The Roatan Story

Lori Writes:

Ahhh, the smell of diesel in the morning!  During the first week of February, I woke every day in paradise with a headache. This was because we painted both docks, the stairways, and the outside of the guesthouse with diesel.  Surprisingly, it looks nice and will also prolong the life of the wood.  (Mark says this is a much cheaper way to get the effects of an expensive wood sealer.  I think it may be illegal to use diesel in the States for this purpose but that is not true here.)  And thankfully, now that some time has passed, I get only the occasional whiff that is reminiscent of Frontier Land at Disneyworld.  Oh, and another reminder of “The Happiest Place on Earth” was an earthquake that occurred on the evening of the 16^th.  It was a 4.7 offshore about 57 miles from Roatan.  Mark and I didn’t feel a thing as we were on the boat.  But, as soon as it happened and through the aftershocks that followed, our radio was ablaze with conversation of the local residents.  One inhabitant, a transplant from California, called it an E-Ticket ride.  I thought that was humorous because I can remember the days when Disney issued tickets for rides and the E-Ticket was good for the biggest, scariest ones.  It was after this event that I learned there is a fault line to the north of us.  Historically, there have been minor earthquakes felt on Roatan but nothing major has ever been reported here.

Well, it was a good thing my headaches cleared up because the second week of February marked the beginning of party time here in Calabash Bight.  Since February 8^th, we have had anywhere from two to five boats anchored in our front yard at one time. 

 Shortly after arriving, many of these cruisers are on the phone calling Mark about our wireless internet service.  So we meet, do a little business, and then plan a get together.  And let me tell ya, it’s a real tough day when my most difficult task is to decide what snack to make to take over for the evening gathering! 

 Truthfully though, some days it hasn’t been easy to prepare something (Going off on a tangent here.).  This is due to the huge grocery dilemma I have going on and every time I think I have it figured out, something else slaps me in the face.  First off, there are many items that you will see in the stores one day but not the next. I thought this would be no problem, I could just stock up on my favorites when I found them.  But, with foods that require refrigeration, knowing if a particular store has a backup generator when the power goes out (almost a daily occurrence) is an important factor.  I have stocked up on butter and cheese only to find it rancid the very next day.  It can be frustrating but I know I will learn as I go.  I also try to work around some of the grocery shortages.  When I couldn’t get sour cream for two weeks and was going through withdrawals, I bought some heavy cream and attempted to make my own.  It hasn’t been the success I hoped for, but I will keep trying!  Anyway, back to the partying 

….It has been great meeting people on different boats.  Some have been cruising around the world for years while others are just starting out on a circumnavigation.  Everyone has been very interesting and so much fun!  Also, since Mark makes regular runs down island in the truck (meeting with our attorney, submitting the Zolitur application, picking up items we had shipped in, etc…etc…), he has invited some of the cruisers to tag along so they could sight see and shop.  This has worked out great for Mark as he has company while he runs his errands and more often than not, has a nice lunch out, courtesy of his passengers.

  Since Mark and I have been enjoying the company of visiting sailboats so much, we have been tossing around ideas about how we could become a more cruiser friendly establishment.  One thought is to extend our large dock so boats could pull up, drop off trash, and fill up with water.  The water maker we purchased for our house makes 1,500 gallons per day, so we will have plenty to share.  Mark would also like to build a gazebo type structure at the end of our little dock.  We could offer use of laptops connected to the internet, sell small marine parts, and serve drinks and food (when I was in the mood to make something!)  When we shared this last idea with Mike, one of the visiting cruisers, he said there is a similar enterprise on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala that is also successful at operating on the honor system when the owners aren’t available.  Having that kind of flexibility sounded perfect to me. At any rate, I am not sure what we will do, but right now Mark and I have fun just discussing the possibilities.

Not only have we been busy socializing with the cruising sailboats that anchor in Calabash Bight, but we have also been spending time with our neighbors and friends who live on the island.  February 15^th was the birthday of our close friend, Alana.  

Her husband, Brad, who is working in Florida, flew in for the event.  We had them over to our boat for a birthday celebration but it was Alana who brought gifts.  She stepped out of her boat at our dock with a cardboard box containing three chickens.  The red one I named Lucille, the black one Onyx and the striped one Oreo. 

