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Sunday, 2/13/22:
Big pancake breakfast with bacon. The kids came over to join us and then we trooped down to the dive shop. Got there early enough to chat with our fellow divers. Overheard one woman telling another person that she lived in Ely and that her husband led canoe trips in the BWCA and that they published a magazine. I asked if it was the Boundary Waters Journal and she said yes! Small world. I told her that my brother had had many pictures published in the magazine. “Oh yes, I know his pictures well”, she said. Here name was Michelle Ostoff.
She also said that it was -42 degrees in Ely that day. She seemed to not miss Minnesota at all. Beautiful calm, clear, warm morning.
Dive 3 / West End Wall: The first trip of the morning we headed towards the southern point. A bit of a boat ride past West Bay. A nice morning, clear and calm. A woman with us got in the water- her O-Ring blew right away. I tried to descend and was unable to- no weights. It was more fodder for my opinion of the dive shop as being overused and unable to keep up. Worrisome. We dropped down in a shallow area. The West End Wall dive had a fairly level area consisting of mounds of coral. You work your way across that terrain and then encounter the wall. It drops off dramatically. Saw a turtle, barracuda, an unbelievably hard to see Scorpionfish, schools of huge Jacks, Yellowtail Snappers, crabs, big sponges, and bountiful coral.
Went back to the dive shop for a surface interval. A woman at the dive shop was telling us about seahorses that live under the dock. Gotta check that out.
Dive 4 / Fish Den: Second dive was to Fish Den. I had done this dive before but had forgotten how beautiful it was. I saw more fish and critters here on this dive than I had ever seen before: small puffer, enormous puffer that swam right at me just as my GoPro battery died; a perfectly camouflaged porcupine fish, big crabs, big groupers, and a turtle. Ended the dive swimming through huge schools of blue tangs and yellowtail snapper. Best dive for wildlife ever in Roatan!
The snorkelers appeared to have had a good time and were impressed by Junior’s display of free-diving. He would swim right down 30’ or so with no weights and no fins and then back up again. I mentioned to Nicci that he had probably spent his entire life in the water and she said that he had told her that “he was born in the water”.
After diving, Clay and I jumped in the pool and then we made sandwiches and ate fresh mango, chips, salsa and for dessert, a bar of our locally made chocolate. Yum.
Next, we all drove to the chocolate/fruit/gift stand complex to stock up. Many free samples of chocolate and a lot of gift bars to go. Then we headed for West Bay. We had been told by our dive master, Luna, that she and other local artisans had their wares on display and for sale. We found them in the courtyard of the Paradise Resort. Luna was there with her significant other. She had told us that she dehydrated her own foods so we were disappointed to see that she hadn’t brought any with her. It was supposed to rain so she left them at home. Her partner was selling a fresh fruit cocktail in a bottle and they had a couple of sauces for sale. There were musicians performing and a very accomplished artist who etched scenes into conch shells. Beautiful work.
We walked down the beach a little ways and managed to not spend any more money and then headed for West End and dinner. Our planned destination was to be Creole’s but it was closed. We settled for Ginger’s which overlooked Half Moon Bay. It was Super Bowl Sunday and the place was packed.
Our waiter arrived eventually with a menu and a lot of attitude, spending the next three minutes telling us how overworked he was, how he couldn’t break our check into parts and an involved monologue about taxes on our bill. This was a prelude to what was to come later. Ordered some apps: Thai wings and guacamole that were superb. It took a long time to get our food but it was also very good. I got a Texas cheesesteak. Bland but plentiful. When we were done and flagged down our waiter again we were surprised to discover that our bill was $277! Shocked, we asked him to explain it to us. He reluctantly agreed, exuding an air of exasperation. Turns out that they accidentally charged us $112 for a $12 margarita. Small mistake. Thank goodness Jean and Susan were all over that.
It had started to rain so we bolted for the car, took a few wrong turns through the labyrinth sidewalk complex behind Arco Iris and got plenty wet before we got in the car. Drove back to the house carefully picking our way over humps and through potholes avoiding the inevitable bottoming out of our shitty rental with warn out springs. The previous night when we had started down Tamarindo Drive from the main road and there were workers filling one of the enormous holes with wet cement. I couldn’t tell if it was cement and thought it was rocks. There were no signs and the workers were standing there looking at us giving us no indication that we couldn’t drive through there. Found out today when we drove back in, that it had indeed been wet cement. Now there was a large perfect tire trough right through it. Some things about this island I guess I don’t understand.
Back at the shack, the Super Bowl halftime show was just underway. We watched the rest of the game while the others played Feffer. Lights out about 9 pm.