Friday and Saturday 4-5 Mar, Honduras days 2-3, Guanaja: Droning, blogging, lazing and eating out with other Brits, going for a scuba dive.
These two days we have been in our pretty and tranquil anchorage tucked in behind the southern reef on Guanaja Island. The scenery here, with the cays, reefs and backdrop of the green hills of Guanaja are quite stunning and I take several flights with the drone in different lights trying to best capture it. Whilst flying we discover the next cay along, Clark’s Cay, which has a large swimming pool with a lazy river around it. We find its website and it appears you can rent the whole island, with accommodation for 20. We don’t want to rent it, but we wouldn’t mind a dip in their pool and a few drinks at their bar! After a phone call we find it is booked by a family of 14 for the next week so not available for outside people. Pity that paying guests should take preference over the crew of Cloudy Bay!
Having had no internet for our last few days in Mexico and during the passage, we also have a lot of news and blog-posting to catch up on. This means writing, sorting out photos and capturing images from the video clips. All rather time consuming, but it does keep our brains working!
As for the news, with the fighting so close to our country, Romania, we are glued to it these days. It is both very worrying and fascinating at the same time. Also brings with it a lot of background information we were previously unaware of, taking our perception of the situation from unbelievable to slightly understandable. For instance, part of the agreement when the Soviets allowed Eastern European countries to gain independence, was that NATO would not expand further eastwards. But Clinton’s administration broke that agreement allowing all but Ukraine and Belarus to join NATO, taking it right up to the Russian border. At the time, many respected voices said this would have consequences in the future. We also didn’t know that Putin had requested to President Bush for Russia to join NATO too. And of course, that didn’t happen. So, not being allowed to join the club, then seeing Ukraine planning to join was the-last-straw to Putin, who now shows his true colours: a dangerous dictator who wants to have a legacy.
Sorry for the digression from life in paradise ….!
On Friday evening we head over to Graham’s Place along with the 3 British couples from the other 3 yachts anchored here, Mel & Jane on Deep Blue, Alan & Terry on Seminole Wind and Paul & Babs on Lyra Magna. It turns into a great evening with lots of humor to go with many consumed drinks. And of course, there are lots of cruising tales from all our various experiences, and Oana is quite buoyed by the fact that the other 3 ladies also don’t enjoy the sailing nearly as much as their enthusiastic husbands. She is not alone! But by 9:30pm the gang disperses back to their dinghies, declaring it is “cruisers midnight”. Meaning they are all early to bed type people. Pity, we thought the party was just getting interesting! However, it was very nice to have some social time for a change. We must keep in touch with them.
The next day I dig out all our diving gear ready to head off to the outer reef with Alan. But as usual when things on boats have not been used for a while, there is trouble ☹
First the o-rings on both tanks leaked and need renewing. Then I find the high-pressure hose for tank pressure gauge is leaking. And not just on one octopus, but on the second octopus too. I try to bodge-repair both of them with heat shrink, knowing that defense against escaping 3000psi air pressure will be pretty hopeless. But surprisingly, I manage to get one hose down to just a gentle hissing. I shouldn’t really dive with it like this, but what the hell, we are not going deep and Alan will be there. Plus, in case the pipe actually bursts, I will have my mini-tank emergency supply with me, which holds about 10-15 breaths. I usually use this tank when doing things under the boat.
We each take our own dinghies, with me following Alan through a cut in the reef and out on the seaward side, where there is a mooring buoy for a dive boat.
Once in the water with my gear, I can now see the full extent of the deteriorated high-pressure hose. It is leaking along its entire length, like someone have punched it with hundreds of pins. Oh well, let’s go for it anyway, it will just mean that my air supply won’t last as long as Alan’s.
The reef turns out to be wonderful. In fact, probably the healthiest reef I have seen in the Caribbean, and I wish that I had bought along my GoPro to capture it. And I must come back here to show Oana. Lots of small-fish sea life too, but we didn’t see any exotics like eels, turtles, or lobster. And other than the occasional large parrot fish, no big fish either. That said, I didn’t miss not seeing any sharks!
The rest of the day continues to be quiet and lazy. We briefly go visit Mel on Deep Blue to discuss fishing tactics. He seems to be very successful at the sport. He caught 2 fish just today, trawling with his dinghy.
During the evening the wind gets up, gusting 20kts and we are quite surprised how the sea conditions pick up with it. We thought it would be totally sheltered here, but the wind is coming directly through a gap in the reef. Next week the forecast is for much stronger winds in a similar direction, ESE. So I study where we go next and more importantly how we get to where we want to without any more clashes with rocks or coral! With a close study of Navionics charts matched next to satellite imagery, it’s clear the charts cannot be fully trusted. So I take multiple snapshots of the satellite images which we will use, along with a good visual eye on the water, with the sun high in the sky, and preferably behind us. It will all be good practice for the Pacific Islands and atolls.
So tomorrow we will move on, either into the small El Bight next to Dunbar Rock, or completely around the other side Guanaja island, to anchor behind Michel’s Rock. Let us see where the wind, and our whim, takes us.