Itchy and Scratchy

Guanaja, another of the Honduras Bay Islands. It is known for it’s no see ‘ims or sand fleas. And it is justifiably known for them! OK, so we are in the Caribbean and we should not be complaining. …but the itch! Bleach, rubbing alcohol and anti itch cream are our new found friends.
We picked up a mooring ball off of “Graham’s Place”, a small resort on a cay off of Guanaja. We went ashore to “Graham‘s Place’ and wondered around and then we watched a local fisherman come in from a catch and clean a large grouper, so we decided to ask the chef at Graham’s Place ….“what’s for dinner” ??? You guessed it Grouper, so we just had to come back in for dinner and we had a lovely Tequila Grouper. Wow was that good. Graham’s Place caters to sport fish man but we guess they also in to the shoe business.
The wind died completely for a few days, so yes we are complaining….. it was hot. Around 35-36 degrees Celsius each day (around 100 degrees F) so we finally blew up “Dolly”, the 7 foot dolphin and Oscar, the 3 foot Orca and played with them in the water. The only way to get cool! The real trick was to get onto Dolly in the water, easy using the boat ladder, but a real trick otherwise. Our faces were hurting from laughing so hard at each other trying to ride this child’s toy!
We took a water taxi to the closest village, Savannah Bight and walked over to Mangrove Bight, a long 2 miles of course at high noon. We walked on a beautiful road put in after Hurricane Mitch. An interesting use of money. Anyway it was great to see some of the island as we had not been walking that much.
There is Cay called Bonnoco where most people live that are from Guanaja as the main island has so many sand fleas. The Cay is suppose to have as dense a population as Hong Kong. So we took the provision boat from Graham’s Place over for a look see. There is not a square inch left to build on and there are no cars just one main alley and channels that run thru the little Cay. The houses were very well kept and the people friendly, I guess they have to be friendly when you neighbour is arms length away from you. Thursday the boat from the mainland comes in with provisions, so it is busy. We filled out boat back up with fruit and vegetables.
Friday we ran away from the no'seems and back to Port Royal in Roatan, as we are suppose to get a really blow for the next 3 days and we ran out of Deep Woods Off. We actually got to sail the whole way back! Yes and Cheryl even made Karen hand steer for change and not use the Auto Helm (which we call Otto VanHelm).That was a treat. We picked up a mooring ball here and before we finished putting the boat away “Patrice” the owner of Mango Creek came out to say ‘hello’ again’.
The next day, Patrice and Terry went snorkeling with us in their dinghy, the one with the 100 HP Yamaha! The seas would have been too high to go with ’Trouble” our dingy.Just for fun yesterday we did the front half of the stainless steel, yes part of a day in the life of a cruiser! Then we learned how to play Mexican train dominoes, and Karen won!! Today we started with taking the head apart as the weeds had clogged it. Now we are doing internet, in style and our laundry. Well it is almost time for our snorkel. Then we are heading back to French Harbour Roatan to checkout and then off to the south end of Belize a 120 mile sail…hopefully not against the wind, until July 13th. Then off to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala to spend the hurricane season.