Wrecks and Rainbows

On Saturday, Kevin and I slipped out for a couple hours of fishing. We didn’t catch anything, but we saw this rainbow on the way back through Old Port Royal.

Meet in the Middle

The big project of last week and this week is staining the wood decks throughout the grounds. The guys started last Friday on the cabana decks and walkways.

Here’s a photo of Kessel and Miguel, who, although good at teamwork, were not as adept at planning.

(Actually, they said they meant to do this because the stain dries quickly. But it was really funny watching them when they got to the middle!)

Stop and Smell the Flowers

As we move into another season, things continue to bloom around the lodge. Here are a couple of pictures of my most recent favorites.



We have also been visited lately by a yellow-crested night heron. He hangs out around the creek, where he has easy access to small fish. I’ve been trying for a few weeks to get a good picture of him, to no avail. Here’s a decent one from a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s one from last week after he caught a crab!

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s … the US Coast Guard?

Wednesday morning we awoke to some excitement. I walked out on our deck at 6 a.m. and saw a few of our guys walking around on the docks. This meant something was up. Work doesn’t start until 7, and no one but the cooks wanders around until then.

When I went down, I saw the source. A huge US Coast Guard ship was circling out in the sea beyond our dock. It had stopped a shrimp boat from Jonesville and was sending a smaller boat over. They boarded and were there for a long time. For a few hours, the Coast Guard boat circled the sea, and the shrimp boat stayed in place. They were being searched.

According to our guys, the only time the US Coast Guard shows up around here is if they are tracking drug runners. Some of the shrimpers have been caught in the past running not shrimp but “white grouper,” a local name for the packages of cocaine that sometimes wash ashore here.

We watched for awhile, but we didn’t see anything terribly incriminating from the distance. Eventually, the shrimper went home, and the Coast Guard sailed away. However, the guys worked extra hard that day at clearing the debris that had washed ashore … just in case the shrimper had managed to bail her load of white grouper before she was boarded.

And This Little Piggy Went Wee-Wee-Wee …

It has been a busy week, so I’m just now catching up on some posting. I have been in the kitchen almost nonstop since last weekend filling in for two of our cooks, who were both in La Ceiba on the mainland. I usually enjoy cooking, but cooking three meals a day—all from scratch—gets old. And hot. Especially on a tropical island.

We knew our cooks would be gone, and it was only supposed to be Kevin and me, so it didn’t originally seem like much of a problem. I would just cook up some easy meals to keep ourselves fed. However, Ike threw us a curveball.

Our guests from the previous week were supposed to go home on Saturday. They were scheduled to connect through Houston. But Houston closed its airport. And Continental didn’t do anything to rescue its full plane of people stranded on Roatan. Continental flies only one flight each week this time of year (the very slow season), and they stuck to it. Our guests couldn’t find any reasonably priced alternative to get home, so they stayed another week. And I had to cook all the meals.

However, I did get one reprieve. Monday was Honduras’ Independence Day. To celebrate, Oak Ridge planned a parade of all its schools’ marching bands. BJ planned a pig roast. I wanted to see both. In the end, we missed the parade. (Apparently, they started at 7 in the morning so the poor kids wouldn’t die marching in the hot sun.) But we did eat some pig.

BJ and Carmen did a great job, but they didn’t plan quite as well. They started the pig in the oven and intended to finish it on the grill. However, when they transferred it outside, they quickly realized the pig wouldn’t fit. So they cut it in half. Still too big. Then they broke off its legs. That worked.

It was delicious, and I didn’t have to cook. I was a happy camper.

Holy S#^t!

Yuck, yuck, yuck!

What started as a relatively benign problem became a major pain in the arse this week. You see, since I’ve arrived, we’ve had a recurring problem with the toilet in our casita. It would intermittently block up, but after a few days, it would seem to correct itself and return to normal. However, by late last week it was stopped up more often than not. By Tuesday, it was a goner. It became apparent we would have to take action.

On Thursday, we put our guys to work finding a solution. However, this was much more complicated than we had anticipated. After initial inspection, we surmised that the problem was in the plumbing, which consists of a vast array of PVC pipes buried underground throughout the grounds. No one knew where the pipes led or where the clog was in the pipes. The only solution was a blind hunt.

The guys began at the source and dug until they found pipe. They then extrapolated from their location to a point the pipe might logically continue. (This, of course, was complicated because the pipes are connected by a number of 90-degree elbow joints.) Then they dug. Sometimes, they found pipe; sometimes, they didn’t. When they did find pipe, they banged on it to see if it was hollow or full.

On the first day, they were making great progress. They were following the pipe and in one exploratory hole found two pipes. The guessed one was fresh water and one was our sewer. As they dug further to determine which was which, they dug a little too hard and struck a live one.


