We did more than just diving in Utila

While one of the main reasons to visit Utila was to dive, we also did some other things as well. One thing we did plenty of was eat. And there are some good choices for food and I found them all to be reasonable in price. In fact a couple of the places that were recommended to us people commented were a little "pricey". I didn't find any restaurant I would consider pricey.

Of course I've already raved (and will continue to do so) about Christina, the cook at Pirates Bay Inn, she is wonderful. We also visited several bars and restaurants around the island including Foo King Wok, a great chinese restaurant. The portions are large so between four of us we shared two entrees and rice and i think someone ordered an appetizer. I think the entire dinner cost each person about 250 lempiras .. about $12.50, it may have been as much as $15.00 but still I considered it reasonable for the quality and quantity of food.

The chef at Foo King Wok also does Sushi Tuesday, where at Pirates Bay we were able to put our name on the list for sushi Tuesday evening. Choices were shrimp, tuna or vegetarian. I had vegetarian  and thought it was great! The others in our group tried both the tuna and the shrimp and were equally as happy.

We also went to Driftwood (some went twice), they had great food, we sat near the water and the special the night I went was Filet Mignon which I think cost about $15 USD. Really good food, again averaging about 250 to 300 lempiras per person including tip.

A couple of our group went to La Piccola, an Italian restaurant, and then we also visited Rehab a bar and restaurant and Skid Row Bar and Restaurant.

Overall I would say all of our experiences in bars and restaurants around the island were great and reasonably priced.

So, the other reason for Utila?

I have finally convinced some people that retirement is the way to go. Greg has seriously started to plan for 4-5 years down the road and decided he'd like to live somewhere tropical, hence Utila. The first few days we were there, Sandra and I tagged along with Greg and his realtor Brad to look at possible properties. Greg originally had his heart and mind set on a property known as Eco House which in the pictures looked lovely. After looking around though Greg finally decided on a house known as Bambu house, and put in an offer. His offer has been accepted and things are in the works, hopefully he'll be closing around the end of July.

I am fortunate enough to have Greg as one of my best friends and he has offered to let me rent his home in Utila, at least until he moves there permanently when he retires. I am so excited about what now will be the next chapter in my adventure, moving to Utila. As opposed to Placencia where the diving is very expensive and I've only really gotten in the water twice and cannot work, the diving in Utila is very reasonable and I may have the opportunity to teach there. At least I will get  many more opportunities to dive and to improve on my photo skills.

Here are a few shots of the house:

Front view of the house

Another view from the front

Large covered porch - lots of plans for this area

The living room, taken from the landing between the two bedrooms

The kitchen, outside that doorway is the dining area on an outdoor deck.

The house is lovely as is but Greg already has a few things he will be doing during his visits to improve the house and make it more his own. It is a 2 bedroom, one bath home with a small loft which will be an office area. It also comes with a detached studio apartment and the outside is lush with different trees and flowers. I think Greg plans to plant a banana and a lime tree. I'm excited to help him do those few projects and I will get to see him several times a year when he comes down to his house.

A very eventful and fun week came to a close. On Saturday the four of us took the 2:00 ferry from Utila to La Ceiba.

A comfortable and easy hour long ferry ride from the island back to the mainland. Once in La Ceiba we headed for the bus terminal to head back to San Pedro Sula. Kevin, the owner of Pirates Bay Inn had recommended a place to stay in San Pedro Sula, small apartments which he and his family considered safe with a restaurant on the property.

The bus was large and comfortable for the 3 hour ride, until about an hour into the ride when the driver turned on the air and the temperature in the bus was like a freezer. It probably was about 60 degrees or so, but after what has been months in tropical weather for me, it might as well have been -60 degrees. I froze. But we finally arrived in San Pedro Sula, the place we were staying had sent a car to pick us up.

The place we stayed was comfortable and easy. Our reservation included breakfast on Sunday morning, then we got a taxi for Sandra and Paula to head to the airport for their flight  home. Greg and I decided we certainly weren't going out and about in San Pedro Sula so it was a day of relaxing by the pool and taking it easy. Our relaxation was slightly disturbed when I was out on the porch of our room (to get the best internet signal) and I heard two gunshots.

