They're Here!!!!

After tossing and turning all night, and finally giving up on sleeping, I got up at 430 this morning, I had at least mentally written a shopping list for Denise and Erik's visit. After my coffee, I took a taxi to the market and bought some small things to have around while they are here. Denise, my niece, and her husband Erik are arriving today, after a day's travel yesterday from the States to the mainland where they spent the night in a hotel. Then, up very early for the 2 hour+ bus ride to the coast and the 2 hour ferry ride to Roatan.
I took a taxi to the ferry terminal at 1030, and just as I walked down the drive, someone blew a horn, notifying the taxi drivers that it was time. They all jumped into their taxis and headed for the terminal. The ferry has arrived.
A short wait and soon I saw the silhouette of a couple through the ferry window and one waved. Seconds later, Denise and Erik emerged, smiling and waving. I raised the camera over the glass enclosure and snapped this just as Denise walked by, with Erik trailing just behind, in the white shirt and backpack on.

A brief wait for luggage, short taxi ride to Fantasy Island, check in at the front desk, and we headed to Annah Foster for a Bloody Mary, and then lunch. This was a quick shot taken from the balcony of their room.

We decided over lunch to take the zip line tour but the sun came out and it warmed up, so instead we changed to swim suits, hopped into the dink, and headed out to snorkel the reef. No pics of that, but we will go back, weather permitting. Zip line will have to wait until tomorrow.

4 o'clock is happy hour for the cruisers and I took them over to meet everyone here on boats. Kind of a high brow group this week, with the 2 MD's, 2 Ph.D's, a couple of engineers, and the rest of us monkeys. Denise always looks good, eh? Or is that Britney Speers???

They borrowed my cell phone to call home and talk to their kids, Anna and Andrew, and to tell Erik's mom and dad, who are sitting with the kids, that they were here and safe. Erik snapped this pic after I handed the phone back to Denise, after talking to Anna about her day at school - what she learned today and the surprise she is making for Mom and Dad for when they get home.

Although Harry, the manager of food services blew the surprise early on, we still managed to get some candles lit on the cake I bought this morning, and sing Happy Birthday to Erik. Then we left the remnants of the red velvet store-bought cake for the restaurant staff to enjoy. So sorry, Erik, but after baking Rosemary's and helping to bake one for Jerry, the dock master yesterday, it was just so much easier (and a better cake, too) to buy you one. Regardless, Happy Birthday! I am so proud of you.

After dinner, we headed to the bar (again) and waited for the Garifuna dancers. I snapped a couple pics of D and E there.

Poor Denise. Stuck with her crazy Uncle Denny, or Oodie, as she calls me - that's U D for those who don't know the family. I have been holding off making this public, to surprise her today -when I was dating Jane, the wonderful Aussie gal, she pearced my ears. I wore extra big earrings today that Rosemary brought me from the States, just to make sure that Denise would notice them. So now, I can unveil Jane's work, and my new look. Shortly after buying Annah Foster, I decided that someday I would pearce one ear for a pirate earring. A few months ago, I met a friend of Skip's from the States with both pearced and liked it, and asked Jane to do the pearcing for me, and to help me buy some rings. Still old, fat and ugly (and is my nose really THAT big??? or is it the this new camera? - thanks also to Rosemary for bringing me the new laptop and camera and earrings!), but now with earrings.Is 130 in the morning and I have to get to bed. It has started to pour down rain, and it sounds like it is not going to let up anytime soon. I hope tomorrow has some sunshine for the kids' vacation but I cannot control that at all. I hope they get a taste of how I live now - at least here in Roatan, tied to a worn out dock at this beautiful 22 acre resort island.

I will turn over the blog tomorrow to Denise and Erik to post some more pictures of their vacation to keep their friends and family back home updated on this very short vacation in Honduras. I am so glad they're here, and now have my 2nd visitors to see me in this year old new life. Which, by the way, is very good!

Cold Morning 68 degrees!!

I awoke this morning to another cold one. 68 degrees in the cockpit. Brrrrr. I don't like it one bit, and presume that today will require, as did yesterday, jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Yuck! The first jeans I have worn for about a year now, the last time being Bermuda, probably.

The dust is settling after Rosemary's visit, and I am trying to get back into my regular lackluster and boring lifestyle. Have a few repairs to make as well as trying to find some freon for the fridge system, which leaked right after MY installation (What can I say.....?) and the tech who came out had the wrong adaptor and could only fill it about half way.

