havecarryonwilltravel

As a lot of places in Central America, two things we take for granted in Canada and the US, electricity and internet, are both sketchy in Roatan. Electricity is on most of the time but without warning and seemingly random it isn’t. No lights, no fridge, no AC or fan, nada. One can still eat even if it is in the dark. Most of the cooking is done with propane or on a grill. So, dinner is always an option. The internet has many constrictions on its path to the computer. It could be a bad connection to a satellite, maybe a screw up at the local distributor, there could be a lot of traffic on the supply cable, maybe there are a lot of people at the hotel on their devices, or maybe it is just the router not functioning properly. At any rate sometimes it works, a good amount of the time it does not. Even when it is deathly slow, I still try to check my email every day, how pathetic.

Land’s End Hotel is a ‘resort’. It is most definitely not of the high-end variety. The rooms are rather spartan and the grounds are minimal. When I first got here, I was not overly impressed with the room, but day by day the place grew on me and now I down right like the place. The room is big enough and functions very well as a staging area for our diving and other needs. The common space is functional for the few times we use it. The internet is not available in the rooms but when working is adequate in the common area. The pool is ocean water but is drained and cleaned once a week. The employees are super. The hotel is situated 500 meters from the downtown area so it is very quiet. The inhouse bar shuts down at 9pm so the evenings are quiet as well. The short walk into town is good to wake up in the morning and good to walk off dinner in the evening.

Coconut Tree Divers is not the complete service shop we have run into before. The diver is responsible for their own gear. There are lockers available so we don’t have to hike it back and forth to the hotel each day but each morning we gather up our equipment, account for all the pieces, take it to the boat and mount it on our tanks. The dive masters organize the group and lead the dive and the boat captain helps to get on and off the boat but the rest is up to the diver. It is good to keep up on these above water skills and when everything is done for you it is easy to get sloppy and lazy. Anyway, I really enjoyed diving with these folks and would do so again if Roatan crosses our travel path.

The personal space afforded by Roatan drivers to pedestrians is about ¼ that we get in Canada. The roads are narrow and no sidewalks. People park in No Parking areas. People walk on the road, both sides. When a vehicle drives by I could move my elbow a couple of inches and I would brush the car. This happens even when we are walking and there is no other congestion. They are so use to driving by close to the walkers they don’t turn the steering wheel very far. Don’t think I would ride a bike there.

Sitting at the airport in Houston thinking about when we might go back. Won’t be for a year or so but I think this is a place we can return to.

One of favourite creatures to find in the Caribbean is the Lettuce Sea Slug. We have been diving in Roatan now for seven days and, up until today, we have not seen any sight of these beautiful treasures.

Today, Rudy, our eagle eyed dive master finds not one but three! We are thrilled as we had almost given up hope!

These creatures are very delicate and have ruffles on top of its body.

We can now go home knowing we got to see a favourite.