Guanaja, Honduras (2016)

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

016-27.250 N
085-52.300 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

We're currently in Guanaja which is part of the island chain known as the Bay Islands of Honduras. We arrived here after a spirited 155 nm overnight passage from the Vivarillo Cays. We spent a bumpy night at anchor in the Vivarillo cays and departed the next day at around 10 AM. Based upon the predicted winds and our expected speed, that would have us arriving early to mid afternoon in Utila. Instead of sailing a straight rhumb line between to Guanaja, we chose a arc which would keep us further away from the coastline and hopefully in more winds.

That strategy worked great until about 2 AM when the winds, which were clocking around to dead behind us, finally lightened up and we had to motor sail. We also had about 0.7 knots of current against us, which slowed us down and it also created quite the bumpy sea state as wind blowing against current can do. We actually had 4-6' swells coming in from both the N and the E and when those swells combined, you could get some big waves that slewed the boat all around and tried to douse the cockpit.

BlueJacket was performing great, but John Terry on Best Day Ever was having a severe problem with his auto pilot. The auto pilot would simply drop into standby mode from tracking mode. That's bad enough when you've got a full crew manning the helm, but when you're alone, it's a real problem as how do you debug this and when do you ever get to sleep? This was an absolute nightmare for a single handler. We have had similar problems in the past and I gave John my best advice on what to look for. John got it so that it was only dropping off-line every few hours and we carefully monitored BDE when John tried to sleep, so the situation was tenable.

We all made it through the night and by daybreak we had lost the counter current, the seas had calmed down and Guanaja loomed in the distance. By 11:00 we were anchored off of Bonacca town and headed in to clear into the country, which I have to say was absolutely painless. The last time that we were here in 2002, our dinghy was stolen overnight while lifted and locked to the davits, so we had a lot of trepidation about coming here, but it seems that theft issues like this seem to have been taken care of.

Bonacca town is a very interesting town. It's an island which consists of about 100 acres and has about 10,000 people living there. It's the Manhattan of Guanaja. Houses are built right next to one another and when they ran out of land, they installed pilings and built over the water. There are no streets, just 5' wide walking paths and narrow canals which wind through the town. It can be quite confusing for an outsider to figure out where things are located, but there are plenty of locals who are willing to "help" you find your way around.

After clearing into Honduras we moved the boats down to the El Bight anchorage which is much more sedate and pretty. After grabbing some sleep, we headed out to explore the area and ended up at a restaurant named Mi Casa Too, which is located 170' up a hill overlooking the bight. Not only did they have an outstanding view, but the food was fantastic too (so much that we even went there again the next night). They served Lion Fish, which is voracious invasive reef predator. I've never seen on a menu before and was thrilled to find that it tastes wonderful!

We hung around El Bight for a few days which gave me a chance to go diving with Dunbar Rock. As an side, I was told to show up at 8 AM for the dive, so I was promptly there, but I couldn't understand why no one else was there yet. It wasn't until an hour and a half later that I realized that the time zone had changed and I had showed up at 7 AM! Duh!

From Guanaja we're going to head to Roatan, but that will be a blog for another day.

-- Geoff & Sue

---

For the cruiser:

Be sure to clear into Honduras *before* moving to any other anchorage. The best place to anchor is between the cay known as Alcatraz (which has the fuel docks) and NW end of Bonacca town. The surrounding water is deep, but you'll find some bright sand spots in about 14'. We anchored at about 16-26.48N/085-53.45W.

We anchored at the far west end of El Bight at about 16-27.25N/085-52.30W in about 18'. As the winds were forecast to be low, this gave us good air flow, but we could have easily moved forward for better protection had the winds been blowing.

I was very impressed with the Dunbar Rock dive operations. Very professional staff and well equipped dive boats. They charged $40/dive + gear rental.

You can find the Mi Casa Too restaurant by looking up the hill for the house with the dormers and a flag flying. Take you dinghy up a small canal just below the restaurant, tie up at one of the docks and then proceed to climb the 167 stairs to the restaurant. It's a climb, but worth it! Very fast Internet too.

Log ID: 2276