The Honeymoon Continues

The beautiful weather never ceases to amaze us in Roatan. The rainy season is a few weeks late and the sky is free of a single cloud. The island is also free of a single tourist. Well almost. While the nightlife takes a hit with the low numbers, ultimately we love having the island to ourselves. As I previously explained, the town is nothing to write home about, but its small size (and our friendly personalities) have created a bit of celebrity-status for us. We know most of the taxi drivers in town, and we have our own personal one, Miguel, who will wait outside our dinner spot in order to take us home. The fishermen say hi to us when we walk past, and our favorite bartender at the pool, Carlos, knows we love the Monkey La Las - Roatan's drink of choice. We're almost always the only ones at the pool or in a restaurant for dinner - so luckily we enjoy each other's company the best.

So not to rub it in, but we have had lobster every day down here. The best thing about the Caribbean in Central America is the incredibly cheap seafood. Our favorite lunch spot, The Beach House, where we watch the local kids play soccer along the beach and the chef knows us by name, never disappoints. We simply walk up, tell Douglas we want to spend $10 and we get 3 lobster tails and fish and shrimp for 2. Heaven! Since we have our own kitchen, we make most of our breakfasts and eat out on our balcony patio. Beers are no more than a $1.50, but Coke is a whopping $3. Guess which one we drink more of :)

The third day on the island got Brian another step closer to his Advanced Diver Certification. To complete the course he had to take on a wreck dive. One of Roatan's most famous dive sites is El Aguila and looks like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Brian, and the dive masters Peter, Kevin and Monte, dove down to 110 feet to visit this sunken treasure. As they swam through the hull, Brian could only laugh as Peter (leading the way) was startled by coming face to face with an ominous moray eel. This however only served to distract Brian from swimming right into a giant grouper. I think its clear Brian loved diving Aguila! On his next dive, Brian had to complete a navigation dive - meaning direct the group via compass then via visual landmarks. [insert joke about men and directions] But once again, Brian passed with flying colors. Diving here shows a different kind of ocean beauty, the coral and rock formations and the ability to dive in caves and through deep channels are unlike anywhere else. While not overly abundant in sea life, the size and structure of the reef system here is breathtaking.

So upon returning home to the resort, we quickly realized our peaceful, secluded beach was now completely overrun with Carnvial Cruise-shippers. Literally, upwards of 400 people were now side by side "enjoying" Roatan. This in turn brought out all the beach vendors and the scene became a mix of drunken vacationers and lazy Americans. Granted being dropped in a foreign place for 8 hours to take in the culture isn't ever what Brian and I plan to do on our vacations, but now we cemented our belief that cruises are not our thing. Luckily it came time for their all you can eat buffet and the cruise-shippers finally left our island, and quiet finally returned. We headed into town for another fabulous dinner at our favorite place, The Lighthouse.

Walking along the beach (even in town) provides a fabulous view of the night sky. It was astounding to us that we could see the Milky Way! Its so unbelievably beautiful to look up and see the galaxy, for a moment we felt truly connected to our planet. Between the reef system here and clear night sky, Roatan is a real escape from the bustling, polluting modern world. As with every other night so far, we once again don't want to go home.