Monday, January 26, 2015

Bocas to Roatan, Honduras - Boys Trip!

Sid was first to arrive in Panama City and Brad soon met up with him. He took Sid on a tour of the city as we certainly knew it well by now. Here he is by the local fish mercado. 
This is a church in old town that has a 24 karat gold altar. 
                                      
I had first visited this church 15 years ago when this part of town was considerably dangerous and was cautioned by my taxi driver not to exit the vehicle. 
Oopsie. I ignored him. 
It was an interesting juxtaposition to have a solid gold altar in such a poor part of town. 

The next pic Brad sent to me is of he and Sid after they flew into Bocas del Toro, Panama that same day and stopped in town for a few supplies. What a surprise to learn that there was a Lido Isle shop!
They took a water taxi back to Red Frog marina from Bocas town and their driver hit a shallow reef. Crunch! He didn't seem to mind and the boat still ran. Just another day at the office. 
And how did this happen? The driver was on the phone!

Once the boys departed Bocas, Dannys son Isaac had hooked a 40 lb wahoo on the line, but they lost it on the gaff. Danny brought it on the swimstep and it was thrashing around snapping his mouth full of teeth... He was doing the Mexican two step to avoid the jaws and the fish wiggled free. 
Luckily, it wasn't this kind of crazy.
Sid caught a big something that they never saw. They all watched it disturbing the water way back there, but couldn't tell what it was. It finally shook itself free. 
So, instead of fish for dinner they are having steak! 
At least they are figuring out the cooking and not doing this...

They had lots of company almost all last night en route to Honduras. Loads of big fishing boats the whole night long. They had to alter course several times. 

Pulling into Barefoot Caye in Roatan, Honduras. 
No floating docks here.. Just fixed ones. A bit more challenging. Why? Well, floating docks are what we have at home. You hang fenders over the side vertically, tie off the boat to dock, and then the boat and dock move together as the tide rises and falls.  With a standing dock, the boat moves up and down while the dock stays at a fixed height. Therefore, the fenders have to go horizontal to slide up and down the pilings holding up the dock. Plus you have to tie your lines a little loose to allow boat movement up and down with the tide. It's a lot trickier with these fixed docks, but they work!
Can you spot "Mexi-Clooney" (Danny our captain) waving?
Here's main street through town. So narrow! Seems to work for everyone though. 
The boys had a long afternoon trying to fix our sliding glass door that had gotten stuck. As the years have gone by, that door got sticker and stickier to the point that sometimes we would have to use the side door. Fixed forever I hope. Four guys. Three hours. 
They had to completely disassemble the door frame just to replace one wheel!
A major job, but now that project is complete. 
And Brad is busting a move better than Chris Christie on a dance floor!

Brad and Sid enjoyed a romantic stroll down to the pier and took a tour of those hanging hammocks. 
Water so clear you can see straight to the bottom. 
Here's the pool that all the boys enjoyed for some well deserved chillax time. 
You can see our boat parked right next to it. What a slip!
And the boys new amigo! He was quite the chatterbox and enjoyed spying on them. 

When they were backing out of the slip at Barefoot Caye, both Isaac and Brad heard the parrot saying "Goodbye!" over and over again. Such a charmer!




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