Roatan Island, Honduras
..
I hate the beach, I just don't fit in. Everybody there has tan skin and white teeth, I have white skin and tan teeth.
- Bill Hicks
From Copan, we made our way across Honduras via bus and boat to the small Caribbean island of Roatan. We both liked the idea of spending some time sitting on the white, sandy beaches, diving the local coral reefs and drinking cocktails while watching the sun set into the sea. Who wouldn't? We'd culled a few weeks from our time in Guatemala and maybe we could chop some from elsewhere if need be. Roatan is one of the cheapest places in the world to dive and for a while I had been toying with the idea of doing my PADI Divemaster course here. It would mean spending 4 weeks working and studying in a dive centre but I thought the change of pace would do me good. After being away from home for so long it gets very easy to take the leisurely lifestyle for granted. Getting up whenever we want and doing whatever we damn well please should be appreciated and I for one don't want to forget that. Anyway, that was the plan. It didn't take long to boot that ridiculous idea out of my head. We found ourselves a great apartment in the village of West End, the island's diving mecca. We had a comfortable bed, cable TV, our own kitchen and bathroom and the room was enormous, bigger than anything we'd been used to for a very long time. And best of all, our very own hammock looking out to sea. There was no way on earth I was going to drag my backside out of bed every morning to spend an entire month on a course. There was some serious relaxing to be done and a hammock that needed filling. It was a tough job but I was prepared to put in the hours. Never underestimate the burden of a life of idleness. Activities can be a constant distraction and concentration has to be maintained if one is to truly achieve nothing.
Our first night in our apartment was fantastic. It is difficult to describe the giddy thrill we experienced cooking our own dinner and sitting eating it in front of the TV, in our own room. It sounds a little ridiculous, but after eating out for practically every meal we have had for the last 9 months you really start to yearn for some of the comforts of home. Who'd have thought that making mashed potato and grabbing a beer out of the fridge could be so much fun? I didn't miss having to do the washing up though! One thing about going to a restaurant every night is that I haven't had to clean a plate for a very long time.
While we were waiting for our ferry on the mainland, I had checked our email at a little café on the dock and found out that some friends from Ireland would be arriving on Roatan the very next day. We had met Aiden and Susan in Puerto Madryn in Argentina last November and we have bumped into each other across South America half a dozen times in between. We met up with them the next day and it turned out that they also knew our next door neighbours, Fin and Anita, also from Ireland, as they had been on a jungle tour with them in Bolivia. It really is a
small world. It was fantastic to be able to go out in the evening and have a drink with people we knew and chat about places we'd all been to and things we'd all seen and done. We've been vey lucky to meet some great people on our travels but usually we only ever see them for a few days and move on. The rest of the time it is just Cara and me (and I know for a fact she's getting a bit tired of listening to my inane bollocks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) so we appreciated being somewhere we could spend time with other people.
As we had decided that we would probably spend a month on Roatan living the easy life there was no rush to start the diving, so the first week and a half was spent doing remarkably little. Entire mornings were consumed by the hammock and even lazier afternoons sitting on the beach until the sun set into the sea in front of us. There was a duty free shop in the town where we could buy bottles of Spanish rioja and Argentinian malbec for just a few dollars, and every afternoon an enormous man who couldn't smile sold lobster tails and huge prawns out of a coldbox on the back of his pickup truck. Most of the restaurants on Roatan are quite expensive, compared to what we have been used to, so we ate in the apartment most days. However, when we could have fresh lobster for dinner we weren't in any rush to get back to the mainland.
Toward the end of the second week, we decided to finally put some effort in and do some diving. Aiden and Susan were diving with Reef Gliders dive centre so we signed up with them. As well as being one of the cheapest outfits in town they also turned out to be one of the friendliest. A local reef dive including equipment hire came in at less than twelve quid and the quality of the diving was excellent. The islands sit on the southern stretch of the Belize reef system, the second longest barrier reef in the world. And the coral is in fantastic condition, with enormous pinnacles, walls, gently sloping ledges and quiet sandy patches for the beginners. Visibility was always between 25 and 35 metres, which is pretty good no matter where you're diving. There are even a few decent wrecks too, and most of the dive sites are within 15 minutes of the dive centre so we were there and back in no time. For some bizarre reason, even though the reefs are thick and plentiful there are very few reef fish, and the bigger stuff was almost non-existent. It made quite a change from the Galapagos where there was no coral whatsoever but the ocean was thick with enormous schools of fish, sharks and rays. Still, overall it great quality diving and the best value of anywhere we've been to.
As we were staying for a while, we usually just did the one dive in the morning and spent the rest of the day sitting around on the beach. However, not all went according to plan. A couple of days before we started diving I picked up what I thought was a fairly inocuous insect bite while I was on the beach, and straight away it made it's presence felt. On our third day of diving it had swolen considerably and was spitting out all kinds of vile filth while I was underwater. After a few more days it was looking like some gory special effects from a slasher film and hurting like hell. We took a trip to see a doctor in one of the fancy resorts along the coast and he confirmed it was an insect bite that had become infected. He bandaged it up, loaded me with antibiotics and told me to keep out of the water for a week. Well done Mik. We sit on our arses for 2 weeks before diving and as soon as we start I get told I can't dive for another week. I was starting to think that if there was any chance of bollocksing things up for a while, I would take it! It was almost 2 months since I cracked a rib and I was only now able to sleep properly on that side. Now I had a mutant volcano wound on the back of my leg spitting out all kinds of nasty yellow goo every time I stood up. This was getting to be a habit. Even worse, I was supposed to stay off the beer until the pills had finished. What's a boy to do?
