January 11, 2007
Location: Oakridge, Roatan
Nautical Miles Traveled: 0
2006 was a great year though much of it was spent in at Monkey Bay Marina in Guatemala. The best part of 2006 was when we finally checked out of Guatemala and made our way to the Bay Islands of Honduras, where we are currently located. While the travel to and in Honduras have been enjoyable and the highlight of the year 2006 didn’t come without problems. Since we the Rio Dulce in October we had been plagued with problems including gear failures. Here’s a list of what we’ve had to endure while cruising in Honduras during the last three months of 2006;
New Dingy - The wood transom in the old dingy rotted out, replaced by a Caribe L10
Prop Fouled - Propeller fouled with a garbage bag in Puerto Cortez. Cleared prop.
Low Oil Pressure - After lots of work and troubleshooting in 2 weeks we found our oil
pressure sending unit had failed. Replaced with new sending unit and gauge.
Batteries Failed - Our highly expensive Lifeline AGM batteries failed after only three years of
use, they no longer hold a charge. Equalize, no change. Replaced with Trojan T-105’s.
Battery Charger - Replaced the Truecharge 40 amp battery charger with a Freedom 75 amp
1500 watt inverter unit to provide for quicker charger of the new batteries.
Battery Cables - All new battery cables, connectors and fuses to support the new charger.
Portable Generator - Replaced the Yamaha 1kw portable generator with a Honda EU2000i
2kw portable generator to support and run the new Freedom inverter/charger.
Watermaker - The Katadyn 40E watermaker was having overheating issues. We took the
unit out and sent it back for warranty work, ended up replacing the unit with the larger
80E watermaker from Katadyn. The 40E will be sold on ebay when it is return to us.
Wi-fi Antenna - purchased a new more powerful wi-fi antenna to get better range at anchor.
VHF Antenna Cable - Undersized vhf antenna cable is finally being replaced by the correct
and larger size RG213 to allow for better transmission and reception.
Ham Radio Mic - The microphone on our Icom 706 ham radio is iffy, replaced by Heil ICM mic.
New GTO Cable - The antenna wire for the ham radio was corroded, replaced with new.
Sensibulbs - Five new Sensibulb led lights will replace the most used halogen lights as they
use 1/6th the power of halogen bulbs. Will help with amp consumption of the batteries.
Voltage Drop - 1/2 a volt dc drop between batteries and distribution panel. Replaced many
of the original (22 year old) electrical connectors that were highly corroded.
Though we’ve been busy with normal maintenance tasks and these unexpected tasks we have decided that the cruising life is still right for us. It can be frustrating at times when trying to find parts in remote locations, and in this case a trip to the states was necessary to aquire many of the items we needed. It can also be frustrating in regards to the budget. But it sure does beat working. The sights, sounds and smells of everywhere we go is the pay off. For the next two weeks we’ll be busy finishing all the work and catching up on maintenance tasks. At the beginning of February we’ll start back to gunk holing around Roatan while waiting for the right weather window to head south.
January 25, 2007
Location: Port Royal, Roatan
Nautical Miles Traveled: 4
Well, we may not have travel far but we are now out of Sandy’s Marina and happily at anchor in Port Royal. We pulled in at 1030 this morning, and by 4pm we had gone snorkeling, spear fishing (snapper and an ocean trigger), cleaned the bottom of Bruadair and visited with many friends. Our friends Lyla and Arron on Blow Me Away came in today from Jonesville. Deja Vu, Paradox and Dragonfly are boats that were at Monkey Bay Marina back in Guatemala. What a busy day.
It’s nice to be back on the hook. All our projects over the last 43 days are now complete. Our new batteries and batter charger are working great, tomorrow we’ll try out the new watermaker to see how it does. There was some light damage to the hose barbs when the watermaker was shipped so we might have a couple leaks to fix, but it’ll be nice to have a larger watermaker on board.
Life couldn’t be much better right now. The wind is on the nose and keeps the boat cool, the water is very clear, skies are sunny and the bugs are light. We’ll stay here at Port Royal for a few days, there’s a front due to come in tonight. Once everything settles we’ll make our way to the East end of Port Royal with Blow Me Away and continue to slowly make our way to the eastern most island of Guanaja. From there we don’t know what we’ll do.
A couple days ago I think David and I must have been feeling a bit ill, a guy in a dug out came buy to sell us two nice lobsters and a crab for 50 Limpera ($2.50 USD), and we said no. Why we said no is beyond me. I just don’t think we had it all together that day. But we’ll wait, there are always good fish deals to come by.
So after checking out the watermaker tomorrow we’ll probably go ashore and visit with our friends Doug and Mary who are care takers for a nice house here, then snorkel, fish, more socializing. Nice to be back in our routine, no more work for a while if we’re lucky.
