’ old farts! After she left, the dock-master, Wally, made us an offer we could not turn down! We have been in our favorite slip ever since (2 going on to 3 months now)!
Therefore, we thought you might like a few pictures to show you what our idea of paradise is like: These are a few photos taken from our version of "Da Plane!" This shows F.I., French Cays Harbor and across entrance above the island, is the resort of 'Coco View'. Within a mile either way from the entrance is some of the best diving Roatan has to offer!Just out of this shot, the reef drops to 100 ft and then quickly to over 500feet! This is the part we skin dive.Oasis is the one around the corner to the left. Below is what we call our "Covered Wagon" look: Since it's the back of the boat, we call this our Back Yard, but this is our front door as well.
We have a tranquil view of the bay from our "porch".

Our hummingbird feeder has attracted over 4 dozen birds and their antics and posturing over the feeder is quite a show. Some have become very tame, but none have landed on our fingers, yet,! A couple more of our 'pets', below... Like this bug eating machine who lives in this speaker
Holy bat shit, Robin! At night, our Humming-bird feeder becomes a bat feeder. Aboard the Oasis, we welcome anything that will keep the bugs away! and F.I. has a solution as well...6 days a week this guy fogs the whole island! We prefer the more natural method of insect control, but this way is very highly effective! As a result, time spent on our front porch is much more pleasant.


I don't really know how many gallons of water in our 'Salt water' aquarium, but on nice days, we can swim in it! The next photo was taken through my prescription polarized sun glasses!
The 2 ropes that cross the aquarium lead to a tree on the bank and are used during high North and North-west winds. With them, we were quite comfortable during 45 to 50 wind gusts even if the docks are not in the best of shape. This is a result of the earthquake last year.(far right photo) Unfortunately, the current management team has decided not to fix this as at this time, boats can still tie to it. We just have to run a lot of lines ashore! Unfortunately, these "pets" do not live in our aquarium, but are prevalent below 50 feet on the reef. We do have pet monkeys, but they don't taste as good We have many other "pets" running around loose, like peacocks, geese, iguanas, some really strange looking Chinese ducks, and even stranger looking tailless rat looking animals that hop around like rabbits.
The hot showers are a disappointment. When we first arrived, they were "open air" meaning "no doors"! Since all the dive boat workers eat lunch right about where I stood to take this picture, we think they enjoyed the show! If you look closely, notice there are no shower heads, only a pipe sticking out of the wall, but the water is really hot! And speaking of "Hot"? Maybe this will help answer the question of why it took them so long to put doors on!? The lagoon is a great place to sun bathe,
splash in, or just wiggle your toes in the sand.. Then again, relaxing on one of the many beach beds has it's appeal to many who do not worship the sun as much................ This is a view of the beach from the raised pool deck down to the lagoon.. While being tied to a dock will expose your boat to falling pine branches, but not worrying about boats running you down or doing mid-night anchor watches......... "Priceless!"
And no, this 168 foot dive boat did not hit any one, but the
wind shift and blow that very evening did cause the whole outer anchorage a whole lot of lost sleep! And by the way, this little guy who's watching over my hanging planter 'project', is a Mayan god statue from Copan. We call him "Apu".