 Mark put them in my fenced (future) garden area but unfortunately, the next day Lucille flew the coop and we haven’t seen her since.  Onyx also took flight and I wish I had a picture of Mark as he climbed through the mangrove trees to catch her.  He looked hilarious!  After that, he clipped both of the chicken’s wings and neither has managed to escape since.  Another evening, we had a visit from Peter Schmidt and his son Mark.  Peter lives on his boat in Jonesville and Mark keeps his CSY sailboat (like ours) in a marina in Oak Ridge. They rode up in their dinghy, introduced themselves, and I invited them aboard for a cold beer.  The significance of their visit was that Peter happened to be the vice-president of design at CSY in Tampa when (my) Mark was an employee there 32 years ago!  They had a great time reminiscing about the good old days at the factory and of course we gave them a tour of our restored CSY.  They are great guys and I was thrilled to meet them.  On other occasions, we have hung out with some of our neighbors in Calabash Bight.  Roger, a Viet Nam vet, has been here for 17 years and lives just around the back side of our little point.  He is the type that looks out for his friends and is great to have for a next door neighbor.  When he runs to town, he doesn’t mind picking up little things for me at the grocery and in return I only have to bake him cookies.  This arrangement works nicely for the both of us!  Then there is Alex and Kelly.  They came from Florida and built their home in Calabash about 4 years ago and have a sailboat parked out front.  Just a couple of lots from us are Mike and Gail who are sailors that purchased a home from Dave and Donna.  Dave and Donna are sailors as well and since the sale of their home, they have moved onto their CSY sailboat and are now staying in Jonesville.  These guys, Alex, Mike, and Dave, have a little band they call “Home Before Dark Boys”.  When they learned that Mark played guitar, they invited him for an afternoon jam session.  I told Kelly I hope one day they will treat us to a live performance.  It would have to be during the day of course, because we all like to be home before dark!  For those of you unfamiliar with the lifestyle, cruisers tend to be a sun up to sun down bunch.  For the most part I think this is because living on a boat brings you more in tune with the rhythms of nature.  Generally, life is dictated by wind, tides, and sun.  Another huge factor is you don’t want to be out in the pitch black night in a little boat (after possibly consuming large amounts of alcohol) trying to find your way home. So even though some of us sailors are now land based, we live in a water access community and the home before dark rule still applies.  This reminds me….the day of the lunar eclipse a group of us had lunch together and Alex half jokingly said he would have to set his alarm to wake for the event (that started at only 7:45 pm!).  But don’t misunderstand what I am saying, cruisers love to party, they just start early!

Other than that, I have been religiously working my compost (beginning to look like good dirt!), watering my plant boxes where some Cardboard palm seedlings have just sprouted (yippee!), doing a weekly trash pickup of crap that floats into our mangroves,  and patiently waiting for things to come together enough to start framing out the house.  Okay, I lied about “patiently waiting”, but I am trying!  It makes perfect sense to wait until we can purchase the lumber tax free and save thousands of dollars.  I am just anxious to have a house so we have a comfortable place to stay when you all come visit.  Meantime though, even with some of the delays and problems we have encountered lately, things are great here.  Mark, the doggies, and I are all happy and doing well.  And to top it off, I realized the other day that I really DO like the smell of diesel!

Mark Writes:

February has been an odd mix of ups and downs.  On the down side, I feel as if I have been taking one step forward and two steps back on every project I am trying to accomplish.  A good example is during the application process for the Zolitur (The entire island is now a duty and tax free trade zone. I am anxious to get this approved as it means most of what we buy will be tax free.  We have been delaying the order on the lumber for our house and other large purchases, waiting for this to come through). After my first trip to the Zolitur headquarters, I thought of everything they could possibly need and showed up a second time to submit my application. Well, upon review, it was found that I didn’t have proof of paying my personal taxes.  Don’t ask me what this is because after several questions to the municipal, I still don’t know what the personal tax is and wonder if they know themselves!  They also needed a copy of my house plans and permits and also the permit fees receipts showing they were paid. I could immediately provide the house plans as Lori in her infinite wisdom made .pdf files of all the plans.  I had them on my laptop and I happened to have the laptop with me, what luck.  As for the permits and such, well…. I went to the municipal and paid my “personal taxes” of 150 Lempiras (7.94 dollars), received my receipt and then went home; dug out the permits and receipts and scanned them and emailed to the Zolitur. At least I could email instead of having to make another visit in person. Now we wait for word about our status so we can purchase our lumber and carry on with building and the myriad of other projects. Last we heard, the application was on the proper person’s desk for approval but, he had an emergency and left for the mainland, figures!

Something else I started but have yet been able to finish involves the red channel marker buoy I bought. 

 It came in from the States last week and I went ahead and picked it up even though customs raped me with their fees.  We purchased this for the benefit of those that go in and out of Calabash Bight because the old marker keeps floating off and was just a very small fishing buoy to begin with. This buoy is quite large and robust, so I hope it will give us many years of service.  Unless of course, someone else likes it a great deal and decides to take it.  It is really hard to theft proof a buoy.  I never really thought about it before and now that I face this possibility, it will be interesting to see how I solve the dilemma.  I did buy 20 feet of 3/8” galvanized chain and two shackles which I can wire to the pin to keep it from working loose but there really is no other way to lock it.  I also expect to have to replace the chain at least once a year and most likely every seven to eight months since the wave action will wear the chain thin at the point where the links contact each other and rub.  But I need weather when the wind is below 20 mph and have been waiting for about a week now just to take a boat ride out to the entrance and survey the location for the buoy.  The wind is still up so seas are up and the wind is from the south southeast which makes it even rougher, so I wait.