I've had some experience hearing gunfire but I waited to see if I had mistaken the sound. A few minutes later there were two more. Over the next half our or so we heard a total of about 15 shots. The place we were staying is surrounded by a 10 foot concrete wall that is topped with four strands of electric wire and armed guards at the entrance gate. I saw staff members of the property while I heard gunshots and no one even blinked. It clearly was not concerning to any of them and they obviously felt safe inside the "compound".

It was just another reminder that for me and for anyone coming to visit, the safest thing to do is to fly into the international airport in San Pedro Sula and get a flight to the island. The ferry idea I used didn't really save me any money and forced me to have overnights in San Pedro Sula at both ends, not what I'd recommend. The island of Utila itself felt completely safe and I've spoken to several people who live there (expats from around the world) and everyone agrees it is a safe place to live and work.

While living there, it will be necessary to get some things from the mainland and from all that I've learned so far, anything I need can be gotten in La Ceiba and I can make it a day trip to there for whatever is needed.

So, the plan is I'm giving my 30 day notice at my current place and the first week of August I'm headed to Utila. I'm told the first week of August is one of the very best for Whalesharks in Utila, and I still have those baby turtles to see hatch around the 8th. Then I have a shark trip in the Bahamas the 15 through the 21st of August and a visit to Nashville after that. I should be back in Utila for the long hall at the end of August.

If you see Greg around be sure to congratulate him on his new home. My next job is to convince Greg that he should retire in closer to 2-3 years and make Utila his full time home.

Monday Greg and I took a taxi back to Puerto Cortes to take the D-Express ferry back to Placencia. And as is the way things happen the D-Express was not running, an engine had gone out and they could not make the trip on two engines. I at first thought we might get stuck in Honduras but as it happens there is another ferry that goes to Belize called the Starla. Problem is the Starla takes us to Dangriga, on the coast north of Placencia. It is a 3-3.5 hour ferry ride and then a 1-1.5 hour bus ride from Dangriga to Placencia.

Next post: Greg's visit to Placencia and Lobsterfest

Now That's What I'm Talking About

It doesn't take long for the four of us to settle in and relax a bit at Pirates Bay Inn. Within a couple hours our names are already on the boards for the two morning dives for the next six days. Boat arrives at the dock there at 7:00 a.m. and we are on our way to a dive site by 7:30.

The vibe in Utila is a great one. The island is 7 miles long by 2 miles wide and has about 17 different dive shops on it. It is a mixture of Hondurans, ex-pats from the US and Canada and a wide range of people from all over the world. Utila does a lot of dive training, people getting certified and at least as many becoming divemasters and dive instructors. Because it is cheap to live and dive in Utila it is a "backpackers" paradise.

For example, Pirates Bay Inn also owns Captain Morgan's Dive Centre. If you sign up to get  open water certified with Captain Morgan's you can get free lodging at Pirates Bay Inn. They have private rooms that when you're doing dive training are $29 USD per night, clean and safe and comfortable (add $10 per night if you insist on having air conditioning). They also have some dorm style rooms that you can stay in for free if training, if not training you can stay there for $7 per night.

7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning we get up and go to the bar/restaurant at the resort. Its really more of a bar, there are no dining tables and wait staff, but there are plenty of chairs around, bar stools at the bar and a couple picnic tables close by, and really good food.

Christina does the majority of the cooking and boy is she good at it. You can get the usual, eggs, bacon, toast type breakfast, or baleadas (a thick flour tortilla folded over some mashed black beans and other ingredients like eggs and bacon or sausage, cheese), but you could also get crepes, fresh fruit, homemade yogurt, french toast, cereal, and of course coffee, iced or hot even a latte or espresso drink, and fruit juices. I usually had either a baleada or scrambled eggs, bacon and a tortilla (homemade right there) and coffee and a bottle of water to take on the dive boat and it cost about 70 lempiras. Yep that is just over $3 US.

The dive boat was filled  every morning with about 14 divers, usually about 6 of us "fun divers" already certified, and the rest in various stages of training, either open water or advanced open water students and an instructor for each of those classes a divemaster or two to lead the fun divers and usually at least one if not two or three dive masters in training.