Was having a rum and coke the other afternoon with Will and a young fellow we had met staying here, and met the new sales manager for the resort. Trust me when I say that when she arrived, ALL the men noticed her. A beautiful, young Mexican lady named Patty. We had such a good time talking that I invited her over to the boat for another drink, and see AF. Re-bumped into Matt and invited him, as well, and we had so much fun, I started cooking and served them a rather poorly prepared curry rice and lobster tails. (Just have to get this fridge working! and then, could do so much better in the cooking department.)

Matt is from Lousiana and a lot of fun and has a great job. He travels the world for a Dutch company for whom he makes precise measurements - lining up propeller shafts on large ships, leveling large crane installations, and here in Roatan, is going to re-level one of the power company's diesel generators, after an earthquake 2 years ago, cracked the foundations. It is his 3rd time on the island, doing the same thing on other generators. He uses lasers to do his work, and has an engineering degree from a university in Lousiana.

Patty comes from a very large resort company in Cancun and was lured away by the owner here to get things back on track for Fantasy Island. She is beautiful, articulate - speaks English, Espanol, and French - and was a lot of fun to have for a visit. Not sure how the boss will take it if she spends too much time here on AF, but has offered to give me some Spanish lessons. We shall see if that happens.......but I really need them. This morning I was out feeding the watusa's - called rabbits by the locals - who now come when I call and snapped this of one of them eating. He/she ate just like a squirrel back home.

My peacock buddy, when around, also comes running now when I call, and after gobbling up some stale cookies, gave me the first display I have seen here. Beautiful, and I am not sure if he 'likes' me, or was just making a threat to the watusa's who were coming pretty close.

If you ever wondered what they wear under those beautiful feathers, I snapped a picture of him in his underwear, too.

Checked the calendar to see when Denise and Erik come, and low and behold - they are coming TOMORROW, not next week! Oh, have I goofed up. Had to cancel Samuel's start on my hardtop, and will have to swing into full speed getting things right for their visit. I will meet them at the ferry from LaCeiba at 11am. Wrote Denise an email earlier in the day, and her reply mentioned that they were 'packing now'. Ooops! Will all come out in the wash, although I am sorry it seems to have turned cold again for their visit. Just heard the weather report on the net and low will be 68 tonight, with a high today of 79. 50% chance of showers.

Erik celebrates a birthday here, and I will have to find a way to bake a cake and surprise him with it in the dining room one evening. Might buy one instead - they had a great red velvet cake at the store a few months ago.

I know they want to snorkel, do the zip line, and I am sure we will dink over to the iquana farm one afternoon. It is a great place to buy souvenirs, I learned when Rosemary was here. Nice Roatan T-shirts for only $8 - hardly the normal tourist price.

So that is life for the past couple days. I have just received a long and newsy email from my Aussie mate, Graham, who is in Phuket, Thailand again, and happy with a new love - 40 year old woman who hand washes his clothes (because the machines are too hard on them) and cooks and cleans with devotion. He is happy, and I am happy for him.

So that is it for now - will post some pics when Denise and Erik arrive.

Rosemary Departs

Well, I am just back from the airport, dropping off Rosemary for her 3 hour wait before her flight departs. Sure hope she had a good time. Took a lot of courage to come down for this visit, and only sorry that her lasik surgery just prior to the vacation prevented her from ever getting out to the reef for a snorkel.
Was great fun for me to have my first guest, and I got to do some things that I had been holding off until I had someone to do them with like the zip line and the dolphin encounter. THAT was great and I think I am going to return for their program called "Dolphin Trainer for a Day" and spend 8 hours with them.
It was an incredible experience for me - one that I had been looking forward to since a missed opportunity back in '73 or '74. I had been befriended by a man who did research on the bends and narcosis for the US Navy, and he offered to take me down to the tank at the beach in Wilmington, NC where he did his research. It never happened and I have dreamed of it ever since. Rosemary has missed the rains. We have had a couple showers this week, but mostly the 85 degree sunny weather that is so pleasant to me. High winds yesterday caused the snorkel with the dolphins to be cancelled, but this morning, we awoke to a bright sunny sky and warm temps. Now an afternoon shower has settled in, and perhaps will mess the the cruisers pot luck at 4pm.

I am so glad that she came and hope she had a good visit - guess you folks back home who have looked in here to read her posts will find out the truth! - and I am now looking for my 3 days with Denise and Erik, in about a week.
Life is good!!

Fabulous Friday

The dolphin encounter was quite a bit 0' fun. We made reservations for snorkeling with the dolphins, but the last two days have had rain and lots of wind. The water was too murky for the snorkeling since it is only in 20 ft of water.....but I'm ahead of myself.

Today we had Edgar, Dennis' taxi cab driver, pick us up around 9:30a. We stopped at the Deck Cafe for breakfast. Gary, the owner and chef, was also just arriving, but made both of us the menu item of our choice licketty split. It was very fresh and good. On to Anthony's Key Resort.

