Day 11 – Thursday, March 28, 2019 Roatan, Honduras

We arrived into the island of Roatan this morning at 7:00 AM with it raining. Once again it cleared up before we went out on our tour.

We had breakfast in the Terrace Cafe with our usual breakfast. Jim having cantaloupe, eggs, bacon and brioche and Patricia having muesli with strawberries and blueberries.

Roatan is one of the Bay Islands located a few miles north of the Honduras mainland, in the Spanish language known as “Islas de la Bahia.” The three main islands are Utica, Guanaja and Roatan. Of the three, Roatan is the largest (35 miles x 2 miles) and most populated at 70,000.

Coxen Hole is Roatan’s capital and largest town. Roatan’s infrastructure and economy is closely tied to the tourism industry. There are 2 cruise ports and today there were 3 ships in our Coxen Port and 2 ships in Mahogany Bay port. This is a beautiful island, above and below the blue waters of the Caribbean. They are know for a beautiful coral reef.

Our tour today was Island Highlights. We had to take a tender into the port of Coxen as we were anchored in the ocean. The town of Coxen Hole was once home to the pirate John Cox.

We were greeted by a band when we got on shore.

Our guide was Michael who moved here from Germany in 2016. He said that Honduras was the second most dangerous country in the world with Venezuela being the first. He said that Roatan is very safe. There are no guns allowed on the Island except for Police or Security Guards. If you are caught with a gun you go to jail for 5 years.

We drove for about 15 minutes to the Mayan-Eden Eco Park which is home to rescued tropical birds and animals and a butterfly habitat. We were able to even get a picture taken with a bird on Patricia’s arm and on Jim’s head.

We saw spider monkeys who were mischievous little characters.

Patricia got to hold a nocturnal animal and we had to hold it like a baby.

We took a walk through an enclosed area that contained a wide variety of local butterflies. We learned about some of Honduras’s most vibrant varieties of butterflies and about this delicate creature and its intricate lifecycle.

Our next stop was Pristine Bay where we walked up to a tower to view the scenic area and saw the old area and the new area which they have named the new area Hollywood Beach because a lot of Americans are buying houses in that area.

Our last stop was a look at the iconic iguana, which we saw in abundance at the Iguana Hideaway. It was an excellent venue to observe these prehistoric looking reptiles, as iguanas are threatened on Roatan from loss of habitat and being captured for the pet trade. We watched the iguanas basking in the sun, lounging in trees and munching on vegetables. Some of the iguanas were over 3 feet long, and while they looked imposing they were really quite passive unless you were feeding them a big leaf and they all went for it.

We got back to Coxen Port and took a tender back to the ship.

We had a late lunch at the Grand Dining Room and enjoyed the cool and quiet atmosphere with piano music while we had a lovely meal. Jim had mushroom soup and Corsican salad. Patricia had butter lettuce with roquefort dressing which has become her favorite salad and poached salmon on tabbouleh. We shared a almond pear raspberry tart which was really good.

Our Butler, Georgin, brought in our strawberries at 5:30 PM.

At 6:00 PM we left the island of Roatan.

Oceania’s sister ship, the Riviera, was at the same port today and is the same type ship we are on so it was fun to look at it.

Tonight we had dinner at the Polo Grill which is one of the specialty restaurants that specializes in steaks. Our reservation was at 8:30 PM. Jim had beet salad, 7oz filet with steak fries and onion rings. Patricia had an imitation wedge salad but it was tomatoes, cheddar cheese and bacon bits with lettuce and dressing that tasted like cocktail sauce. She had swordfish with firecracker sauce and mushrooms. For dessert we shared a 7 layer dark chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. We sat next to a table of 4 and we could hear the conversation and tried to ignore what they were saying by talking between ourselves. We started answering questions that they were asking each other.