Honduras - Salter's travels

We left Guanaja with a spectacular sunset and set sail for Bobal Cay. This is a tiny island and one of the most southerly cays in Honduras. We never got there. An official warning of pirate activity had been posted. A Royal Navy vessel offered to accompany us but this could not be fitted into the schedule. Instead, we had a pirate afternoon on the back deck. The captain dusted off his cutlass and best pirate clothes. There were pirate drinks, pirate snacks, pirate songs and a tug-of-war competition over the swimming pool.

Pirates often used dry ice behind their bars

Our next stop turned out to be Isla de Providencia, population 5,000, off the coast of Columbia. The landing was on a proper jetty so Diane could come along. We were met by couples dancing on the quayside to traditional music. The men wore suits and the women had long dresses. To me it all seemed a bit too hot for that sort of heavy clothing. We got assigned to a guide and set off to explore the island.

First stop was a footbridge. The previous one was demolished in a hurricane Lota in 2022. It was quite an important bridge that linked a beach and housing area on the south island with the town on the north island. They are enormously proud of the new, rather colourful construction. We did have to agree that is a rather magnificent bridge. The hurricane did an immense amount of damage. An estimated 98% of all infrastructure was destroyed from the impact, making it one of the worst and strongest tropical cyclones to impact Colombia.

We were driven around the island for about an hour stopping at various places. There were some explanations. A lot of what we were shown was hurricane damage. Hotels , restaurants and other commercial activities put completely out of business. I would not be so rude as to say some of the places were boring, but I found little of interest to photograph. Certainly, full recovery from the hurricane is still many years away. There were some cows. I quite like cows. A mix of different bovine types and ages all accompanied by white birds. Egrets I think. I also spotted a lovely little yellow bird that I later found out was a Bananaquit.

The tour ended up on a beach. It was an idyllic beach with soft sand, warm water and palm trees. We were served coconuts containing iced daquiris. A variety of fishy foods were proffered. I ignored these and focussed in on some plantain fritters. They were a bit bland until some hot chilli sauce was rustled up. Really hot chilli sauce. It was wonderful. We lazed on the beach for a couple of hours. A few people went swimming. I wandered through some of the vegetation and found some scary spiders.

Like many locations in the Caribbean, Providencia has associations with piracy. The privateer Henry Morgan used Providencia as a base for raiding Panama. Tales and rumours abound that much of his treasure remains hidden on the island. Many parts of the island are named after Morgan.

Guanaja is one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. Population 5,500. Most of whom live on a small, densely packed cay just off the main island. A cay is a low elevation sandy island on the surface of a reef. Quite why everyone wants to live packed onto that one small island is a bit beyond me. Our guide told us of a fire a few years ago that wiped out nearly half of the wooden houses. There is also the risk of rising sea levels and tsunami. But they still live there.

We were out cruising on the RHIBs. Diane figured that if she was careful, she could manage getting in and out without causing any harm to her arm. This proved, with a little care, to be the case. The boatman took us right around the cay. It is so packed with houses that you cannot see any open ground. The main part of the Guanaja island rises high above the cay, in the distance, and looks almost deserted.

Guanaja has a small channel separating the part to the southwest. This is where we went next. Winding our way up the increasing narrow channel with tree leaning over us. Here we saw several brown pelicans. Our guide, mentioned crocodiles, but I didn’t see any. At the far end of the channel, we popped out on the far side of the island. This side is sheltered, pretty, and popular for picnics and fishing trips. Coming back, we saw the pelicans again. We also drove pass Dunbar Rock. A rather remarkable hotel that straddles a single rock in the bay.

After lunch, came a visit to Grahams Place. The landing here was onto a jetty so we thought Diane would be fine for this. It is a small resort. A beach area with tables, chairs and caged birds. A bar and restaurant. Some accommodation huts along the beach. A jetty with a caged off area in which we spotted some turtles. It was hot there. Too hot for us to be comfortable. Some people were swimming or snorkelling. The water was over 30°C so I doubt this was a highly effective way of cooling off. We had a beer and then headed back pausing briefly to photograph a small lizard. He seemed completely comfortable in the heat.