There is a dolphin study happening in conjunction with this particular resort. We were only able to do the "encounter", but as you can see Dennis couldn't wipe the smile off his face once again! From ziplines to dolphins. In water to our waist, the trainer lined us up shoulder to shoulder so he could have our dolphin, Ken, swim right past our group to show us his ear and pet him and again just to give Ken the petting/secondary reinforcement for training. Dolphins are very tactial animals. The trainer told us different things about dolphins, the institute and had Ken do different tricks for us. Then we were positioned with Ken for kisses and hugs that you see in the pictures. It was amazing the speed at which Ken could swim, turn and stop on a dime! There were three "boys at the beach" doing the encounter and up to 14 other dolphins in the same huge lagoon pen being entertained by their trainers. Our trainer commented that the other trainers had a more difficult job because most of the dolphins like doing the people encounters for the attention. However none of the other dolphins tried to come over and steal the show. Ken's skin felt very rubbery and smooth. Here was a "teenager" at only 7 ft and 350 pounds and was a very docile diplomat. The "dolphin encounter" was really cool!

After saying good-bye to Ken, we headed down to West End which is a more dangerous tourist area. The main road is dirt and barely two vehicles can pass each other in the street. It is on the ocean side of the island so the surf and wind were a lot stronger there. Edgar, our taxi chauffer, drove down the main street, turned around and took us to West Bay. This is the nicest beach on the island and has the big resorts stacked side by side with each of their beach lounges in front. Dennis took me to the Mayan Princess for lunch.

Much to Dennis' disgust, Edgar ALWAYS takes the scenic (read LONG) way back from West Bay. It was a nice drive along the shoreline, but did add 30 minutes maybe to the ride. Remember that Edgar is a taxi driver --- more time more money.

We didn't get back until 5:30p and Dennis looked like he was going to fall asleep walking. I went to the hotel room that is reserved for "cruisers" to take a long hot shower and it was available! OOOOOO wa la! After my soak, I stopped over where the majority of the cruisers are docked and said good-bye to Ann and Jerry. Jerry is the Dock Master. He organizes the cruisers as they come and go and while they are here.

I reunited with Dennis, Skip and Will at the bar of the resort. A diving couple who joined our group last night joined our foursome again. I'm telling you all that Dennis and Skip are like a comedy duo and Mark and Halley just ate it up. Dennis had obviously found his second wind and the six of us closed down the bar at 10:30p.

The cruisers are a very eclectic group with many different stories, personalities that share love of cruising. It amazes me how many people truly live their dream of sailing wherever the wind takes them. The majority of these people are like Dennis in that they left nothing behind. Left careers of being teachers, lawyers, vascular surgeons....and to think I know people who wont even retire for 'fear' of what to do next. A very dynamic group, who welcomed me at their Saturday potluck, sang happy birthday to me and have all been pleasant throughout the week. Genuine folk.

I fly home tomorrow so let me tell y'all that even with the swollen eyes and gazillions of itchy bug bites, it has been a great, fast week. If any of you have said, "some day I'll come visit you Dennis", don't let the opportunity pass by. You will enjoy the VERY relaxed pace, the cruisers you meet, the local sites and opportunities and be glad you came. Dennis' niece, Denise, and her husband are coming within weeks of my leaving. Their trip will fly by and I'm sure they will have a BLAST. I hope you have been able to follow my ramblings this past week and since it is now December I can wish you all a very Blessed Christmas.

Excuse the Interuption in Rosemary's Week

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a visit with Melanie, and her boyfriend, Roger, who were here on a cruise ship. I had lunch with them and enjoyed meeting them both.
Melanie just mailed me some pictures and I wanted to post them quickly. Was such a pleasure to finally meet one of my friend, Shelby's family. I hope they enjoyed the visit as much as I did.
Thanks for the pics, Melanie!!! (I forgot to put the memory card in my camera, so couldn't take any pics! Getting old and forgetful.) Melanie and I

Roger and I

Quiet Wednesday

As you can see by the first picture, this is a very fast-paced life. Since the lobsters escaped the clutches of the Great Hunters, Skip came over with the suggestion that we go buy lobsters in Coxen Hole. Dennis was waiting for the refrigerator repair man to come, so Skip and I went shopping. Dennis knows an English speaking taxi driver named Edgar, who was our guide. Coxen Hole is the Capital of Roatan Island and Edgar is very proud of it. Edgar actually named and described each "town" on our way to Coxen Hole.

