We had a peaceful overnight sail from Rio Dulce to Utila. There was a beautiful full moon and a sky filled with stars. We did easy two hours shifts with our only worry being hitting debris from the recent Hurricane Sara river flooding in Honduras. Right before sundown, we saw a large clump of floating debris coming along our port side. Once we got close, we realized it was a palm tree floating in the water. Our instructions were to be prepared through the night to immediately bring the motors to neutral if we hit something in our watch. On Wednesday, we got anchored in Utila Bay and went ashore to get legal. It was very nice to be tucked in the lee of Utila since we knew storms were on the way to the area.
We had a fun evening ashore hanging out at a bar and grill that was right across from our anchored boat. Utila has notoriously bad anchor holding so we liked keeping an eye on Nyango. It was karaoke night so Jake sang “Joy To The World.” He was singing to a bunch of partying divers so wishing joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea was highly appropriate.
We quickly met Paul at the bar. Paul told us many hilarious stories about himself and delighted in some of Michelle’s questions. He has a long story about meeting a porn star named Dawn. He showed us pictures of (fully clothed) Dawn and then shared pictures of his narrow canal boat he just bought. This purchase prompted quite a lot of questions about canal boat living. He outlined his future plans to explore England by canal but first he has upcoming trips to Costa Rica, Antarctica, and Columbia just to name a few stops. He was currently on Utila a few more days, house-sitting from a gig he got on Workaway.com. if you’d like Paul to house sit for you, we can confirm he is good with animals as his profile pictures suggests. Michelle has lots of questions about the pets in his life after seeing his Workaway.com profile. He explained that many house-sitting gigs involve pet care so it is important to include pics featuring happy pet relationships. We are all separately contemplating how to write up profiles which will get us island house-sitting gigs. Randall is seen in the above picture demonstrating his ability to meet new cats. Unfortunately, this cat is living his own life, riding a four wheeler around to all the best bars
We had originally planned to wait out the storm anchored at Utila. But, Captain Randall woke up restless. He thought maybe we would all be more comfortable at Roatan if we had days of rain coming. He also had a little trouble with the Utila hammock above so he may also be in search of higher hanging hammocks. So we pulled anchor for the five hour sail to French harbor. We all knew the weather wasn’t great for sailing but maybe it wouldn’t be bad.
It was bad. The seas were steep and Nyango hasn’t been pushed hard in awhile. We double-reefed and brought in the headsail to a manageable little triangle. Thankfully, Randall and Jake were up front working on reef lines and quickly noticed that the trampoline was coming completely off the bow. It took Randall, Jake and Michelle about 30 minutes on the front of the pounding boat to get it secured. Every few minutes the boat would dip down far enough to completely submerge them in a wave coming over the bow.
After getting the tramp temporarily secured, we all huddled in the cockpit, bracing for each pound and watching the wind speed go from the 20s into the 30s. As the sea continued to build, we keep getting heavy swells over the bow. At one point, one of the swells forced water through a crack in our front window. Water sprayed all over the navigation desk where we have a computer and lots of electronics. What a mess.
We finally reached the southside of Roatan and more protected seas. However, the storm loomed right overhead with lightening and squally wind. Randall prepped us for anchoring in French Harbor since the storm might keep us from being able to dock the boat. But as we pulled into the calm harbor, the skies cleared up and we pulled into a Fantasy island slip, exhausted and grateful that we were all ok.
Fantasy Island Marina is a great place to meet people. Our boat neighbors here are a young couple, Scott and Janae, who are living on the island. They have a fishing boat they bought and refurbished in Florida, had shipped to Belize and then spent a long wet eight hours crossing over to Roatan to keep it here for fishing and diving. Scott offered to take us out snorkeling today. We had a great time checking out a boat wreck site in Mahogany Bay.
Scott caught this Black Fin Tuna yesterday. He and Janae are working with a local community to establish more diverse food sources. A lot of the fish they catch go to the community. We are very intrigued with their mission work and knowledge.
We are also reconnecting with Chad and Michelle of SV Sartori. We met them at Mar Marina last year and they are now dock masters at Fantasy Island. They have a beautiful boat cat named Olivia. Apparently, the monkey came over to try and pet her and she ran him off. This same monkey stole carrot cake cookies from our boat last time we were docked here so we are happy that Olivia is on monkey watch. Now we need to go buy some cookies.
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