You should have seen Miguel’s face when the water started squirting 12 feet in the air. He didn’t know which pipe he had ruptured and was scared to find out. It turned out to be fresh water, which was good for Miguel, but bad for us. We now had a 12-foot spurt that was draining our entire water supply for the casita, the main lodge, and the staff house.

So our priorities immediately changed. Now we had to cut off the water supply. Another blind hunt ensued as the guys ran around the grounds shutting off miscellaneous water valves (which are all tucked inside PVC pipes with small wooden lids that just barely protrude from the ground) trying to find the right one. We couldn’t find it. Finally, we called in Tie-Tie, our general mechanic and excellent problem-solver. He eventually found the correct valve hidden underneath a rock. (I have no idea why.) They turned off the water, fixed the pipe, and started digging more holes.

We resigned ourselves to using the facilities in the restaurant, 82 steps down at the bottom of the property near the water.

So ended Day 1.

Day 2 eventually ended in success. After rupturing two more water pipes, the guys located the blockage. It was directly beneath a run of sidewalk about 15 feet long. Ugh! They ended up digging holes on each end, cutting the sewer pipe, and shoving a length of narrower PVC through the pipe until the stoppage cleared. Then they fixed the pipe, filled all the many holes back in, and sprinkled bleach around to cut the horrid smell. Then they restored our water.

Last night, I was excited to have a toilet again. Before bed, I happily trotted to our bathroom where I promptly discovered a tarantula on the bathroom floor. But that’s another story …

So Long, Summer

It appears the seasons are changing here, at least as much as they do change on a tropical island. The winds have died down, and the temperatures are heating up. In another month or so, we’ll likely be in rainy season.

In late summer, we had a profusion of new blooms throughout the grounds. My favorite was the Flamboyant Tree. We saw these throughout Africa, and I was very happy to find several on our grounds. They only bloom once a year, but when they do, they are spectacular. As the summer winds down, our Flamboyants are clinging to their last few blooms. But here’s a picture of one at its height.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

On Tuesday, Perry, one of our fishing guides, found a beautiful green turtle. He was fishing with a guest when he saw a group of children throwing rocks at something in the water near the shore. Soon, this little guy came swimming by. Perry noticed he had been “kept” and dived in to get him.


Perry brought the turtle back to the lodge and later delivered it to his sister, who has rehabilitated turtles in the past. At least, that’s what he told me. He ensures me I can visit any time to check up on him. I really just wish he had never been caught in the first place.


Note the hole that has been drilled in his shell and the attached wire to keep him from wandering. Poor little guy.

Just another bit of “ugly” here on the island.

Creepy Crawlies

Roatan is full of beautiful things. Beautiful seas, beautiful plants, beautiful sunsets … But it also has some uglies.

Here’s a collection of creepy crawlies I saw this week.

Walking Stick
Actually, this guy isn’t ugly at all, but he is crawly. Kevin and I found him on the outside of our house one morning. I used to see walking sticks all the time in Missouri, but none of them was as large as this one.



Boa Constrictor
This guy isn’t technically crawly, but he is ugly (at least, to me) and very creepy. Perry, one of our guides, found him lounging atop the light on the back porch of the restaurant kitchen (about 6 and a half feet up) Wednesday morning. He hung there most of the day.

I have no idea how he got there or how he got back down.

Tarantula
The tarantula is creepy and crawly. Kevin found him at the top of the stairs when we were on our way to bed Thursday night. (Yes, it was night. My camera apparently has a killer flash.) He was big – about 6 inches long. He’s pretty cool, though.

Say What?

Communication problems are pretty common for us on Roatan and a good incentive for me to continue practicing my Spanish. I have a few words, but not enough to get through every situation. And then there is the local language …

Most of our staff members speak English, Spanish, and a local island patois that is a sort of mix of English, Spanish, and Carribe with strong Southern and Irish undertones. (I think some of this goes back to the pirate history of the place.) They generally speak the local island talk (of which, I catch about every fourth word) with one another and a much clearer English with us and our guests. However, there are still misunderstandings.

Last week, Terren, one of our neighbor’s workers, came over by boat. He found Kevin and announced that Matt needed to borrow a “wow.” Kevin and I looked at each other in bewilderment. We asked him to repeat it several times, but all we could get out of him was a “wow.” We had no idea what it was, so Kevin led him up to our tool bodega to look around. Terren rooted through a few tool boxes until he found a valve.

This made sense in an island way. The islanders tend to switch all their “v”s to “w”s. I’m not sure they use “v”s at all. We first noticed this a while back when the grounds guys started the yearly chore of “warnishing” (varnishing).

Then a few weeks ago, Delia asked me to pick up some nice soap for her at the grocery store. “What kind do you want?” I asked. “Dow,” she replied. I thought about it, and realized she wanted Dove.

We generally do pretty well, but we still are stumped here and there. However, it’s still better than my Spanish.