So it was a pretty productive week in La Ceiba. Andiamo’s hull has been restored to her original blue luster, her battle scars and gashes taken away. Ok, so all the blue spots where we spot painted don’t EXACTLY match up with the rest of the hull, so what? I’d rather look at some darker patches of blue than bright white or gray gashes, nicks and scratches.
Also finally got the ball rolling on some age-old damage to the bow pulpit (courtesy of BoatUS and the US Coast Guard back in Key West!). We’ll have to go back for a day or so to get everything put on after it comes back from the machine shop, in the coming week or so.
We also took advantage of the downtime to rip out the GHASTLY looking formica in the galley countertops, and replace it with gleaming, shiny white formica! Let’s see how long it stays shiny and white now. I’m also having a new bow chock and stanchion mount made for the bow pulpit to replace the ones that were er.. damaged… back in Key West. But that should be quick, and it will be sweet when it’s FINALLY done. Except for the time that Andiamo got somewhat HIT by a fishing boat that was being towed into the harbor, narrowly missing some newly finished paintwork on Andiamo’s stern (but did end up kinda “bending” the dinghy davits), there were no other real calamities to speak of.
So, after some massive provisioning at La Ceiba’s fantastic supermarkets, Andiamo was off again last Saturday. We had to sail over to Roatan to pick up Bergljott, a Danish friend of Sjelle’s who was coming in. We left for Roatan, about 30 miles north of La Ceiba in the morning.
It was a HEAVY DUTY sail over. Winds were howling over 25 knots and seas were easily over 8 feet. With a reefed main, we had Andiamo pointing pretty nicely over most of the course to Roatan. I would have rather gone into Coxens Hole, because it would have made it very easy to get to the airport from there to pick up Bergjlott. Instead, because of the way the currents were acting on the boat, we opted to head into the West End instead. This was a much nicer anchorage anyway,it just meant we’d have to grab a bus or cab to the airport, and that we’d be a little late getting Bergljott.
After a blast of a sail, we anchored in the West End anchorage. After securing the anchor, and squaring away the boat a little, we proceeded to get the dinghy in the water asap. We needed get ashore and over to the airport as soon as possible to grab Bergljott. We found a mini-bus heading into Coxen Hole as soon as we got on the beach, so we climbed aboard. From there, we grabbed a cab to the airport, only a few minutes away. Within about 10 minutes, we found Bergljott, who had been there a couple of hours by then. Minutes later, we were on our way back to West End.
Bergljott, who is actually from the Faeroe Islands, had never traveled out of Europe before, so this was a huge first for her. She was a bit jet lagged from her trip over, but not too bad since she spent the night in Houston on the way over. Sjelle and I, on the other hand, were really exhausted, considering we stayed up most of the previous night getting the boat ready for the trip the next morning. We had to clean Andiamo up after all the boatwork.
We talked about taking a bit of a nap in the early evening, and then head in to shore to meet up with Ann, the swedish dive instructor friend of mine who spent some time onboard Andiamo during the holidays. So we all proceeded to crash for a couple of hours, which actually turned to all night. I guess we were all more exhausted than we originally thought. I actually woke up at 4AM, shocked that I’d slept through like that. But apparently, it was much needed, because I was still pretty tired.
The next day was pretty relaxed, we gave Bergljott a chance to settle in so we didn’t scramble off on a big activity schedule. About the only thing to do in Roatan is dive. Sjelle’s certification is lost in space, and Bergljott wasn’t certified. So diving wasn’t high on the list, unfortunately for me. We did go into West End town, and hung out a bit. I also managed to talk to Ann, who wondered where the hell we were the night before, since we didn’t talk to her again after passing out. We made a deal to meet the next day at sunset at a place called “Sundowners”, in Halfmoon Bay. It was about this time that I realized, that it was ok to just relax on the boat after a very hectic week of working on it. So I didn’t seem to mind, although Sjelle tends to get a little restless when nothing’s going on.
That evening proved to be a quiet one as well. We stayed onboard, and watched a dvd and called it a night pretty early again. The weather was quite nice and breezy, and the nights were actually a bit cool. This was a nice change from the sweltering nights we’d been having in La Ceiba.
The next morning, we had a nice casual breakfast in the cockpit. It was promising to be hot, and there were people milling around on the beach, and the Luna Beach resort, which we were anchored right off of. Sometime around 9 or so that morning, we heard what I thought were fireworks. Sjelle, however, thought they sounded like gunshots. Gunshots?? Here on the West End? Seemed odd to me. Then again, they did sound like gunshots come to think of it. Probably some Spaniard shooting into the air, I thought, they tend to do that on certain occasions.
A few minutes later, we heard several more shots, and this time they sounded closer. Then, we noticed all the people on the Luna Beach dock scrambling off in a big hurry. Then, Sjelle saw at least 1 or 2 rounds bouncing off the water just off the boat anchored next to us! It was crazy. I proceeded to grab my binoculars to see if I can get a closer look at what was happening on the beach. There were several national police officers grouped around a beachfront reggae bar. They were all pointing in the same direction, towards a large church-like building. A couple of them were looking down at something. I later found out that it was the guy they shot, who was now dead at their feet.
The cops ran around for another hour or so. After that, everything went fairly back to normal on the beach. The taxis started driving by, and people were walking around again. A local guy who operates a tour boat stopped by to say hi. We asked him if knew anything about what had happened on the beach. He said he had just talked to a friend on his cel phone. His friend said that two local guys got into a mini-gunfight by the beachside reggae bar over a deal gone bad (I know, drugs were involved, shocking!).
Then, the cops showed up and one of the guys tried to run up the beach to get away. The cops shot him while he was running (In these parts, they don’t have the same, *ahem*, protocols that determine when a police can shoot or not shoot, as they pretend to have in places like LA or Miami). He was dead. They were apparently looking for the other guy that was involved in the gunfight, but he didn’t know if they’d found him or not.
At that point, I thought, a hell of a way to start the day. It could not get any more perilous after that little ordeal.
Things seemed peaceful again on the beach, so I went ashore to run some errands. We were planning on heading over to Utila either that day or the next. I needed to get some paperwork done online to prepare for filing taxes and to deal with a few other matters before leaving. After I got my errands done, we were able to leave.
There wasn’t much wind, and it was a little later in the day. This meant we’d arrive in Utila in the evening. This is not a problem for me, since I’ve done it a few times. We motorsailed most of the way, and still made it in a reasonably good time. We set anchor, and alas, we were back in Utila again.
It was nice to be back. Most of my Utila friends were starting to wonder if I’d ever get back. When I left back in February to go help Sjelle with her boat, I was only supposed to be gone a couple of weeks. Most, like Tony P, had already heard about Sjelle’s big mast-falling incident. However, some of the points of the story were a bit exaggerated as it so often happens when things are communicated over the “coconut telegraph”.
We’ve been here for about a week now. Mostly because Sjelle and I have both been sick with some kind of nasty flu. We finally came out of it, and took a sail out to the Cays for a couple of days. It’s Holy Week right now (Semana Santa), so we are trying to stay out of any population centers in the area until after Easter. So it’s probably onward to Cayos Cochinos after a brief provisioning stop in Utila town. We don’t have much more time to sail this month, because we have to be back in Rio Dulce by the 20th to finish up getting Sjelle’s boat secured for the summer. After that, we should have a good few more weeks of sailing to do.
But it sure is nice to be back out on the water again. Hope it holds out for the rest of the season.