We regularly went north for the first dive site of the day and south for the second. It all had to do with the wind and the waves. Most of our dives consisted of the boat mooring in about 25-40 feet of water at the top of a wall. The wall often dropped off to close to 100 feet.

The dives were beautiful, we were fortunate to see a lot of see life including turtles, spotted eagle rays, lots of green moray eels and the usual cast of caribbean sea life. Surprisingly we saw no sharks  during the entire week. I'm not sure why the lack of sharks in this area.

Green Moray Eel in for a cleaning by Coral Banded Shrimp

Beautiful coral

Queen Angelfish

The Halliburton Wreck

Sea Turtle

Tarpon

Blue Tang

Of course my desire was to take photos. I assembled my camera gear, put fresh rechargable batteries in my strobes and checked to make niether my strobes or housing leaked. I jumped in the water on the first day and my strobes would not fire. I took a few pictures but was really frustrated as once I got past about 30 feet I got none of the beautiful colors of the reef or the sea life.

I thought maybe there was a problem with the batteries and left my camera on the boat for the second dive. When we returned to the resort I borrowed a charger from Sandra and charged more batteries. Second day I jumped in the water and got about 2 shots where one of the strobes fired then they both failed again. I was afraid my hopes of lots of photography opportunities were going to be dashed completely. That afternoon we checked out strobes and batteries, testing different batteries in each strobe. Finally, after a bit of futzing with the connectors on the cap of the battery compartment of the strobes I got them to work. May need to buy new caps (although I'm secretly hoping to find a way to upgrade my entire system actually but don't think my sparkling personality is paying for one and doubt I could find enough people who would want to donate to a "Go Fund Me" request).

I did try on the second day to change my attitude and rather than giving up and being upset about the equipment failure to try and work on my ability to take some good shots with just the ambient light. It is tough and I hate to lose the color, but just the change in attitude just made the diving better anyway. Overall I wasn't particularly happy with many of my photos from this trip but it serves as just a reminder that I have to just keep working on learning photography more, and taking lots of pictures .. only way I'll get better.

Chris a native Utilian from Pidgeon Cay, our divemaster, carried a spear with him on most dives and did his best to reduce the lionfish population, and Eitan an Israeli instructor on the boat with us on a majority of the days we dove also speared lots of lionfish. Greg finally got his chance to carry a spear and after a few misses early on he and Chris got a beautiful bunch of lionfish. On Sunday they brought their catch back to the Pirates Bay, cleaned the lionfish then lightly breaded them and fried them up for lunch and after a great haul on Thursday by Chris and Greg they brought them back cleaned them and Christina made Lionfish Ceviche.

Greg's first Utila lionfish kill.

Chris Howell, our divemaster with his and Greg's lionfish haul destined for ceviche.

On Wednesday we got the biggest treat. On  our way to the dive site we came upon a large pod of dolphins. Our Captain, Whitney stopped and we got to get in the water with snorkel gear and swim with them. It was so great to be in the water so close to these beautiful creatures. Then after getting back on the boat when we took of several of pod surfed the bow wake of our boat. I lay on the bow of the boat and took the video, when they would breach  I could have probably reached out and touched them they were so close. It just made my week perfect. I had hoped to upload the video here but that seems beyond my capabilities.

Also on Wednesday night Paula and I volunteered with Sea Shepherd to help in guarding the beach and the nests of turtle eggs and any turtles coming up on the beach to lay their eggs. Unfortunately there are still those who would come out and steal the turtle eggs to sell on the black market. At 7 p.m. we went to the BICA (Bay Islands Conservation Association) office, which also houses the new Sea Shepherd office and met with  Fernando, the coordinator of this program and Chel who would be the person actually logging research information about nests and eggs etc., as well as Haley, a visitor from Wales who like us just wanted to volunteer. We rode out on ATV's to a secluded beach set up a tarp with some sleeping bags laid out on it and started our watch. It consisted of every hour walking one half or the other of about 600 meters of beach, watching for signs of turtles coming up on the beach, signs of poachers, or signs of turtles returning to the sea.Then we returned to the base camp and slept until the next patrol, from 7 p.m. til about 4:30 a.m. We didn't get to see any new nests laid or turtles but Chel was kind enough to show us a nest of eggs which had been laid two nights before. We saw two or three eggs of what is likely about 200 eggs in the nest. The eggs stay in the nest for 52 days so my plan is to be there on August 8th to see those babies hatch and hopefully make their way back to the ocean.

