• October 3, 2005: Road Trip
• October 7 - 8, 2005: Chicken buses
• October 9 - 12, 2005: Scuba diving!
• October 16, 2005: Back at the boat

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October 3, 2005: Road Trip

We picked a fine time to leave the boat to play inland. It has been raining and raining and raining. We thought it would never stop. Abe said it was entirely my fault because I actually was thinking that it would be nice to have some weather other than the blue skies in the daytime, thunder clouds and rain for an hour every night because of the buildup of heat. I guess I got my wish.

I've been doing laundry by hand since I heard that the laundry done at The Compound is all stuffed into the washing machine, as full as it can go. No wonder we were getting clothes back that still looked yucky! So anyway, I've been doing laundry, by hand for the last couple of weeks. A bit more at the beginning to catch up with what I hadn't done before (making a big pile to send to the washer). I take my hand cranked machine, two 5 gallon watertight buckets. Using water that I've heated in my solar shower during the day, I let the clothes soak over night with Oxy clean and laundry soap. Then I carry it all to shore in the morning to rinse it twice (hand wringing in between the wash and each rinse), then back to the boat to hang it to dry.

Anyway, the point of this long story is that the last bit of laundry that needed to be done was done on Thursday. But it didn't get all the way dry before the afternoon showers (hours earlier than normal). So I took it all down, hang it out on Friday. But Friday's looking cloudy. I get in a couple of hours of shady drying before the rains come. Take it all down again. It's still damp. Up again it goes early Saturday, thinking maybe. But it's up for 15 minutes before the skies open. And they don't let up until, Well, I don't know when it let up because when we left on Monday morning at 5 stinking a.m. in the morning to leave for our inland trip, it was still raining. We ended up paying $5 to have them dry our clothes in their dryer on Sunday. However, when we pulled the dinghy up on deck on Sunday to prepare to be gone for a bit we got soaked of course. So now, we're carrying two wet t-shirts, two wet shorts, hanging them in the hotel rooms at night as we travel.

Don't know yet where we'll end up, but we think we'll obviously hit the places that we wouldn't with the boat. I think Roatan is high on my list. It's supposed to have great Scuba diving. So we're making our way slowly through El Salvador, with a mind to head to Honduras for Scuba. We have to get out of El Salvador at the least because our 90 day visas are almost up. We've taken in a couple of movies at the really nice theater we visited last time we were in San Salvador. Sat at the cafe with good coffee and chocolates and played some cards. Just resting until tomorrow when we take off again. Back to the top.

October 7 - 8, 2005: Chicken buses

We talk about chicken buses a lot. This harkens back to Romancing the Stone movie. These are rickety buses, normally with locals carrying chickens, pigs and such on board. There is no assurance that the bus will actually make it's final destination, but we hope. We've taken buses that are rickety, but until this trip have yet to see chickens aboard, much less other animals. This time we saw a gentleman with two crates on his head, filled with chicks. They were even covered with plastic to protect them (or his head) from the rain. We didn't see him on a bus, but we're still counting them as chicken buses.

We actually left San Salvador on the 7th; some extra days that we hadn't planned on. But we found a place where we could watch the Braves first two games against Houston (the military base in Honduras). We're big Braves fans and wanted to see what we could do this year. On Friday morning we got back on a bus towards the Atlantic coast of Honduras. The extra days in San Salvador gave those tropical storms a chance to clear out. We'd like to see blue skies while we scuba.

We made our way across the border with no trouble. We're becoming old hands at this! The trip is taking a long time because we're taking chicken buses the entire way instead of using the luxury buses. It adds more flavor!

• Bus from San Salvador to El Poy: a 4 hour ride to the border, $1 USD per person.
• After a short walk across the border, we were back on a bus. From the border we rode for 20 minutes to Nueva Ocotepeque, 9 lempiras ($0.50 USD) per person.
• Then onto Santa Rosa de Copan, 2 ½ hours , 41.40 lempiras, ($2.30 USD) per person.
• Onto San Pedro Sula: 2 ½ hours, 28 lempiras ($3.50 USD) per person.
• Onto Tela: 1 ½ hours, 50.40 lempiras ($2.80 USD) per person. We stopped here for the night. We'd been on the road for 13 hours with bus rides, border crossings and waiting for the various buses. Besides, it was the last bus of the night.

We stayed at the Mango B&B for 252 lempiras ($14.00 USD). We paid and extra 54 lempiras ($3 USD) for the air conditioning. We splurged! Not so much for the heat but for the humidity.
You can see the "normal" hot water heater used in much of Central America here. I really like the exposed wires IN the shower. This is an on-demand hot water heater attached directly to the water pipe.

