Halloween, Island style
The digital camera is gone, stolen perhaps, so no pictures of ghouls and leprechauns.
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October 31, 2006
October 30, 2006
Forecast
Getting through the weather to the boat is impossible. I am wearing the same clothes since Houston. I am writing this by hand on borrowed paper. We are the only people at this hotel, which claims to be where they filmed Temptation Island. That's something, I guess.
October 29, 2006
Fiascos in Paradise
The Captain arrived in a frenzied mode - the Saltwater Cowboy had dragged anchor during the storm. A few more feet and it would crash into another boat anchored out – a dive boat – making us quite unpopular in this diver’s paradise.
We rowed out, since the outboard was shot, but couldn’t get the Cowboy’s diesel started because the cranking battery was dead. Captain Chavez described the situation as pretty f*ing critical. He went to find someone to tow us while Jack and I waited, unable to do anything if the boat drifted.
Help did arrive in the form of three Islanders whom the Captain convinced to take out their boat on Sunday. It being Sunday, of course they were drunk, and couldn’t agree on anything. It was like an incomprehensible, bordering-on-violent version of “Whose on First?” Had the situation not been so critical it would have been downright comic. They argued in rapid Islandspeak about every last move, until one guy gave up and threw the rope down dramatically. The drunk captain spun the boat in circles, overshooting every direction. We made it, however, to a secure mooring bal, right before the rain began to pour down again.
Then we could do nothing but sit in a bar and watch a toucan hope from pole to pole.
October 28, 2006
Back in the Saddle
Here we go again…almost. We almost didn’t make the flight because Jack’s passport had “spots” on it. Actually, it was more speckled. To the untrained eye it might have looked like a perfectly valid US passport, but to our scrutinizing gatekeepers it was "mutilated." So began the dance with the redcoats, and finally a promise that future airport trips would bring only pristine passports won them over. Or, perhaps next time we will draw two little purple dots on Jack’s face, so he will look exactly like his passport. He will be known as the speckled traveler: good luck to all who “spot” him.
Then came security. We had two HD cams, a solar panel, boat parts, many more bags more than allowed (NINE gray bins worth), two computers, audio recording equipment, and of course cell phones, Ipods, digital cameras, etc. But no lotions, gels, or liquids. The lady behind us, however, did get busted with some mascera. The phrase “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” came to mind.
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Honduras. We arrived around 1pm in Roatan, a tiny, one runway affair surrounded by ocean.
A taxi took us to the beach in front of the boat. The dink (Cowgirl) was beached with the backup 8 horsepower motor (as the 15 has been stolen). Jack cranked her up and took her for a test spin. The prop was stripped, which translates to the dink’s pace as that of a baby walk. We slowly ferried the luggage out there, then went to find the Captain.
Then the rain hit. And the wind, and the waves. The Cowgirl had no chance to make it back to the sailboat with the 25 knot onshore breeze. And the hotels were all closed. The night was miserable, cold and dark, and all our gear was on the boat, an impossible two-hundred yards away.
Ah, it’s good to be back.