Turtle Eggs in their nest.

All in all a great week of diving with great friends.

My dive buddies, L  to R: Greg, Paula, Sandra

Next post: The other part of the trip to Utila and returning to Placencia.

The Adventure Continues ... Getting to Honduras

The Ferry ride on the D-express was nice, easy and fairly comfortable. And yes, I was able to buy a ticket when I arrived.

Just more than two hours after leaving Independence, Belize we arrived in Puerto Cortes, Honduras. It is a small port and where the ferry arrives is a fresh fish market so I'm assuming the fishermen all bring their catch in right there as well.

As soon as I stepped off the ferry I was met by someone wearing a D-express polo shirt who asked me if I wanted to change my Belizean money.

Oh right, money, almost forgot. My plan had been, knowing that nowhere in Honduras would they take Belize dollars, I would go to the bank in Placencia and change my money for US dollars. It was a lovely idea. But it doesn't work that way.

In the bank the first thing they wanted to know is what I wanted to change my money for. Now I know I look like the type to be doing something shady, probably a money launderer. I explained I was going on a weeklong dive trip to Utila. They told me they would only change $500 BZD ($250 USD). Well that wasn't going to work. I asked if I could change the money when I arrived in Honduras. They said that I could change my money when I got to Puerto Cortes BUT that the banks there would not change my Belizean dollars for Honduran Lempiras. Okay, I'd change it in Puerto Cortes.

I told the man who met me at the ferry that yes, I wanted to change my Belizean dollars for Lempiras. He said they were giving an 8 Lempiras to 1 BZD rate. Let's review, the going exchange rate in Belize for BZD to USD is 2 to 1, for every $1 USD I get $2 BZD. So if they are giving me 8 to 1 for my Belize money that equals 16 to one in US dollars. The exchange rate the day I got to Honduras for Lempiras to USD was 21 to 1. I definitely got the short end of that deal. You might wonder why I didn't just go to a bank and use my ATM card to get money out -- a US account I'd get the 21 to 1 rate. The reason I didn't do that was that I had been reading some posts recently of people having some issues with their card being compromised after using an ATM in Honduras.

Okay, water under the bridge, next time I'll do it differently, but I sure could have used that money I lost in the exchange..

The same guy who changed my money also asked where I was going and if I needed a taxi. I explained I had to get to San Pedro Sula. I was then introduced to a lovely Australian couple who were traveling through Central America and they too needed to take a cab to a hotel in San Pedro Sula, we could share and save a bit of money.

We stuffed all our luggage into the trunk of the taxi and off we went towards San Pedro Sula. I had the name of the hotel I had a reservation at and the address and gave both to the driver. You've never really lived until you take a taxi ride in Honduras. Intersections? That is where the driver honks his horn to let others know he's comin' through, never figured out what horn got you the right of way but there wasn't any stopping for cross traffic. The taxi ride is about an hour from Puerto Cortes to San Pedro Sula.

Arriving, there is a sense of entering another world. The pictures in your head of the Caribbean go away when you realize that every single business has an armed guard standing outside of it. There are lots of corners with men with sub machine guns. No they don't all appear to be army, they might be police they might be something else, who knows. Our taxi driver needs to stop for gas. He pulls into a station (it may have been a Texaco station, I don't remember). There seems to be an attendant for every pump, the driver tells the attendant how much gas he wants and they pump it for you. Watching over all of this is a guy patrolling the area with a shotgun at port arms. And here is the reason why:

The driver seems to know where he's going and I"m happily thinking about meeting Paula, having a nice late lunch early dinner. The ferry had arrived at about 1:15, and after the money exchange and immigration we left Puerto Cortes about 2:00. Should have gotten me into San Pedro Sula about 3:00. It is probably about 3:30 when it becomes apparent the driver doesn't know where my hotel is. I feel fortunate in that the male of the couple I'm in the cab with speaks fluent Spanish and is able to translate the address of where  I need to go. We drive around and around, stopping about four times to ask peopleon street corners if they know where the  hotel is. It is not inspiring confidence that almost all look like they never heard of the hotel and have no clue about the address either.

