Hola from Roatan!

After the monsoon-soaked wedding, we were really hoping for some good weather on our honeymoon. We started at 3:45am in Kyle in, once again, the pouring rain. This lead to us barely making our flight out of San Antonio, only to sit on the runway for an hour and a half. Our day of luck continued and we were still able to make our connection from Dallas to Miami. No problems in Miami and we land in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. After going through customs, we walk over to the Taca flight desk to get on our connection to the island. Or so we thought. Taca cancelled the flight and we were going to be stuck on the mainland for the rest of the night. In a moment of brilliance and orchestrated teamwork, Brian runs over to another counter and gets us on a Sosa flight leaving in 5 minutes. We run to an ATM (who knew airlines took cash only) and I attempt to get a refund from Taca. We hurry to the runway and we were off!

We ran into some more luck by meeting a nice American flying into Roatan who was able to call our hotel and arrange transportation (since our flight was now coming in at a different time). We arrived at our resort and we were instantly in heaven! Honduras is so cheap that we were able to get a condo, complete with kitchen, living room, balcony, and 2 bathrooms overlooking the ocean and the pool for less than a tiny, motel room in the states. We were so tired and hungry after our crazy day, we went downstairs to get some food and immediately fell asleep.

The next day, our first official day on Roatan, was a typical adventurous day in the life of Brian and Liz. We woke up and headed into town (we're staying on the beach in West Bay and the town, West End, is about a 10 minute taxi ride away). Trusting in our Lonely Planet guidebook, we picked a place for breakfast. The "town" is not at all what we thought this booming tourist mecca would be. Its a narrow one-lane dirt road with maybe two-handfulls of stores or restaurants. But we found a gem. We had a fantastic breakfast overlooking the bay and out onto the ocean. The weather here is gorgeous!! Always a breeze and never a cloud in the sky.

So then we went looking for a dive shop - it was afterall the reason we came here. We went to 5 or 6 dive shops, comparing packages and people. We settled on Coconut Tree Divers and wow did we pick right! Upon signing up, we immediately took a refresher course out in the bay with my new best friend Jose. After a fantastic lunch at our same breakfast spot (its slim pickin's down here) we were on the boat for our first dive! This dive shop is great because they are training about a dozen Dive Master trainees. And since its low season (and everyone in the states is worried about the political situation) we are the only "regular" clients! So put that together and we got 3 dive masters each! The water is perfectly calm here and the reef system is exquisite. We saw a big green back turtle gliding along and then watched him eat off the coral! He was amazing!

Our day was a success, we stopped at a minisuper to get some cooking supplies and were lucky enough to flag down our taxi driver from earlier that day. Its really crazy to be the only toursists on the island. Its great and also difficult at the same time. Now it was time for Monday Night Football and dinner. We ate our our hotel bar and talked to some Americans who now live here fulltime. Day 1 was so wonderful, its hard to believe Day 2 would be even better.

On Tuesday morning we were picked up by our dive shop friend and suited up for another morning on the boat. The thing about diving on Roatan is the best dive sites are almost all "deep dives." So you have to be certified beyond Open Water (which is all we are). So Brian decided to go for his Advanced Diver Certification. The previous night he read the book and did his homework questions (we can't get away from studying no matter where we go!). So Brian was going out to "Hole in the Wall" - a famous dive site that bottoms out around 130 feet. Jose made Brian do math problems and write sentences backwards while he was down there to ensure that he wasn't have narc problems. He said the dive was awesome - they dove in caves and swim-throughs. My dive was also great, I stayed at about 45 feet. Again, because we're the only people here, we get super personalized treatment. My DMTs Natasha and Kevin were great. We rested during our surface interval (to make sure we don't get the bends - this diveshop is very safety conscious) and then it was back for a shallow dive. We dove the Aquarium and stayed at about 35 feet. We saw lobster and grouper and all kinds of colorful fish and coral.

We took the afternoon off to sit by our incredible pool and just read our books. This quickly turned into an afternoon nap in the shade. We got showered up for a great night. We took the water taxi into town and ate at the hidden secret - The Lighthouse. Our meal was incredible!! We love it here! More updates to come!