Western Caribbean 2019:
Day 6 - Roatán, Honduras

Bundlings.com: [Main] [Contact Us] [Events] [Family] [Fun] [Garden] [Misc.] [Photos] [Search] [Site Index] [Travel]

Western Caribbean 2019: [Day 1 - Great River Road] [Day 2 - New Orleans] [Day 3 - New Orleans Sailout] [Day 4 - At Sea] [Day 5 - Chichén Itzá, Mexico] [Day 6 - Roatán, Honduras] [Day 7 - Harvest Caye, Belize] [Day 8 - Costa Maya, Mexico] [Day 9 - At Sea] [Day 10 - Drive Home]

	Wednesday, November 20, 2019: It was another beautiful day in the Gulf of Mexico.
	It was only 6:15 AM so we were still coming into port at Coxen Hole in Roatán.
	A plane was descending into the airport in the distance.
	Oops! That's unfortunate for that ship.
	We had breakfast in our usual spot at the back of the restaurant, ...
	... and wondered where the port was. The pier that we could see was still under construction.
	The view from our cabin didn't offer any clues either - just a view of one of the other ships that would be in port with us, ...
	... and later on, both ships. That's Oceania Insignia on the left and Norwegian Dawn on the right.
	When we disembarked at 10:00 for our shore excursion, we found the port.
	We had never been in Honduras before, so we were now officially in Country #105!
	There's a nice little shopping area that we didn't visit. Instead, we just looked at it while we waited in line for our tour to start.
	We got on the bus ...
	... drove through town, ...
	... passed more schoolchildren, ...
	... and enjoyed the sights.
	Here's a house with a nice view of the ocean.
	Here's the airport we had seen from a distance earlier.
	The Jolly Roger catamaran tour business is so large that they have their own marina.
	We grabbed a seat at the front of the boat ...
	... and were ready for a day in the sun.
	Carnival Legend was moored in Mahogany Bay to our left.
	A pair of shipwrecks were off to our right.
	There's Mahogany Bay Beach, part of the little paradise near where Carnival Legend was moored. A chairlift moved visitors around the area. Carnival Corporation built the port and their family of cruiselines use this port instead of Coxen Hole.
	We could see windmills on the hills in the distance when we were on the open water.
	It took a while to get to a snorkeling spot. A previous boat got to the spot shown here but we kept on going.
	We spotted several flying fish but didn't get a picture of them. Instead, here's Debbie's hand forming an "F" to remind us.
	Around noon, we finally found a spot to stop, just off of Little French Key.
	Down we go! Debbie was the first one in the water, of course.
	We were assigned a guide and we had to stick close to him.
	Here's a pretty little damselfish in the coral.
	Tom had our other waterproof camera so he got a picture of Debbie taking the previous photo.
	Here are some juvenile bluehead wrasses swimming over blade fire coral.
	Debbie.
	Here's a little needlefish.
	Here's a large school of blue tangs.
	This unusual fish was especially friendly. He repeatedly swam up to people, got a good look at them, then changed his mind and swam off to the next person.
	We realized later that he was a remora looking for someone or something to attach to.
	Here's Tom who is pleased with what he saw.
	There's some blade fire coral on the left and purple sea fan coral on the right.
	Here are a lot more juvenile bluehead wrasses.
	This was a fish with unusual coloring. He remains unidentified..
	Here's another school of blue tangs.
	Conch on a brain coral.
	Here's a little French grunt.
	Here's a stoplight parrotfish.
	There are some black rock urchins hiding in the coral.
	Unidentified purple something or other.
	A large bar jack swam by too quickly to get a good picture.
	Here's an adult bluehead wrasse with a juvenile below him.
	Here's a trumpetfish.
	Big and little fish. The big one remains unidentified despite our best efforts.
	More blue tangs and a juvenile stoplight parrotfish.
	We snorkeled for nearly an hour before going back onboard.
	We laid out all of our snorkeling gear on the deck to dry. We always bring our own snorkeling gear on shore excursions.
	The boat went for a slow cruise around to the other side of Little French Key where we were able to see a tiger who lived on the resort. It seemed sad until reading later on that most of the animals on the resort are rescues.
	Debbie loved this seahorse sculpture in one of the inlets. Why? Because chicks dig seahorses. That's a quote right from Mr. Bundy's mouth.
	What are those little things to the left?
	More seahorses!
	With snorkeling done, it was time for rum punch, obviously. We started with a Sprite and rum mix.
	Lunch is served!
	Lunch consisted of rice & beans, yellow rice, pasta salad, chicken breast, watermelon, and coleslaw (not shown).
	We cruised past Sarah Cay where we spotted some more shipwrecks. Look carefully for this one.
	This one is a little more obvious.
	Our second round of rum punch was fruitier.
	Boats lined the docks around Los Fuertos and are apparently sorted by type of name. These are named Captain Abott, Captain Kenneth, and Captain Charles.
	Here are Miss Bella and Lady Astrid.
	Our favorite was obviously the Johnny II.
	Here's a funny little orange boat-like thing.
	This is a Honduran Coast Guard ship.
	We entered the narrow channel between the mainland on the right ...
	... and Barefoot Cay on the left.
	We spotted this beautiful osprey on a post in the water.
	A man and an ocean ...
	... and his wife.
	We passed Carnival Legend again ...
	... and caught up with another Jolly Roger boat. Their passengers were dancing so they were clearly more fun than we were.
	Here's a closer look of the first shipwreck we spotted in Mahogany Bay when our tour started, ...
	... which means we were almost at the dock.
	We drove back to Coxen Hole ...
	... and spotted another clinical laboratory. That's a pharmacy right next door.
	Whoa - that's a lot of wires on those poles!
	We were met at the ship with cold towels and refreshing watermelon juice.
	We got cleaned up in our cabin and were a little surprised when the glass cleaning machine and staff came by to clean our deck. Sure, they left us a note warning us that it would happen, but there's no way to fully prepare for this thing to slide on past!
	We went out on deck and took a closer look at the water slides.
	We watched as two riders were loaded into the tops of the tubes.
	Then we watched them both come flying past us a few seconds later.
	We decided that we definitely had to try it later in the week, but while we were already wet and not immediately after showering and drying off.
	Here are the pools underneath the water slides.
	This is a bird's eye view of the port area.
	The tender line for the two ships at anchor was right below us. We were so grateful that we were docked for each of our ports of call.
	We wandered past the ropes course and realized that we had the time and the opportunity, so we should give it a try. Once you are fitted into a harness, you get attached to the course by a line, and walk up the stairs shown here to begin.
	The course heads toward the back of the ship on the port side, ...
	... then crosses over the ship ...
	... to the starboard side, where it overlooks ...
	... a miniature golf course. This is where Debbie's sunglasses fell when she was on the ropes above.
	But first, we were very thirsty, so we grabbed a couple of sodas before heading onto the course.
	We grabbed dinner an hour later. The watermelon foretold that it was Caribbean Night.
	This was confirmed by the sheet cake.
	Mmmm, Caribbean food. Delicious! We were very happy about our decision to stick to the buffet restaurant. We could eat anytime we wanted, we had lots of privacy, and dinner only took about 15 minutes.
	Here are the desserts in the Kids Corner.
	We decided to get crepes instead.
	Mmmm, strawberry and banana crepes! Day 7 >