Advertisement
Published: February 24th 2008
Today, Thursday, we arrived at the port of Roatan in Honduras at 0800hrs local time, 1500hrs UK time. Not wanting to rub it in but the temperature on arrival was 26c but only 27c by noon.
Roatan is the largest and most developed of the Bay Islands, a group of small islands off the northeast coast of Honduras in the Caribbean Sea. An island known for it's many attractions. both on land and water. It is about 33 miles long and just over 2 miles wide at its widest point. Spanish is the official language of Honduras but many people in Roatan speak English. Being such a small island, not much to say. We decided not to venture ashore as first thing in the morning, my back went, so laid up all day. We did manage to watch the dancers on the quayside who welcomed the ship on our arrival.
Another day passes and we arrive in Belize at 0800hrs to a scorching temperature of 27c. The small Central American country of Belize, formerly British Honduras, lies between Mexico to the north and Guatemala to the south and west. Belize City, population of 78,000, is the country's largest city,
main commercial centre and chief port and is located where the Belize River enters the Caribbean Sea. It is the only officially English speaking country in Central America. Only 300,000 people live in a country slightly larger than Israel but smaller than Wales.
Today we were at anchor so had to be tendered in but as still having problems with back decided to send a scout ashore, Brenda, to obtain information and take the usual pictures. She decided to go to see the Howling Monkeys, or as they are called by the locals, Baboons. After walking through the rain forest, passing the detached bungalow, the local school and the local post office, arrived at a beach where the monkeys were swinging from the trees, a rare sight.
So now it's Saturday and we get to our port of call, Cozumel, at 0900. Situated some 12 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula in the Caribbean Sea, Cozumel is Mexico's largest island. It is 3.3 miles long and 9 miles wide, with about 50,000 inhabitants. The island is in Quintana Roo, Mexico's youngest state which only came into being in 1904. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Cozumel was only of
interest to pirates and smugglers, most of them English, who rested here, hid gold and silver seized by raiding Spanish treasure ships and sacking ports in mainland South America. The infamous Henry Morgan seemed to quite like the island.
So having given you a bit about the island, what did we do, nothing. On arrival we were supposed to be at anchor but the water being too deep, this could not be used and the local authorities would not let the ship berth so the captain decided to start engines and make our way to the next port, Key West. It was thought that perhaps we could get permission to arrive there early but the Americans thought differently, no surprise, so now at sea until 0600 Monday morning.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.303s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0489s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
JT
non-member comment
Bad Back
What did you do Fred, jump up too quick off the sun lounger when the breakfast bell went