EXPLORING ROATAN
Long Ago and Far Away
copyright 2014 Edwin P. Cutler
spaceship79@hotmail.com
The 15th of May in the year 1986 was another Caribbean day, blue sky and blue sea, with waving palm trees ashore on Swan Island and temperatures in the low 70's. With the dinghy hauled on board and tied down for a passage, we lifted the anchor from the sandy bottom and let Romarin's sails have a drink of the gentle tradewind breeze.
We left the island with plans to complete our tour of the Caribbean Sea. The tour would be complete when we rode the Gulf Stream north through the Yucatan straight, between Mexico and Cuba and leaving the Caribbean sailed north into the Gulf of Mexico.
However, we had one more island chain on our list so headed Romarin's bow for the islands of Roatan, Barbareta, and Guanaja, lying off the coast Honduras near Trujillo. We had 120 miles to make Guanaja Island at the northeast end of the chain so left in the late afternoon, hoping for a starlight overnight run to arrive near noon the next day.
The Navel Vessel, FNH103, with the rusted 50 caliber machine gun on the foredeck, left at the same time. We hailed them on the VHF and remarked they would get to Honduras long before we got to Roatan -- they advised us that since they had struck a rock with their propeller and it had been replaced with a much smaller one we might beat them.
We were side by side when darkness fell, but we never saw them again. We did see the 25 mile light off our stern until it suddenly disappeared. They turn the navigation light off after 10:00 to save fuel.
The chart showed some strange depths at the northeast end of the islands, 10 foot depths mixed with 100 foot depths. Since the least depths were more that ten feet, we decided to cross the patch. Low and behold, our depth sounder pinged, we had suddenly gone from more that 300 feet, our deepest sensed depth, to 15 feet.
Before we could panic, the bottom dropped to 100 feet. By the time we relaxed, ping! 15 feet again. We decided the chart was right, rock pinnacles were sticking up from the deeper ocean.
Another hour or so and we rounded up into the lee of a tiny, palm treed island and dropped the anchor in a sandy bottom 15 feet off the settlement on Guanaja Island.
The next day we snorkeled around the tiny island and, in 20 feet of water, found vertically stacked coral that nearly reached the surface. In the stacks, that looked like high-rise apartments, pairs and families of dozens of kinds of fish, big and small, had taken up housekeeping.
After several lazy days of quiet isolation with no Honduras sailors to entertain us, we raised the anchor and began exploring the south side of Roatan.
Underway we spied a church and realized missionaries had been there. A rusty ship aground remarked that a surprised crew had also visited the island.
The five mile downwind passage from Guanaja to Roatan was uneventful and the warm breeze reminded us we were in the tropics.
Our first sighting of people was a lady making a delivery in a dugout canoe. A closer look revealed her top heavy cargo was a single bed mattress.
We speculated about her destination and purpose so kept an eye on her as she paddled through a tunnel in the coppice on shore
People here actually paddle dugout canoes. The water seems to be the only mode of travel. We haven't seen any roads or heard any cars. We have seen some water taxis.
We explored several indentations and worked our way into Calabash Bight, a completely protected anchorage. There were several houses up on stilts out in the water with no boats alongside but with a white lady sitting on the porch of each. We were left to wonder.
As we approached the western end of the island, we saw a few cars and wondered it they had roads. VHF seemed to the main mode of communication and we heard calls to Reef House and Roatan Resort. We saw two sailboats anchored in Port Royal. They were the first sailboats we'd seen since Aruba.
Along the western shore we discovered the bottom drops steeply to great depths and is said to provide excellent wall-type scuba diving where a variety of sea life from shallow to deep water habitats can be observed in a single dive.
A man in a dugout hailed us and asks for a tow. We hauled him up the west coast and around to the north side of Roatan where he wanted to be released off of Gibson Bight.
We then turned north to ride the Gulf Stream through the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba. We made a record 176 miles in a 24 hour passage for 7.3 mph. Must have been carried on a 3 mph current.
Wendy made a fishing lure from a tin can and some colorful plastic, and Ed saw a big fish trail it then strike! It was a forty pound Mai-Mai. When we got it on board, Ed, in full sailing regalia, swung a hatchet to kill it and it screamed! Actually, Wendy screamed but Ed thought it was the fish.
We had delicious fresh fish dinners, sandwiches and snacks for several days. However, without refrigeration we still had 15 pounds when it soured.
Crossing the Gulf of Mexico we were reminded of continental weather. A cold front came down from the U.S. with 77 degree chilly air.
On 22 May star shots put Pensacola 103 miles ahead.
The next day we had only 38 miles to go. We had eked out 65 miles in 24 hours which means we made just less than 3 mph.
At 1:30 on the morning of 24 May, we hove-to just east of a 5 second green light and waited until dawn where we found ourselves just one mile offshore! Thank goodness for the depth sounder.
With only a road map to get us into Pensacola, we lucked out and swished in the entrance through the barrier island on a flood tide. But then inside the barrier island, navigating with road map we found ourselves lost in a fog. We weren't really lost, we just didn't know where we were. Putting along we were startled to see a huge aircraft carrier loom out of the fog heading straight at us -- it was tied to a dock. As the fog lifted to mast head height we saw sailboats sitting ahead and eased up to a dock where we discovered we had made landfall at the Pensacola Yacht Club -- member and guests only -- after 10 days at sea.
A gentleman fooling around on his boat, Just Lucky, asked if we planned to take a slip. When we pointed to the "guest only" sign, he smiled and said, "But you are my guests." The Yacht Club rates for Romarin were $9.00 a day.
"Jumping" Jerry, a photographer for the Pensacola Daily came and took our story and some pictures.
We called Wendy's parents, Mildred and Jack Ulrich, and made a landfall in Pensacola, Florida in June where Wendy's parents were residing in Azalea Trace, a retirement enclave.