Friday 18 Mar, Honduras day 16, Roatan, French Key Harbour: Day out in a rent-a-wreck, exploring East End.
Friday we head ashore to Roatan Yacht Club where we plan to pick up our rented scooter for the day. But when it arrives, we find it too small for the 2 of us, plus the straps on Oana’s helmet don’t work and it seems they have no other helmets. So, after a short negotiation we get a rental car instead, at $60 compared to the scooter at $35. And maybe it turned out to be a wise move afterall because we ended up on dirt roads that even our 4WD KIA struggled on in places.
While doing the business of car rental we joke that we are back in rent-a-wreck territory. And we come to realise this island’s culture is more like the black easter Caribbean culture and not the Spanish Caribbean culture we had expected. Don’t take this wrong, we are not racists, but we do find the Spanish culture islands much friendlier, much tidier and generally a significantly more pleasant experience, and certainly a safer feel. Here, we are surprised to see each petrol garage had a security guard armed with what looks like an AK47! Same with the banks and ATM – all guarded by armed people, most not even in any kind of uniform. All a bit alarming.
As we take the car it’s a bit of a joke doing the walk around. There are more scratches than untouched paintwork. On the other hand, there is zero paperwork, no contract, no driving licence and no deposit needed, and we can only pay in cash. Yes, this definitely feels more like eastern Caribbean!
Once on the road we decide to explore the remoter east end of the island and save the west end for a scooter day when we will be anchored in West Bay. There is only 1 road eastwards and it winds its way along the ridge of the island such that you can often get glimpses of both north and south coasts, both of which are lined with reef systems.
Soon the road turns to dirt and pretty rough driving but the green rolling hills around us make for a pleasant enough scenery. Along the way we pass thought the occasional local settlement and also, highly contrasting, modern real-estate developments, selling lots with the occasional modern new build, clearly for expat living.
The road eventually ends up on the north coast line which had the odd small hotel, all rather run-down looking. Nice, but certainly not any wow-factor.
On the way back, we take one of the road south, that lead down to the old fishing settlements which we had pass with Cloudy Bay a few days before. Calabash, Oak Ridge and Jonesville. All very local and very much like Savannah and Mangrove Bight villages which we had seen on Guanaja. We visit the Jonesville point marina which only has but 4 berths, but it does have a nice bar and restaurant and apparently live music on Tuesday afternoons. We also visit BJ’s, which is another expat hangout. We just happened to pass it and we were attracted in by a crowd of expats and live music. Well, live music? Let’s just say it was a load of old guys jamming together. But clearly they were all having fun and certainly they all knew each other.
After chatting to a few it appears this is the Friday afternoon gathering place of all the expats who live in this area. Quite a few it seems, mostly North American. But certainly not the type of expat you might expect to be in the newer fancy developments. These guys are much more down-to-earth, almost hippy-like. Most have bought land near the water and built small dwellings, the type of which we saw around the edge of Port Royal. Most of them totally off grid. And it appears this type of living has some dangers here. The locals apparently resent this influx of Americans and there is high potential for crimes and robberies against them. And, apparently, if there is such a robbery, the police do nothing. Hmmm not a place we would wish to live, that’s for sure.
Just before we head back to the boat, our last stop is in the new island brewery. Sadly, it was just closing at 5pm, but we were very impressed by the set up in beautiful jungle-like gardens. We did however manage to get in one craft beer though. Then managed to get back to the boat just as it was getting dark.
An interesting day out, but not quite what we expected of this island and don’t quite understand why everybody raves about it. Frankly, we were a little disappointed. Maybe the west end will be better.