I'm beginning to wonder if the  universe is conspiring against me getting to my final destination for a week of fun and diving.

Finally the taxi driver pulls over and calls the hotel. They give him directions from where he says he is. He is repeating them outloud as they tell him. Off we go again, he gets to an intersection where the female of the couple says, I think you'r supposed to turn right here. Taxi driver turns left. Around and around for another 10 minutes, a couple stops to ask pedestrians and then call the hotel again. The hotel staff keeps trying to tell him that he is only two blocks away. Finally the driver listens to my female taxi buddy and turns right when she tells him to and voila there is the hotel. Funny, it doesn't look anything like the picture when I booked the room. My two friends from Australia have now spent a good extra hour to an hour and a half  in the cab trying to get me to my hotel. I apologize and the guy laughs and says it's okay, the driver likely won't be able to find their hotel either. He says the driver is from Puerto Cortes and doesn't know his way around San Pedro Sula at all. That has become painfully obvious.  In addition the driver speaks absolutely no english and I speak almost no Spanish.

The driver wrestles my huge bag out of the trunk and is more than happy to leave me there. I get into the hotel go to the desk and happily say, "hi, I have a reservation." The desk clerk is a lovely young man who speaks outstanding english. But he looks rather forlorn when he says, "did we speak to you this morning?" "No", I tell him, " but you may have talked to Paula, my friend who I'm sharing the room with". His frown becomes more pronounced and he says, "I was afraid you'd say that. You're at the wrong hotel."

Turns out the hotel has two properties, with the same name but in different parts of the city. After a short discussion he assures me he'll get me another cab to take me to the correct hotel and in addition gives me one of their brochures that has addresses and maps of both their locations so I can show the driver if necessary. After waiting about 15 minutes he is a little flustered that the taxi has not arrived and gotten this lost American out of his lobby. Finally the taxi gets there, and off we go again.

This driver seems much more certain of where he's going, well until we get where he thinks is close and he also pulls over and asks a pedestrian for further instruction. Honduras has not gotten the memo about GPS. Finally we arrive and Paula breathes a huge sigh of relief, having convinced herself I had been kidnapped by pirates or been murdered on my way to the hotel.

The desk clerks at this property do not speak any English and so it takes some time to pantomime what information they want me to provide on one of their check in forms. But finally we are in our room with air conditioning. We decide to head for dinner and head down to the front desk again. Luckily we get a staff member who speaks limited English and in answer to our question is very adamant we cannot walk anywhere to go eat, we must take a cab, it is far too dangerous to walk. They help us choose a restaurant once they realize we really don't want Applebees or TGIFridays and would prefer Honduran food, and they call a cab.

The taxi driver, a very nice young man, takes us to the restaurant and gives us his phone number and tells us to call or have the restaurant call about a half an hour before we're ready to leave and he'll come back and return us to our hotel. It works out very well.

Following morning, after breakfast provided by the hotel, we're back in a taxi on our way to the airport. We check in for our flight and wait for Sandra and Greg to arrive from Atlanta. Getting ready to head up to the security screening area and we are stopped and told we have to go over to the bank and pay our fees. We do and then it is on to a 12 seater plane for the 1/2 hour flight to Utila.

Our plane from San Pedro Sula to Utila

Upon arriving on  the island we collect our bags and find two taxis, which are basically three wheeled motorized rickshaws and we clamber in for the 10 minute ride to the hotel. There isn't a lot of cars on Utila but there are lots of bikes, scooters, pedestrians, golf carts, other taxis, and none of them feel the need to slow down for anyone else. If the vehicle, of whatever type, in front of you is not going fast enough then go around and honk plenty so the oncoming vehicle at least knows you're in their lane.

