Fantasy Island Resort and Marina, Roatan

Monday, July 5, 2010

Fantasy Island Resort and Marina, Roatan

Battered, and literally, tattered, Annah Foster sits, tied to the back dock at Fantasy Island Marina. The trees drop their leaves and pine needles drop their needles and the deck is cluttered enough that I am going to ask Jerry if he has a leaf blower I can borrow.

The island is inhabited by an incredible number of different lizards and iguanas (are they the same) I have seen the Jesus Christ lizard, which runs on its hind legs and can do so over water, where it gets its name. But here is an assortment of those I have been able to photograph.

This guy is just beautiful, and seems to rule the roost in this one area in front of the hotel entrance.

Peacocks strut around, with ducks and geese, and this morning I found a pile of scat that I suspect is some breed of deer, but I have not seen any yet.

Have only seen the monkeys once, and did not have the camera with me.

This is the pool area.

The beach area. The reef you see out a bit is apparently a pretty nice dive site, as I have seen the dive boats moored just on the other side. Roatan must be an incredible dive area.

The beautiful cat behind me is owned by 2 of my saviors, Chris and Laura ( she brought me the beers when they came out to tow me in.)

Big happy smile from me the first night I was here. Jerry postponed the BBQ a day waiting for me to arrive, or so he said. (Shh! I hear the weather just wasn't great the day before.) But so proud to have my picture taken with 2 of my heroes.

Finally had a bit of a chance to return the favor, now that the ice maker is working. Invited them, and their jack russell terrior, Skupper over for some Dark and Stormy's last night. Scupper enjoys retrieving thrown plastic water bottles and bugs the heck out of you until you throw it again. He also likes to do the same with coconuts.

So this afternoon, while picking through my 2nd Bojangles chicken breast (Yup. Bojangle's. They also have an Appleby's next door to that.), they buzzed up on their tender and went aboard. A few minutes later, I turned and there, 8 inches from my shoulder is Scupper, quiet as a church mouse and just staring at my chicken. I never heard a thing - not a breath or a tick of his claws on the deck. Now that he knows where I live and how to navigate around my deck, he just snuck away for a visit. His reward was sharing half of that last chicken breast, and a bowl of ice water. Smart dog, and another new friend.

So that is a quick look at where I am spending my days, recovering from the long voyage from St. Martin, and preparing for what I hope is a short trip to Guatemala. Weather seems to be an issue again, as there is another low pressure mess forming just north of us. Rain chased me from the cockpit last night, and it looks like it might rain some more through Sunday.

Life is good.

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About Annah Foster

Annah Foster is a 1980'ish Morgan 462. She is a USCG Documented vessel and the year on the document is 1979, which I believe is the year the keel was laid. She is known as a ketch, which means she has 2 masts, and the aft mast is forward of the rudder. She also is a center compartment boat, which means the helm is located between the 2 masts, which are, by the way, the main and the mizzen. She is equipped with roller furling on the jib/genoa sail which is the big triangular sail on the front. Her empty weight, or rather displacement, is 33,000 lbs, which is fat for her length. Mr. Morgan believed in thick fiberglas for strength and I am told that at places it is often found to be 2 inches of solid fiberglas. Her keel has encapsulated lead weighing 8,000 lbs.

She boasts 2 staterooms, - v-berth forward with separate head and twin beds aft with separate head, including the famous bathtub. The configuration of the aft stateroom could easily be changed with a change in the mattresses to an almost queen berth, port to starboard, but currently she has twins, running fore and aft, with 2 large mattress cushions separating them. There is also a ladder and sliding hatch aft for egress in an emergency, to the aft deck, which I call the back porch. I bought some director's chairs for it and have sat there many evenings enjoying a drink and sunset. The aft deck is also the location of the propane gas grill, storage for the 2 outboard motors, Yamaha 4hp 4cycle, and a Yamaha 15hp 2 cycle, which power a new Apex Lite 10'6 inflatable dinghy, which can hang from the installed davits.

The main sail has 2 reefing points on jiffy reefing and the mizzen has 1. No lines lead to the cockpit but the jib, main and mizzen sheets.

She has a Switlick 6 man life raft mounted aft the mizzen mast. And, an emergency tiller aboard.

She is equipped with a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine, powering a Hurth transmission and turning a 4 bladed Max Prop, which feathers when sailing, and reverses pitch in Reverse so that she has the same thrust as in Forward. One unique design flaw is that the propeller shaft exits the boat at 3 degrees off center, making the port prop walk in reverse, even worse. The engine is equipped with about a 90 amp alternator with a very good voltage regulator.

She also has a Westerbeke 5.7 kw diesel generator, which produces 110 v AC power, and charges the batteries thru a 40 amp charger. I also have a Honda 1000 watt gasoline powered generator for emergency 110v, and an automotive battery charger aboard.

She came with an old Windbugger wind generator, not quite perfectly mounted. Stowed in the V-berth, there is a replacement AirX marine wind generator and 8 foot mast waiting to be installed, along with the controller, and 2 solar panels, which are half the possible wattage the controller can handle.

She has 3 4-D AGM batteries for the house bank and a type 18 start battery - all are 12volt.

The 4 gallon water heater will heat with both engine cooling water and 110v AC power and is equipped with a mixing valve to prevent scalding.

Tankage - Water - 110 gallon port and 85 gallon center tanks
Fuel - 175 gallons
Range when new at 2250 RPM is almost 800 nm.

Currently, her refridgerator and freezer are 110 volt AC, with several holding plates each which must be manually started and stopped. She has waiting to be installed, 2 Cool Blue 12 volt systems, with automatic controls, but truthfully, I don't know where the new holding plates will fit.

Electronics -
She is equipped with 2 VHF marine band radios, one at the helm and the other at the nav station, with repeater at the helm, and a hand held low power VHF 'walkie talkie'. Also, at the nav station, she has a Single Side Band HF radio - SSB with a Pactor 2 modem making her capable of downloading NOAA weather fax and Sail Mail emails and Grb files. onto a dedicated IBM laptop. She has as primary a Raymarine E-80 Chartplotter at the helm and a smaller Garmin Chartplotter for back up at the helm, a handheld Garmin Chartplotter, and an older Furuno GPS at the nav station. She has an older Raytheon black and white 24 nm radar at the helm, with a repeater at the nav station. She has a RapidFix 406 EPIRB, emergency locator beacon, that is hand activated. She has a new Clarion AM FM CD player, with input for computer or MP3 player on 3 sets of individual speakers - cockpit, salon, and aft cabin.

For those who do not know me, I named her for my parents - Annah Margaret and George Foster Doak. It is through their beneficence that I am able to live this dream and I felt that I should dedicate my boat to honor their memories.