On the plus side, I could sit my lazy arse in my hammock all day and not have to go down to the beach. It always sounds like a good idea to sit on white sandy beaches and watch the hours drift away, but after a few weeks I was getting a little bit bored of it (yeah, poor you Mik!). The main reason is obviously because it's dull as dishwater, rotating under the blazing sun and marinading in your own sweat and suntan cream. But the other reason is that I do not tan. Ever. No matter what. Scientists have taken samples of my skin and subjected them to minute scrutiny in the hope of isolating the sun-reflecting properties and sythesizing a new and efficient sunscreen, but as yet they have been unsuccessful. It's not that I don't change colour. Clearly, being a pasty anglo-saxon I will go as beetroot red as the best of them during the 4 days annually that the sun makes its presence felt in England. But after 3 days, the redness is gone and replaced with the same green/grey tinge that frightens children and makes me look silly in anything other than a boilersuit and wolly hat. Not brown. Never. Cara, on the other hand, walks to the shop to buy a pint of milk and comes back a different colour. Usually dark brown. And usually that even, all over brown that makes blotchy, stripey, red-faced baboons like me physically angry. Now tell me that's fair. After a week the gammy leg cleared up and we were back under the water for
some more great diving. After our first dive back, I stood on some sharp coral fragmets getting my kit off the boat and spent the next half hour picking shards out of the heel of my foot with a pair of tweezers. This was almost becoming a habit!
We had a great time on Roatan for a month, and even after that long we still didn't want to leave. After many months of being constantly on the move we both really appreciated being able to unpack and stay in one place for a while, cook for ourselves and even enjoy what for us was the rare treat of staying in and watching TV with a few cold beers every now and then. The people on the island were friendly and the climate was perfect, hot and sunny during the day and cool and breezy at night. We had a few tropical storms and the sandflies on the beach could be a problem if you didn't lather up in repellent, but that detracted little from our time there. And there aren't many places where you can spend a month on a Caribbean island on our budget. From Roatan we were to head off to Belize, where unfortunately more time must be spent on idyllic caribbean beaches. Let's see if I can accumulate some more injuries.
- Bill Hicks
From Copan, we made our way across Honduras via bus and boat to the small Caribbean island of Roatan. We both liked the idea of spending some time sitting on the white, sandy beaches, diving the local coral reefs and drinking cocktails while watching the sun set into the sea. Who wouldn't? We'd culled a few weeks from our time in Guatemala and maybe we could chop some from elsewhere if need be. Roatan is one of the cheapest places in the world to dive and for a while I had been toying with the idea of doing my PADI Divemaster course here. It would mean spending 4 weeks working and studying in a dive centre but I thought the change of pace would do me good. After being away from home for so long it gets very easy to take the leisurely lifestyle for granted. Getting up whenever we want and doing whatever we damn well please should be appreciated and I for one don't want to forget that. Anyway, that was the plan. It didn't take long to boot that ridiculous idea out of my head. We found ourselves a great apartment in the village of West End, the island's diving mecca. We had a comfortable bed, cable TV, our own kitchen and bathroom and the room was enormous, bigger than anything we'd been used to for a very long time. And best of all, our very own hammock looking out to sea. There was no way on earth I was going to drag my backside out of bed every morning to spend an entire month on a course. There was some serious relaxing to be done and a hammock that needed filling. It was a tough job but I was prepared to put in the hours. Never underestimate the burden of a life of idleness. Activities can be a constant distraction and concentration has to be maintained if one is to truly achieve nothing.Our first night in our apartment was fantastic. It is difficult to describe the giddy thrill we experienced cooking our own dinner and sitting eating it in front of the TV, in our own room. It sounds a little ridiculous, but after eating out for practically every meal we have had for the last 9 months you really start to yearn for some of the comforts of home. Who'd have thought that making mashed potato and grabbing a beer out of the fridge could be so much fun? I didn't miss having to do the washing up though! One thing about going to a restaurant every night is that I haven't had to clean a plate for a very long time.
