Greetings from Honduras!
- sailvagari
- Dec 10, 2021
- 3 min read
Friday, December 10, 2021
Yup, you read that right! At the end of October, we left Guatemala after 4 months of waiting out hurricane season. We definitely felt ready to leave - we were craving clear blue salt water and island life, plus we finished our boat projects. However, it was hard to actually pull the anchor after all the good friends we made. Lucky us, a group of them actually showed up weeks later in the same anchorage in Honduras! Rio Reunion!
From the Rio Dulce, we sailed overnight to Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras. It was a good sail and we ran the spinnaker for much of it. We also caught a barracuda, which we ate as ceviche for Becca's birthday breakfast the next morning. YUM! Utila was a mix of emotions for us. We adored the island and enjoyed exploring. We saw spiny-tailed iguanas, which are also known as the Swamper and the Wishiwilly. They are critically endangered and can ONLY be found in the wild on Utila. How crazy is that?! We also had some amazing food and for Becca's birthday treated ourselves to a steak dinner accompanied by a bottle of red at an Argentinean restaurant for a whopping $30 USD ;) While the island was great, the anchorage was not. Little did we know that there are a lot of microclimates around the Bay Islands. While the winds on the macro level were coming from the north, they whip around the island, as well as bounce off the mountains on the mainland, coming back at Utila as a south wind. Unfortunately, the anchorage is not at all protected from the south. The anchorage was somewhat rolly on and off during our stay, but waking to 40 knot winds at midnight out of the south with increasing swell was far from just uncomfortable. The storm lasted 24 hours and, if you know anything about anchoring, you'll get the idea of the conditions when we say we snapped through two snubbers! Thankfully, the anchor held through it all (Thank you, Mantus M2)! After the storm subsided and the swell died down, we got some rest, went to shore to improve our morale, and pulled the anchor to set sail to Roatan first thing the next morning.
Roatan, also part of the Bay Islands, was about a 50 mile sail to French Harbour. The anchorage was wonderfully calm as it was protected by mountains and reef. Life in Roatan was rather lazy. Lots of snorkeling the reef, spending evenings at the anchorage palapa bar, and Saturday BBQs with other sailors. Jean, who you've met in the videos, flew in to join us for 10 days or so. The island is about 36 miles long, so we rented a car for a few days and explored the various areas, which was a great way to get a good feel of Roatan. As we mentioned, some of our friends from the Rio Dulce, sailed in and dropped anchor in French Harbour during our time there. It was so great to catch up and see everyone again. We even got to celebrate Thanksgiving with our buddy boat, Pelican. After lounging around for 3 weeks, we felt it was time to move on again. Off to Guanaja we went.
Guanaja is the furthest east of the three Bay Islands. It's also mostly undeveloped. It's a beautiful mountainous green island with multiple small outlying cays and reef. We've been here just shy of a week, but we've really enjoyed it already. There isn't much going on with only a few other boats and people around. It's been relaxing and recharging to have some solitude. The postcard above is from our hike here on Guanaja.
Our next adventure? Well, that is still to be determined, but the goal is to head further east in the Caribbean. We'll keep you updated! And please do the same for us - send us an email to say hello and let us know what's going on in your life! We love to stay connected to you all and have thoroughly enjoyed reading your emails.
Oh, and a link to our most recent video below. It highlights a few of our adventures in the Rio Dulce. Enjoy!
Much love,
Keith & Becca
Comments