During this time, I also wanted Gremlin (our 11’ launch) lengthened.  An islander I know and trust, highly recommended a boat construction and repair guy named Kelvin. We all know how word of mouth goes.  If you trust the source then everything should work out, right?  Well, so far, not this time!  It appears that we are being fleeced a little at a time as some islanders do to us “Gringo’s”.  Kelvin came by and we agreed on a price and the work to be done and trusting as I am, I let him take Gremlin.  He has come by several times over the last three weeks asking for more money, claiming he needed it for more materials. My practice in this circumstance has always been to pay up to a set amount, never over the total agreed price, while trying to keep it an honest deal. Then Kelvin disappeared and I could not contact him for several days.  Then he reappeared, and told me he would be bringing the finished boat by today.  That was eight days ago and I still haven’t seen our poor little Gremlin.  I do thank Lori for convincing me to get the outboard back in the beginning, so at least that is on our porch here.   Now, someone who knows Kelvin told me today that he hasn’t even started on the boat!  So I am going to go by the Key here in Calabash Bight and take a look for myself.  I also hoped that I could have trusted Kelvin.  Getting my money back will be a chore or he will have to go spend some time in jail and if you have ever seen the jails here you wouldn’t want to go there! Why do some islanders do this? I don’t really know as their reputation is ruined when they conduct business in this manner.  I know a lot of people here.  Islanders, Americans, Canadians, and word spreads like wildfire on “bad” deals and untrustworthy individuals.  So I can assure you that Kelvin will not be doing this to anyone else that I know, which pretty much makes him unemployable anywhere on this island.  Dumb on his part!  At least most times here, it doesn’t cost you a ton of money to find this out, unless you were a little too foolish with your money.  I was half foolish in this case, live and learn (and one step forward, two steps back…).

We have another project that seems to go nowhere that I refer to as “The Bambino Caper”.   We have been trying to get some fuel for Darcy (one of our workers) so he can make a little side money running his gas station (this is nothing more than a little shack built directly on the water) selling gas to passing boats and dories. He makes about 10 Lempira per gallon or about .40 cents. I call it a “caper” because of the mind-boggling nonsense we have been through in our dealings with the boat captain Bambino and also the owner of the vessel, Derrick.  We are not asking them to do anything new, in fact they deliver fuel from the mainland twice a week for about a dozen other individuals here. That is what makes this even more unbelievable.  Here is the story.  Five weeks ago, I handed Darcy 4000 Lempiras for one barrel of fuel and one case of two cycle mix (called lube here).  For three weeks the captain fed us stories about how he kept getting kerosene instead of fuel and continued to promise us our fuel on the next trip. Well, after getting fed-up, I confronted him and not feeling satisfied I contacted the boat owner, Derrick. He said he was unaware of the money or the fuel/kerosene problem and would make it good in one week (I was glad I had the sense at the outgo of this disaster to get a receipt from the captain that also names the boat “Bambino”).  Well, a week goes by and as Derrick promised, we received a barrel of gas and a case of lube.  The case of lube turns out to be way overpriced and the gas was black as oil!  I need to add that during this fiasco, I learned that Captain Bambino has a reputation for having a drinking/drug problem and the 4000 Lempira we gave him was probably partied away (Because of this, I now refer to him as BUMbino.).  Anyway, Derrick agreed to take the barrel back.  We had screwed up and had paid to have it delivered to Darcy’s gas station before we discovered it was bad gas.  Shipping for the barrel was 80 Lempira and 17 Lempira for the case of “golden” lube.  Then we paid a dory 100 Lempira to deliver it all back to BUMbino.  So we’re even deeper in the hole on this!  Now, we are into week five. Thursday night I received a call from Derrick asking ME to call HIS supplier to get the fuel.  Three things went through my mind in rapid succession.  One, why should I do his job and call the supplier? Two, my Spanish isn’t all that good and the supplier speaks only Spanish.  And, three, Derrick promised to take care of this and now is trying to wiggle out of it.  I’d had enough, so on Monday morning I turned all receipts and information over to our attorney hoping that she would straighten out the mess.  Almost immediately, we received a call from Capt. BUMbino.  He claims our fuel will be here Wednesday, we shall see…..  

The infamous Bambino. Our Panga "Vista Cruiser" in the foreground.