While we were waiting for our ferry on the mainland, I had checked our email at a little café on the dock and found out that some friends from Ireland would be arriving on Roatan the very next day. We had met Aiden and Susan in Puerto Madryn in Argentina last November and we have bumped into each other across South America half a dozen times in between. We met up with them the next day and it turned out that they also knew our next door neighbours, Fin and Anita, also from Ireland, as they had been on a jungle tour with them in Bolivia. It really is a
small world. It was fantastic to be able to go out in the evening and have a drink with people we knew and chat about places we'd all been to and things we'd all seen and done. We've been vey lucky to meet some great people on our travels but usually we only ever see them for a few days and move on. The rest of the time it is just Cara and me (and I know for a fact she's getting a bit tired of listening to my inane bollocks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) so we appreciated being somewhere we could spend time with other people.As we had decided that we would probably spend a month on Roatan living the easy life there was no rush to start the diving, so the first week and a half was spent doing remarkably little. Entire mornings were consumed by the hammock and even lazier afternoons sitting on the beach until the sun set into the sea in front of us. There was a duty free shop in the town where we could buy bottles of Spanish rioja and Argentinian malbec for just a few dollars, and every afternoon an enormous man who couldn't smile sold lobster tails and huge prawns out of a coldbox on the back of his pickup truck. Most of the restaurants on Roatan are quite expensive, compared to what we have been used to, so we ate in the apartment most days. However, when we could have fresh lobster for dinner we weren't in any rush to get back to the mainland.
Toward the end of the second week, we decided to finally put some effort in and do some diving. Aiden and Susan were diving with Reef Gliders dive centre so we signed up with them. As well as being one of the cheapest outfits in town they also turned out to be one of the friendliest. A local reef dive including equipment hire came in at less than twelve quid and the quality of the diving was excellent. The islands sit on the southern stretch of the Belize reef system, the second longest barrier reef in the world. And the coral is in fantastic condition, with enormous pinnacles, walls, gently sloping ledges and quiet sandy patches for the beginners. Visibility was always between 25 and 35 metres, which is pretty good no matter where you're diving. There are even a few decent wrecks too, and most of the dive sites are within 15 minutes of the dive centre so we were there and back in no time. For some bizarre reason, even though the reefs are thick and plentiful there are very few reef fish, and the bigger stuff was almost non-existent. It made quite a change from the Galapagos where there was no coral whatsoever but the ocean was thick with enormous schools of fish, sharks and rays. Still, overall it great quality diving and the best value of anywhere we've been to.
As we were staying for a while, we usually just did the one dive in the morning and spent the rest of the day sitting around on the beach. However, not all went according to plan. A couple of days before we started diving I picked up what I thought was a fairly inocuous insect bite while I was on the beach, and straight away it made it's presence felt. On our third day of diving it had swolen considerably and was spitting out all kinds of vile filth while I was underwater. After a few more days it was looking like some gory special effects from a slasher film and hurting like hell. We took a trip to see a doctor in one of the fancy resorts along the coast and he confirmed it was an insect bite that had become infected. He bandaged it up, loaded me with antibiotics and told me to keep out of the water for a week. Well done Mik. We sit on our arses for 2 weeks before diving and as soon as we start I get told I can't dive for another week. I was starting to think that if there was any chance of bollocksing things up for a while, I would take it! It was almost 2 months since I cracked a rib and I was only now able to sleep properly on that side. Now I had a mutant volcano wound on the back of my leg spitting out all kinds of nasty yellow goo every time I stood up. This was getting to be a habit. Even worse, I was supposed to stay off the beer until the pills had finished. What's a boy to do?On the plus side, I could sit my lazy arse in my hammock all day and not have to go down to the beach. It always sounds like a good idea to sit on white sandy beaches and watch the hours drift away, but after a few weeks I was getting a little bit bored of it (yeah, poor you Mik!). The main reason is obviously because it's dull as dishwater, rotating under the blazing sun and marinading in your own sweat and suntan cream. But the other reason is that I do not tan. Ever. No matter what. Scientists have taken samples of my skin and subjected them to minute scrutiny in the hope of isolating the sun-reflecting properties and sythesizing a new and efficient sunscreen, but as yet they have been unsuccessful. It's not that I don't change colour. Clearly, being a pasty anglo-saxon I will go as beetroot red as the best of them during the 4 days annually that the sun makes its presence felt in England. But after 3 days, the redness is gone and replaced with the same green/grey tinge that frightens children and makes me look silly in anything other than a boilersuit and wolly hat. Not brown. Never. Cara, on the other hand, walks to the shop to buy a pint of milk and comes back a different colour. Usually dark brown. And usually that even, all over brown that makes blotchy, stripey, red-faced baboons like me physically angry. Now tell me that's fair. After a week the gammy leg cleared up and we were back under the water for
some more great diving. After our first dive back, I stood on some sharp coral fragmets getting my kit off the boat and spent the next half hour picking shards out of the heel of my foot with a pair of tweezers. This was almost becoming a habit!We had a great time on Roatan for a month, and even after that long we still didn't want to leave. After many months of being constantly on the move we both really appreciated being able to unpack and stay in one place for a while, cook for ourselves and even enjoy what for us was the rare treat of staying in and watching TV with a few cold beers every now and then. The people on the island were friendly and the climate was perfect, hot and sunny during the day and cool and breezy at night. We had a few tropical storms and the sandflies on the beach could be a problem if you didn't lather up in repellent, but that detracted little from our time there. And there aren't many places where you can spend a month on a Caribbean island on our budget. From Roatan we were to head off to Belize, where unfortunately more time must be spent on idyllic caribbean beaches. Let's see if I can accumulate some more injuries.
So, there you go. Not very entertaining to read but bloody enjoyable to experience.
Mik
Mik
No comments:
Post a Comment