Early the next morning…

• On the bus again headed to La Ceiba (we're getting close!): 2 ½ hours, 23.40 lempiras (1.30 USD) per person.
• Ferry to Roatan: 2 hours, 201.60 lempiras ($11.20 USD) per person.
  

We had a recommendation for a dive shop from some fellow cruisers and headed there first to get on their schedule for the upcoming days. The rest of the day was spent in a café playing cards and relaxing. It's a nice little town, not too touristy, but not too impoverished, either. A nice change from The Compound.

We must tell you about our bus trip. This was one of the better ones with many stories to tell. The bus into El Poy (it was actually the bus to Tegucigalpa) had windshield wipers, but didn't turn them on at all. Why, might you ask is that so unusual? Because it was RAINING HARD. But why turn them on? And, of course the defrost doesn't work. Rain on the outside, rags wiping off the inside. It just makes it interesting, right? You don't really need windshield wipers after a certain amount of rain has fallen. It just runs right off the window and makes a glassy look. It's not perfectly clear, but I guess our driver could see. I certainly could see - shapes and such. Nothing very clearly, but then that doesn't really matter!

Somewhere along this trip the "Omg Wag Tg" was born. The driver had a habit of leaning hard on the brakes, sliding a bit on the slippery roads stopping to pick up passengers. Abe and I would look at each other and say, "Omg Wag TG!" Oh my god, we're going to die!!!!! At least we wouldn't offend those around us who might speak English who might think these bus rides were fine!

On this same leg, we stopped with an hour to go for a pit stop. I have to tell you, this is the first time I've flushed a toilet with a paint bucket full of water. I'm glad there were other ladies in front of me to show me the routine. Get your paint bucket from the floor. Fill it from the large bin of water outside the stalls. Toss it in the bowl. No need for a handle to flush. The water just runs out of the pipes. Easy and simple. I'm not quite sure this is what we had in mind when we were discussing simplifying our lives, but it holds a certain romance, don't you think?

The other legs were quite tame compared to this. Thank goodness. Back to the top.

October 9 - 12, 2005: Scuba diving!

There are not a lot of other activities in Roatan for people who don't like to get in the water. The diving is world-renowned and cheap -- prices generally started at $30 per dive including all equipment and drop to $20 per dive since we did more than a total of 5 dives with one company. At its shallowest, the reef is only 10 feet below the surface, stair-stepping down to 40 or 50 feet and then dropping almost straight down to 2000+ feet in a gorgeous wall. Visibility is great -- 60' is a "bad" day. Even with the storms in the Atlantic the visibility wasn't too bad. We had one day with close to 50'. Coral and sponges abound, and there are plenty of really neat kinds of fish. Most of the dive sites were only a 5-minute boat ride out; I think our longest boat ride was about 15 minutes. Water temps in mid-October were about 81F; a shorty wet suit was plenty adequate.

We carried our gear here so that we were comfortable with the gear. Plus we trust our gear and not absolutely positive about theirs. We ended up paying an extra bus fare for one seat on the long leg bus where we had our luggage. It was worth it to have it with us, though, and not too much extra hassle.

We did 2 dives for the first two days, and a night dive on the third day. Then we did 2 last dives on the 12th before heading back to the boat beginning on the 13th. We saw some really cool fish. We'll post more pictures in an album later, but for now, see some here.

Some of these fish were similar to what we've seen before, and others not so familiar (does anyone know what that first one is? - Wouldn't that have been just our luck - Dad looks on the internet for what kind of fish these are, and finds that they are some rare breed native only to someplace other than Honduras. Getting a bit daring in our lies, aren't we? ). Beautiful all the same! Back to the top.

October 16, 2005: Back at the boat

We left Roatan on the 13th to make our way back to the boat. We'd originally planned to stop and see some ruins on the way back, but decided it was just time to get back to the boat. We have a couple of projects to finish up before we can get the boat underway, but we're so ready to be on the move again, that we skipped the ruins. We have to finish the solar panel project (Abe's almost finished. He just needs to caulk the screw holes and attach the rails to the posts. It was raining too much before we left for him to finish). Abe's excited because he's pulling off the strap that's been holding down our panels for over a year! While I'm here with pictures, here's laundry day:

We also have to change the engine oil. The only other project that we should finish before we leave is the insulation of the refrigeration. Hopefully, we can get that done within the next week. That way we can be provisioned and underway by the end of the month at the latest. Most of the other projects won't be finished. We're just too anxious to be moving. Depending on the World Series, we may just sit an extra day or two to watch the series before leaving, as well! It's nice to be able to watch.

By the way, Dad, we finally got the flag holder drilled and up on the rail. Now I just need to find the metal piece to hold the flag pole, but the new stand you made for us works great. Looks nice, too! Back to the top.

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