Bay Islands - Roatan

Our next trip would take us across the entire width of Honduras, out in to the Caribbean sea and towards the Bay Islands. This was not going to be quick, so we packed up and set out early to catch a 6am chicken bus, luckily though we were rewarded with a proper coach, not a typical ram-shackled bus.

The first leg was an easy 3.5 hour journey from Copan to San Pedro Sula, stopping a lot on the way to pick up locals, but to be expected. San Pedro is one of the main bus hubs in the north, so we had to head here first, rather than direct to the coast. Here we changed buses and then had a further 3.5 hour bus journey to the coast, a place called La Ceiba.

From La Ceiba, we had a few hour wait before we could get a ferry over to the islands. Now as you know my previous run of luck on ferries and boats has not ended too well, so i decided to ask the people at the ticket office for some sea sickness pills. Perfect, they gave me two, which I promptly took. Whilst sitting in the departure area for the ferry, Kip decided to get some tablets to, but was surprised to only receive one. On questioning the guy why he had only given her one, he replied that's all you need, as they make you really drowsy. Basically taking 2 would just be daft and pretty much knock you out....cue my worried and drowsy expression. Needless to say I didn't see any of the 1.5 hour ferry crossing as I was sound asleep. (hey, at least I wasn't sea sick!!)

Home sweet home

So we arrived at the island of Roatan, the larger of the 3 bay islands and headed in to the west of the island to find a hostel. We managed to find a nice little place with beachy type cabbanas.

The next day we awoke and took a tour of our new home for the next week. It is not the most picturesque place we have been, but I has a really nice, island and chilled feeling. A place where you were on holiday as opposed to travelling, a nice feeling after being on the go for so long.

"Yank" free paradise

We walked all the way down the coast to the other end of the west end of the island. We walked along some lovely open beaches and enjoyed the views. Towards th end of the beach the hotels built up and with it....the yanks. That's right, with a short flight only a few hours away, this place attracted a whole lot of Americans. It also didn't help that the day we went was a cruise ship day, so there were more than normal. We visited the same beach a few days later and were rewarded with a more quiet and less crowded view - bliss !

One of the main attractions of Roatan and this area is the abundance of diving and since getting my PADI qualifications, it was easy to do some diving. So Kip and I set ut to do 4 dives over a few days. The dives were amazing and a real mix. On the first day we saw the amazing coral reefs surrounding the island, with it came the colourful array of tropical fish and turtles ! Very cool to swim alongside the chilled out turtles (just like in Finding Nemo - but they didn´t hi-five or talk to you)

We also did a dive over the wreck of a ship - that was very cool. It had been sunk on purpose about 15 years ago and has since broken up in to 3 main sections following the various hurricanes that lashed the coast.

Sadly after our little break away from the normal routine of travelling, we had to leave Roatan and continue our journey south through the main land. Our next trip would be a long one, so we packed up and set sail back for La Ceiba.

Over view with post diving beers in hand