We stopped at the Deck Cafe for a beer where Skip and I also shot a game of pool. Neither of us have played in a coon's age so the game took a while. Skip finally won. :-) In Coxen Hole we first went where Skip wanted to buy lobster, then we went to a man Edgar knew and got a better deal. After another stop for a bathroom and a beer, we made some other stops and headed back to Annah Foster. This took us about three hours since Edgar wasn't in any hurry what so ever.

While we were shopping Dennis had to work on the refrigeration unit. I don't believe they got it completely working yet, but Dennis was able to put the extra lobster tails in the ice maker. This evening, Chef Dennis made another fantastic dinner with lobster and curry rice. Skip is going to make a lobster soup for another dinner.

After dinner the music began. My friends Harry C, Harry V, Nicole V and Eric W would have enjoyed this emmensely. Dennis has an electric keyboard and is an accomplished pianist. Dennis has a lot of music to play and does it well. Skip has a guitar and a saxaphone that he plays. Even though they did do a bit of music together, Dennis plays with music and embellishes once he is comfortable with the song and Skip just "jams" on either the sax or guitar. One of the security gaurds came over at one point and sat and listened from the dock. A relaxing evening watching two friends enjoy music together.

Friday, Dennis and I are going snorkeling with the dolphins. He has called Edgar to be our chauffer for the afternoon/day. We will see what today holds for us. Dennis is already starting to tease me about having to go back to my life as we are floating along from day to day without anything pressing. Heck I haven't even read the internet news. I'm completely out of touch -- okay so I'm usually out of touch, but it is relaxing down here in the islands.

Tuesday's Adventures

Welcome to the Iguana Farm where approximately 3,000 iguanas have sanctuary. Dennis is surrounded by a mere 100-200 iguanas at this point. But FIRST you have to check out the great lobster hunters, Dennis and Skip!

The great lobster hunters above! Lobsters 5, Hunters 0, but a lot of good laughs. Dennis had gone under water to "just" grab the lobsters we had placed a weighed net around. In the meantime, Skip appeared to offer assistance. What a laugh watching and listening to the two of them. These two are like a comedy duo.

Now back to the Iguana Farm...

There is a local who has dedicated his land and time as a sanctuary to Iguanas, birds, baramundis (SP?) and monkeys. See the pictures below and I'll explain at the end.

That hanging chair would be cool aboard the Annah Foster. This shop is at the "Iguana Farm" sanctuary and they have beautiful items carved out of mahogany.

Baramundi (SP?), here is in a temporary cage I think. They have three all together, two younger ones and this adult. They can't let them go free because they are meat eaters and would eat the iguanas. However, the police have brought most of the animals to this place because they are either killed for food, brought over from the main land where they are listed as endangered species for pet trade, or were mistreated pets.

Honduran black faced spider monkeys were confiscated by police in the pet trade. They are supposedly listed on the Endangered Species list --- maybe only in Honduras, I do not know.

It is tough to see these animals caged, but since this is saving their lives and the family hopes to build them better pens it is very decent of the family to try to save these animals along with the iguanas.

This morning when I awoke, my eyes were swollen shut! I took some children's benadryl. I do not know what is causing this and it is only my face that is swelling. It seems to subside during the day, but I wake up with swollen eyes every morning now. Annoying to say the least.

As I mentioned earlier Dennis and I tried to trap spiney lobster that nestle under rocks by his boat. We put a weighted net down around the rocks. Dennis then went in with mask and snorkel to get them. Neither of us had ever done this and I was staying on the dock. Skip showed up and offered his "help". I had my own comedy duo. Skip also stayed on the dock and was giving Dennis instructions or saying "well if I had a glove, I could help too." Dennis handed Skip a glove which he never put on. In the meantime, three or four "of the big ones" got away. Needless to say there wasn't a fresh lobster dinner last night, but a lot of good laughs between those two.

Dennis and I took the tender out across the bay area to a dock that is just over the hill to the grocery store and a few stores where the refrigerator guy has his business. Dennis made arrangements for him to come over tomorrow. We went into the store and I noticed there are armed gaurds outside of almost every business. According to Dennis, where ever there is money there are guards if the business can afford them. We got a few things from the very American-like grocery store and headed back to the tender.

We stopped at the Iguana Farm on the way back to Annah Foster. Then on the way back through the bay we came upon a black sting ray that appeared to dance under the tender.

After relaxing a bit more we headed over for dinner at the resort. There we were told about a fire show at 8:00p on the beach. The fire show consists of a young Canadian man who lives down here, has LONG dreadlocks, two ladies and a little girl. The little girl is his daughter by one of the ladies and she is adorable. She got to perform twice with a hulahoop and knew her dance very well.

After the fireshow we headed back to AF. Good night.