Another incident I call “The BJ Blowout” was something we could foresee happening and yet, still hoped that it wouldn’t.  We are putting a fence up around the Oak Ridge lot (this is owned by our friend Alana and her mother, Jesse.  They have given us use of the property, so we park our truck here and keep our boat at the dock when in town.  In the near future we hope to have paying customers park their vehicles on this lot as well).  This property is adjacent to BJ’s Backyard Bar & Grill. 

 BJ and Alana have been disputing the property line between them for some 20 years or so and BJ has a bad temper, a gun, and drinks quite a lot.  Anyway when it came time to do the fence posts between their properties, I had the guys (Darcy and Jose’) help me measure both our side and BJ’s side twice.  Then we measured one more time just to be sure of the line according to the documented, legal survey.  When we started to dig the first post hole, BJ and Carmen (BJ’s boyfriend) came running out. 

 BJ was so angry she was shaking. She proceeded to scream at me that I was on private property and I was to get off right now! Carmen was in the background yelling “Yea” while poking his finger at me repeatedly.  I was wondering why he was even there because he has no idea where the property line is (much less where HE is at any given moment). I tried to reason with them telling them that this was not my fight.  It wasn’t even my property.  My job was to put the fence where the documents show the property line, not where they claimed it was (which incidentally gave them about 15 extra feet of property). I even asked if I could look at their documents so we could resolve any error, if there was one, but they refused to produce anything.  While they were still yelling and cussing at me and the workers, I called Alana, the Catastro (property appraisers office), and the Justice (chief of police).  I went to the Municipal to gather all concerned and we went back to the property en masse. With all of us there (and half of the Oak Ridge townspeople standing on the street watching with amusement), the Catastro measured the properties once again.  All the while, BJ is screaming about how she owns this and that because she just owns it and that is all anyone needs to know. When all is said and done they marked exactly where the fence was to be which incidentally is where we started to put it in the first place (my measurements were dead on).  Over the next few days while Darcy and Jose’ continued to place posts, they were verbally accosted a few times by BJ.  Eventually it tapered off, but before it was done, Darcy accidently left the string out and “someone” cut it up and then stole the end roll, and moved some trash in their way. I have no idea who might have done that, do you?  I am really sorry this had to happen because now I don’t think I will ever be welcome at their bar & grill for a coke or lunch.  Even thought it wasn’t my fight or my fault, I know I am the bad guy in this and will have to bear the burden. It is amazing what happens around here on a daily basis isn’t it? But on the other hand, it may prove to be a blessing in disguise. I was hesitant to compete with BJ renting out parking for cars, trucks, and boats (she does this at her place) but now that this happened, why not! How much “badder” can I be? 

Afterword:  BJ and Carmen are now friends of ours, again. The issue about the property line has been cleared up and all is well.

Darcy & Jose' at work

On the up side, back home at Turtlegrass, I have finally finished the solar system! I received the charge controller that I blew up in the last chapter, wired it in and then did some minor re-arranging of wiring and it has been up and running for the last week and a half. Boy is this neat! It is really paying off since RECO has been blacking out Calabash Bight anywhere from 8 to 16 hours a day! I look around when that happens and my chest swells with pride that my little LorMar Pokito is fully self sufficient and uses the sun for power! It never goes dark anymore and the WiFi is up 24/7 and the refrigerator is always cold!!!! Yippee!!!  The next project on the renewable energy or “green energy” list will be the wind generator.

Since writing the earlier paragraph about the channel marker for Calabash Bight, it happened to be calm enough yesterday to dive on the marker buoy location and found a 20 foot long steel bar that has grown into the coral bed that will make a nice anchor for the buoy.  Man what luck!  Now all I have to do is figure out how to theft proof the buoy and also how to make the chain slack without scraping the coral bed and not too short that the waves jerk the buoy anchor pin.  I suppose my entire mooring buoy and pennant experience will come into play.  But I do know one thing for certain, you have to inspect and replace the anchor system twice a year if you want it to last. A buoy floating to Cuba isn’t much good for us here!

To wrap up, Lori has been so helpful in all of this. She puts up with my manic moments, helps with piloting the boat and generally keeps me in line and in clothes. She also helps with my ramblings here by correcting my terrible punctuation and repetition, yes I am long winded Hun! I am trying to teach her how to dock the Panga and the Gremlin (when and if Gremlin makes it back here!).  The dogs are good companions and keep the property and sailboat well guarded.  They also swim a lot, being Spanish water dogs.  Mom Lori gripes at them because they get their little paw prints all over the boat but all in all, we would never do without them, ever.  

Mark & Ziggy in their favorite position!

Maggie is a good girl...most of the time!

Even through all the trials and tribulations I still find myself waking up, giving Lori a kiss, and feeling wonderful.  Just looking around at the clear water, the sun rising, and knowing that I have another day on a tropical island is like an elixir.  I suppose that someday I will not want to do all this, but damn I’m having a great time now!