Synopsis of our Roatan visit

We took off after church Sunday after the service was over and hurried to Le Ceiba to catch the ferry to Roatan. Once we arrived on the island, we were greeted by an agent from the car rental agency and headed in the general direction of our B&B, stopping to eat dinner and buy a few items for breakfasts the next few days. Once the grocery purchases were done we set out to find our B&B. That turned out to be an adventure because when we got to the spot indicated by the GPS, I told Nate that it did not look like a roadway, but rather like a backwood cutout into the jungle, so we passed it up and recalculated. I was wrong. The very rough dirt road leading off the hard road was the approach to our lodging, so, we turned off and headed into the jungle with some terpidation finally to arrive at the rental apartments. It was a beautiful place to stay in spite of the very rough road to access it. I wish I could include pictures but working from a different computer than my own precludes that function. 

Monday we enjoyed we chilled a bit, went out for lunch and headed to Anthony's Key to do a dolphin encounter. That was probably the highlight of the time on the island. I have pictures that we purchased of the encounter but again, I will have to wait to share those once I am back on my own devices. That evening, we spent the time at the beach at West Bay, one of the nicer beach areas on the island. We were told that there were very nice beaches on the East end of the island but that the roads were very rough and it was easy to get lost in the less developed areas there, so we stayed in the more trustworthy parts of the island. 

Tuesday we started off early to meet the owner of the glass bottomed boat for an early morning tour of the reef. It was a nice way to enjoy the reef together but it was not something Mama and I could enjoy thoroughly. Our eyes are not as keen or quick as our grandchildren, so by the time they had spotted something interesting and spoken out about it, it was too late for me and Mama to see the sea creature or interesting coral formation. Nonetheless, it was an hour well spent. Following that, we headed to West End, a narrow street and beach crowded with restaurants and shops. Having looked and discovered nothing that interested us, we let the kids play in the water at an open area between strings of shops and restaurants. As we were leaving that beach, Cori lost her wedding ring in the sand. As diligently as we were able to search, we could not find it again. Sad day. But that night we ate dinner at the Sunset grill on West Bay beach. It was a delicious meal but was eaten in high winds. We lost menus, napkins and almost lost an empty soda can or two. 

When we got back to the B&B I suggested we ask the owners if they could locate a metal detector to help find the ring and through a series of contacts one was located. So early Wednesday morning, Cori and Nate headed back to West End to try again to locate the ring while Mama and I waited at the hotel with the kids. Praise the Lord, they were able to find the ring! It was not with the metal detector but rather when Cori randomly scooped up a handful of sand and found her ring in that random scoop of sand. Having that done, we loaded up and headed back to West End to make some purchases at the rock shop owned by the friend who had located the metal detector, but on the way a motorcyclist told us one of the tires on the minibus we were driving was going flat. 

Nate and I left everyone at the shops and went to find a tire repair shop which was located is a very narrow spot on the side of the roadway right in the middle of an area where heavy machinery was operating to widen the roadway. Long story short, as we were being directed out of the narrow opening between the excavator and a drop-off into a dug out portion of raodway, the excavator struck the back window of the minibus before Nate could roll forward out of the way. That glancing blow shattered the back window and caused Nate and I to spent the rest of the morning waiting on a rental agent and the police to get a proper report filed. Because  of that accident, Nate was required to surrender his license and appear in court the following morning to hear a judgment on culpability.

We picked up a very tired family at West End and headed to a limited access beach at the very tip of the west end of the island. The water access was rocky and required some type of footwear to access but the estuary we were able to explore was wonderful. The sea life the boys were able to see close up thrilled them. Fish, crabs, eels, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, anemones, and black iguanas. We did not stay long after we had lunch at the restaurant near the water because of the rocky shore and limited beach area, electing instead to head back to West Bay and park in a free area to enjoy the beach there. 

We ate street taco's for dinner and headed back to the B&B to get cleaned up and packed up for departure the next morning. While we were washing cloths and getting suitcases packed, Nate went to court. Things turned our as expected. He bore the blame for the accident and was required to pay court costs and the cost of replacing the window on the minibus. Honestly, it was not an unfair judgement since we entered the work zone of the equipment as the operator was using that equipment. It was a very expensive lesson but Nate was unfazed because he knows the Lord will take care of the expense. 

When he paid up and got his license back we headed out to eat lunch at a restaurant close to the port so we could be on time to catch the ferry back to the mainland. That worked out well and we had a pleasant ride over the whitecaps all the way across the open water. We arrived on the mainland a little after 3:30, loaded all our luggage in the church minibus and started home. We pulled up to the house about 8:30, unloaded the vehicles we had changed into at the church once their minibus was returned and fell into bed within thirty minutes of arriving back home. 

All in all, it was a very pleasant trip to Roatan. One we will probably never repeat, but one that gave our grandchildren memories that will last a lifetime.