Roatan 2023 (page 4 of 8)

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Day 4: Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Happy Valentine's Day! We had breakfast again - this time we both got the American Breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit). Mike always gets coffee and Greta gets juice. Today she tried the pineapple juice and it was very good! Light and refreshing and not sweet/cloying at all. Then off to the dive center at 8.

We found they'd brought the boats back to the north side of the island, so technically we were early - when they leave on the north side, meeting time is 8:15. But we all got there - 4 of the people from the day before plus another couple (Ross and Tina) from Canada. This time, we all walked to the beach to meet the boat with our fins, masks and bags. We climbed in and headed off. Luther was once again our boat captain, and Elise and Andrea were our dive captains. Mike and Greta, along with Ross and Tina were with Andrea (he had just recovered from a motorcycle accident) and the rest were with Elise, doing a training adventure dive. We all did the Aguila (Eagle) dive, which is a deep dive on a wreck. The wreck was a freighter purposefully sunk in 1997 but then during Hurricane Mitch, it was twisted apart into 3 separate pieces. Mike saw a lot of garden eels on the bottom by the wreck. There's also supposed to be a seahorse, but we didn't see it (although I think the dive masters could hear it). There was not a lot of coral growth on the sides of the freghter, but there was quite a lot near the mast. Since it was Valentine's Day, we and the couple from Canada both did the "King of the World" from Titanic off the stearn of the boat, and Andrea took our pictures.

Our surface stop included a hop on to land so that they could fuel up the boat. Then it was on to Half Moon Bay for the 2nd dive. At this dive, there was a lot of intesting structure to see, but not as many fish. Near the end, we were getting close to NoDecomp time on our dive watches, so we went up for a shallower dive. Of course, then a number of very interesting fish appeared below us but we stayed at the level were at.

Our boat captain Luther told us about a dive boat that had sunk that morning. On the way back we got close to it. Apparently, it was a 2 month old boat from Paradise Resort that had too many divers on it and it started to sink. At some point the bilge pump quit and then it did sink. No one was hurt but everything (gear, phones, wallets, bags,etc) that was on the boat went down with the boat. We gave them all the soap we had (usually used for defogging masks) and they were pouring that into the water, to help try protect the sealife from the oil/fuel that was leaking into the water. They had a few air bags on it, but it was in shallowish water, and sitting on the bottom.

They dropped us off at the beach, and we walked back to the room with our fins/masks/bag. We showered and stayed in the room for a bit and then decided to visit West End. We caught a water taxi near Infinity Bay and it dropped us off at Beachers (same owner as the restaurant we ate in last night, different location).

We walked up and down the long street at West End, first stopping to pick up some sunblock as we forgot to bring some and it was HOT and BRIGHT. West End itself was not very different than West Bay - but in this case, the shops/condos were on one side of the street and the water was on the other. In West End, the shops/hotels are right on the beach and there is no road (the road is up a long steep hill). We stopped at some shops looking for a headband for Greta for diving (called a Bang Wrangler) but no one had them in stock. We did stop at one place called the Rusty Fish that was advertised as "Everything Made In Roatan". A lot of it was metal craft , where the art was remade from steel roofing, license plates, etc. The proceeds to go support local families. Greta was able to find her turtle, which was carved out of a stone dug out of Brazil Hill, which overlooks Mahogany Bay.

We then went to Impanema for a snack. We had a couple drinks as well as an appetizer platter that had beef bits, fried plantain strips, steamed/herbed potatoes and carrots, and a side of chimichurri dipping sauce. It was fantastic. We also visited the owner of the restaurant, who apparently used to be a high end executive in the United States. We went back to Beachers to try meet up with our same water taxi, as we'd agreed to meet at 4:30 but he wasn't there any longer so we got a ride with someone else. All the fares are $5/person. The internet still stated $3/person, so it was a bit embarrassing at the beginning when we underpaid him, but at least on the way back, we knew what was going on. Both ways, we saw the sunken dive boat, and could smell the diesel when we got close.

After we got back to Naboo, Mike showered again, and then we had the front desk call us a cab. He arranged a round trip fare and we could contact him when we wanted to go back. It was located on the beach, but we had to go down a very steep, windy hill to get there. When it gets rainy, such as earlier in the week, apparently it's very hard to get up the hill so we were glad it had been dry the last day or so. We then arrived at Lotus, which was the restaurant inside XBalanque resort.

We walked through the lobby, and we greeted by wonderful live guitar music by Luis. He looked to be in his 20s but his playing was absolutely fantastic. He had a bluesy vibe to his music and it was sourced from the 70s and 80s rock. We were seated on the patio right next to the beach under a huge tree hung with lights and becuase it was Valentine's Day, the waiter gave Greta a rose. It was a bit windy but warm. We got the Poke Bird's Nest for an appetizer, which was poke served in a fried tortilla cup. It was very good. Then for the main meal, Mike had the catch-of-the-day, which was red snapper, and Greta had Sea Bass. For dessert, we shared a piece of key lime pie. Everything was wonderful, and it was the perfect night. Mike had a little trouble getting his phone to contact our driver so we had the restaurant desk call him for us. Then we headed back to the hotel. It was a very wonderful evening.

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