January 26, 2007
Location: Port Royal, Roatan
Nautical Miles Traveled: 0
Joseph Stalin Jones is a man in Jonesville that we’ve used many times to take us on errands all over the island of Roatan. While it’s a bit more expensive than a taxi, at $10 an hour it’s a nice convenience to have the same driver who is bilingual to help us find what we’re looking for. Stalin knows where everything can be had, all we have to do is tell him what we’re looking for and he always takes us to the right store.
Stalin is fourth generation Bay Islander (the islanders here don’t refer to them selves as Hondurans). All of his forefathers were fisherman just like he was. Stalin owns two lobster boats, a tour van and truck for transporting items up and down the island. He is one of the many, and the most respected, Jones in Jonesville.
A week ago while Stalin was helping me clear my five boxes of boat gear through customs I learned a lot about the lobster business. His two lobster boats go to the most popular lobster fields in the area, about two hundred miles to the East at the corner of Honduras. The lobster boats consist of a Captain, Second Captain and 12 crew members, the boats remain at sea from three to five months at a time. In order to break even with operating expenses the boat must catch 40 pounds of lobster a day, anything over 40 pounds begins the profit margins. Unfortunately Stalin says this is the worst lobster season he’s seen in such a long time, they are only averaging 10 pounds of lobster on the days they are able to get any, about two or three days a week. He said that if someone came in and offered to buy his boats he would sell them today. All of the lobster boats operating out of Roatan are suffering from low lobster catches. Add the low catch to the high cost of fuel and you’ll probably notice the increased cost of lobster this year where you are.
The Captain and Second Captain get paid on a percentage of the catch, then they pay the crew a percentage from what they received. On average, in a good season, a typical crew member will make about $5 a day. And that’s considered good pay. It’s amazing that $150 a month is considered good pay because many of these people have to live in little shanties in small communities. Poverty seems to be a big issue here on the island whether you make ‘good money’ or none at all.
Oh, an interesting note on catching lobsters. In the past Stalin said the lobster traps were usually baited with fish heads imported from the fish processing plants in Mexico. Now most lobster traps are baited with fresh cow hide. The cow hide is cut into six inch squares and soaked in water for 24 hours. Then the hide is tightly rolled (hair on the inside), tied and suspended in the trap. While this appears to be the most popular bait others are using canned cat food. The can of cat food is punctured a few times with a small nail to allow the scents or flavors to slowly leach out of the can, the can is then suspended in the trap. Stalin says that canned cat food is producing good results.
While we do get dug out canoes that come by the boat often offering lobsters, crabs and conch David and I still prefer to buy fresh fish. Wahoo, Mahi Mahi, Snapper and Grouper, caught that day and already cleaned. We’re actually hoping to find some tomorrow.
January 28, 2007
Location: Port Royal, Roatan
Nautical Miles Traveled: 0
When cruising in remote areas one will sometimes take drastic measures to get a necessary part shipped to them. Sonny and Kay from Valentina recently took such action to get their new battery charger and inverter as their old one went bad.
Back in November Sonny ordered a new Freedom 2500 watt inverter/charger and had planned on having his son bring it down to Roatan during his visit for the holiday season. Unfortunately he couldn’t bring it on the airplane as Continental Airlines had weight restrictions in place during the holiday season, the unit weighed 55 pounds, 5 pounds over the weight limit.
Another cruiser that had been in Roatan for some time told Sonny about Dip Shipping who provided shipping services from the Gulf Coast to La Ceiba, on the mainland of Honduras. It seems that the Dole fruit company has frequent ships carrying fruit from Honduras back to the United States. Dip Shipping takes advantage of the empty containers headed back to Honduras and uses a few for their shipping services at exceptionally reasonable prices. So Sonny made arrangements to get his inverter/charger unit sent to Honduras via Dip Shipping. Here’s where, as cruisers, we take unusual, and sometimes risky, steps.
After making contact with Dip Shipping Sonny contacted his son back in San Antonio, Texas. His son had to drive to a McDonalds, where he met a man. He gave this man the $1500 unit and a $100 in cash. The man took the unit and left assuring Sonny’s son that the battery charger would arrive in two weeks time. And guess what, it did. It arrived in La Ceiba yesterday where Sonny and Kay will sail to and pick it up. Sonny will admit his nervousness about giving such an expensive unit and cash to a complete and total stranger in a McDonald’s parking lot. I’ll admit that I shook my head and wished him luck when he told me this story two weeks ago. So now we’ve added Dip Shipping to our list of references should we need anything else shipped down here (though maybe for less expensive items).
Copyright S/V Bruadair 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.
No reproduction with out expressed consent in writing.