La Ceiba: Exploring the mainland

Monday, June 17, 2002

015-46.680 N
086-6.480 W

Ahoy from the beautiful Lagoon Marina in La Ceiba, Honduras! This is definitely one of those little gems that's not well known. None of the cruising guides even mention this place as it's only been built over the past 5 years. It's owned by a German couple, Toni & Rita, who harder than just about anyone that I know. They work from sunup to sundown, 6 to 7 days a week, and have literally hand built a fantastic facility. They clearly have a different work ethic than the majority of locals, which makes it very difficult for them the find workers who work to their standards or pace.

The marina itself is located about a mile up a heavily wooded river. It's a bit tricky getting into here, but Toni will come out and guide you in. Not much water flows through here, which is great as far as current goes, but the water is a bit funky. The marina itself uses Med-moorings to great docks with good power. They have the cleanest & nicest bathrooms & showers that I've seen in ages, a beautiful pool and the grounds are wonderfully landscaped. From here you look out at mile high mountains which are just a few miles away. Talk about an impressive view!

The main purpose in coming here was to get the anchor roller stainless remade. I had no idea that Toni was going to be able to do it himself. We pulled in on Sunday afternoon and by 9 AM Monday morning he had ordered the material to remake it. While I think that Toni has made the project more complex by integrating the anchor guard with the roller, it looks fantastic. Hopefully it'll be completed today, which is 1 week later.

While we've been here we've taken some time to explore the area. What's been great is that a boat named Pangea is also here. We met Gene & Marsha in Oakridge, Roatan, and they have a truck and have been driving us all over. That's good, because this marina is really in the middle of nowhere. Probably the two best things that we did was to visit the Pico Bonito Cloud forest & go white river rafting.

The Pico Bonito cloud forest is a national park located about 15 miles from the marina. It sports a mountain range with peaks topping 7300 feet. This is unspoiled, rough terrain. For $30 each, we got a guide who spoke great English, was exceptionally well versed in the plants and animals, and took us on a 3 hour hike. Among the many, many birds that we saw, there were quite a few Toucans. They make an interesting sound, which I described as squeaky bed springs. Midway through the hike we got to go swimming in a wonderfully cool river, which was great, as it's hot and humid there, and the climbing was a bit steep. They also have a butterfly house and a serpentarium, which we skipped as Sue hates snakes. When we were all done, we had a delicious lunch, which was included, at the beautiful Pico Bonito lodge. That night we had a tremendous rain storm, which was great as then next day we were going white river rafting!

The Rio Cangrejal sports class IV white river rafting, and we weren't disappointed. The rains from the night before had raised the river level a foot The river winds through spectacular mountains, rising straight up thousands of feet. Many waterfalls cascade down the sides of these mountains, providing a spectacular setting. We used Jungle River Rafting who picked the 4 of us up at 7:30 AM in a Land Cruiser that had seen many miles. By 8:30 we were on the river. Each couple had their own raft with a guide, which was really neat as I think that the small rafts were much more maneuverable than bigger rafts. While I was the first one to go overboard, everyone got dumped at one time or another. While going through the final set of rapids, known as Washing Machine 1 and 2, I dumped at 2 & got a very exciting ride though some big rapids! I actually really enjoyed that.

Along with having fun we've been getting the boat ready to leave it in the Rio Dulce. Lots and lots of cleaning. I've been polishing the hull as we seem to have run into some kind of substance that's left a white residue along the waterline that's proving very hard to get off. Sue's been cleaning & oiling the woodwork, but at least she's in AC comfort.

La Ceiba is an interesting mix of old and new.  You'll find lots of people on horseback and a large US style mall.  Despite what the picture to the right shows, it's a large town & you can get just about anything that you need here. Lots of good sized grocery & hardware stores. Lots of people head to Aztec ruins at Copan from here as this is a major transportation hub. The Expatriates grill is very good & there's even a Pizza Hut! What more could you ask for? :-)

Log ID: 257