We arrrived at Pirate's Bay Inn Dive Resort Resort, David there checked us in and set us up for our diving. We got our rooms then met at the bar where we met staff, visitors, dive masters in training, and the lovely ladies who cook and work the bar. A very cold beer that only cost 30 lempiras ($1.50 USD) and we are settling in nicely.

Next Post: Utila; diving, underwater photography .... or not,  house hunting, volunteering for Sea Shepherd and forgetting all about whatever happened on the mainland.

It is not the destination but the journey ..... who said that?

So, the plan was, go to Utila for a week of scuba diving. My kind of plan. Utila is one of the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras a sister island to Roatan. Smaller in size and known more for dive training than for high end resorts.

I was meeting Greg, Paula and Sandra in Honduras, so I thought I would save money and have a bit of an adventure by taking a ferry to Honduras. The ferry, "The D-Express" travels on Fridays from Placencia to Puerto Cortes Honduras, about a 2 hour ferry ride. Then I was going to take a taxi to San Pedro Sula where I would meet Paull, we would spend the night then meet Greg and Sandra at the International Airport there and take a puddle jumper flight to Utila.

I had gone to the website for the D-Express several times but it is not a great site, not well maintained or up to date and the link to purchase tickets online is not functional. On the Wednesday before I was supposed to leave I went into a business that is right near where the ferry apparently loads on Friday morning. I had been told that they sold tickets there. I went in and was told that no, I had to go see Omar for tickets.

Omar Sierra is a local long-time Placencian, owns some guest homes on the sidewalk, and owns a Restaurant "Omar's Creole Grub" on the main road. The people told me to go see Omar at the restaurant. I walked down the road and went in. Omar's son was there and he said his dad was on his way back to Placencia on the bus and would be there that afternoon/evening or the next day and could sell me a ticket. I told him I'd be back on Thursday.

Thursday morning I walked back down to the restaurant and when I asked about tickets for the ferry the young man said, "well Omar is around today but he's not here." I asked when he would be in and he said, "later today".

I didn't just fall off that turnip truck and knew I needed to clarify, we are talking Belize time here  so I asked, "what does that mean later?" He said, "well later this afternoon or if you come back around dinner time." So I went home to wait.

I then walked back down to the restaurant at about 4:30 in the afternoon. The sign outside said they were closed and would re-open at 5:30 for dinner. Might he have told me they closed and reopened later? Oh well.  Rather than go home I went and wandered through town, stopping at the grocery, the pharmacy etc. I went back at 5:30 but nope they were still closed. I wandered some more and went back twice more between 5:30 and 6 but they still weren't there. So I finally went over to where the guest houses were on the sidewalk and rang the bell outside. A very nice woman answered and I told her I was trying to get a ticket for the D-express. She siad, "Oh, Mr. Omar does that." I smiled. She said "oh, I'll go get him right now and disappeared into the home" She came back about 5 minutes later and said, "Mr. Omar has been out of town for a few days so he turned his ticket book back in while he was gone and doesn't have it."

I was beginning to wonder if I was meant to ride the ferry at all. Then the woman said, "you do know you can just get a ticket tomorrow morning when you board the ferry."

Huh, who'd have thought?

On Friday morning Dan and Doc, my cabana neighbors called a cab for me (due to a very large suitcase I had to get to the ferry) and they rode their bikes down and we had coffee together before I left. Finally at about 9:00 we left Placencia. After about 15 minutes we were in Independence where we sat for about an hour and waited until an Immigration Officer came to the boat, checked our passports and paperwork stamped them  and we were on our way.

The D-Express Ferry

Next post: Arriving in Honduras ... the adventure continues.

We Take Our Hammock Sitting Seriously ...

It has been a while since my last post, and for that I apologize.  It felt a bit like I had settled in, almost to a point of monotony. That isn't all bad, I am retired after all, the whole point here is I don’t’ “have” to do anything. And boy I’m getting exceptionally good at doing nothing.

But that is “nothing” in a healthy sense. If you ever need to relax, lower your blood pressure, find some place to meditate, consider your life, I can’t recommend the Caribbean, specifically this place, enough.

I am elevating hammock sitting on an over the water dock to an art form. So to let you know what is happening in this corner of the world, otherwise known as paradise:

Well first, one of my favorite bar/restaurants closed. I’m not always sure of the veracity of the stories I hear but what I've heard is the mother of the owner, who is from the UK, has fallen ill and he has decided to return to England.

The Purple Space Monkey has been in existence for 12 years in one form or another and seemed to have survived a few owners and a fire to become a relatively stable village staple. Good food, wonderful staff, good drinks. One of the very few places you could get a Belikin on draft.

When the owner decided to sell, in swooped Caldwell Banker Real Estate. They are selling most of the properties at Sanctuary Belize, a very upscale development in the area. I’m not really sure of the reasoning for Caldwell Banker to choose this property although it does put them on the main road right next to two other real estate offices. But they are apparently going to take a good restaurant property and enclose it to make an office building with a bar out front. I don’t know, maybe expats with a lot of money are looser with the checkbook after a few drinks.

The last few days at PSM were bittersweet, one less place your likely to run into friends for a drink while in the village, separate from the bigger beach bars. It was cool to see many of the local business owners, including restaurant and bar owners coming in for a meal and drinks and to say goodbye.

The Staff at Purple Space Monkey

The staff is going off in different directions, some will be working at other local bars, the chef Rick is building his own restaurant up the main road a piece, not sure when it will be built and operational.

Personally,  I’m sorry to no longer be able to get a Pizza at PSM, it was really quite good, and I loved a Monkey Mud Slide as a dessert drink.

In other news, at the cabanas where I live it has been fun  we seem to be forming a little community. Just about every afternoon and evening, some or all of us will end up on the dock, lounging in the newly purchased hammocks, exchanging stories about our day, telling each other what new we’ve learned about living in Placencia as an expat and learning about where we all came from. Mostly we’re just becoming professional hammock sitters.

There is Doc, he’s from Texas, a retired veterinarian and an author. He has published four books of short stories about vet life and has a fifth being edited for publication. His long term plan is to live here almost permanently, having just bought a piece of property but  he does go back to the states to travel to several very large stock shows where he has a booth to sell his books. Although his wardrobe now is shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops, it doesn’t take much to imagine him in boots, spurs and cowboy hat. You can check out his books and his website here.

There is Cruz, a former software engineer form Chandler, Arizona who just decided the Caribbean life was for him, so he sold everything and came on down. Long term he’ll likely buy or build a home here or in another Central American country,  and who knows, may start his own business. Don’t let him fool you though, in addition to being an engineer he is quite the dancer, ballroom style, western swing. You can often find him in one of the local watering holes cutting a rug and making several of us less than graceful types look reasonably okay on the dance floor.

Dan is the most recent addition to our little “community”, a former truck driver from Phoenix, Arizona who after a medical scare, retired and decided he could better afford life here and could avoid all that traffic.

John and Donna have lived here longer than the rest of us, they own the 2 Can Be Sweet coffee shop and bakery on the sidewalk. Donna makes those amazing cinnamon rolls I’ve previously raved about. They plan on moving and expanding their business a bit, less baked goods and more breakfast and lunch food in a new building on the main road. Right now they are in Guatemala on their newly purchased sailboat that after hurricane season they will bring up and anchor here to live on.

Finally we have Mike, a business owner from Kansas City, Missouri, who while back in the states right now will be back soon. He is building and opening a fishing charter business, in partnership with a local Belizean boat captain and fishing guide. Looks like he’ll be very successful. Hoping I might get a chance to go fishing with  him.

L to R: Dan, Doc and Cruz, cleaning fresh fish from the Co-op before grilling, it was excellent.

There is still one cabana unoccupied, you should come down and try out the hammock sitting job. There is always a breeze on our little dock, in fact sometimes it seems almost gale force winds but even then it is still comfortable and beautiful.

Next week I’m off to Utila for a week of diving with friends. Can’t wait to see Greg, Paula and Sandra. Besides the diving, Greg is checking out some homes there,  maybe I should get him to write a guest blog post about his trip to Utila and Placencia. After diving he’s visiting with me up here, checking out the local bars and restaurants and getting to enjoy the annual Lobsterfest.

Next post will include, ferry, taxi, bus and small plane rides to get to and from Honduras and an overnight stay in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.