La Ceiba: Honduras Cruisers Info

Saturday, February 18, 2006

015-47.100 N
086-45.540 W

La Ceiba, Honduras provides some of the best facilities for cruisers in Central America. This rating is due more to a lack of facilities elsewhere than due to the quality of services provided. La Ceiba is located on the mainland of Honduras at approximately 15.8N 86W and is a fairly large town by Honduran standards. To the joy of the cruiser it boasts a marina, shipyard, US style mall, a Pizza Hut, Applebees, quite a few fast food joints, a good selection of grocery stores, several machine shops, and lots of shops to find miscellaneous stuff.

The entrance to the lagoon where the shipyard and marina is located is fairly shallow. I don't know the official controlling depth, but I would doubt that it's more than 8 feet. A shallow shelf extends out a good 1/4 of a mile and the surf regularly rolls in and breaks. It is regularly breaking to the west of the channel and I would not attempt to enter if its breaking across the entire entrance.

The entrance consists of 2 breakwalls at right angles to one another. One breakwall runs roughly N/S and is perpendicular to the beach and the other breakwall runs roughly E/W and would intersect the N/S one about 100 feet from end of it. These breakwalls and the beach form what I'll call the outer lagoon. A channel crosses the beach and empties into what I'll call the inner lagoon which contains the shipyard and marina. 

When entering you need to divide the gap between the breakwalls into 3rds and keep your boat in the eastern third of the channel. This will place the N/S breakwall about 50' off of your port side. Follow the arc of the N/S breakwall, maintaining this spacing, until you can see a line of large fishing boats which are tied up on a pier which is parallel to the beach. Once you can see these fishing boats, head towards the middle of the channel into the inner lagoon. Once you're fully inside of the inner lagoon, bear to your right and proceed along the lines of fishing vessels until you come to the shipyard, which is easily identifiable by the travel lift. If you're headed to Lagoon Marina, continue past the shipyard and down the river for about 1/4 of a mile. Lagoon Marina will be on your right.

The following are a set of waypoints that have been passed along to me. I haven't used them, but others who have said that they worked well. Use them, and your eyes, at your discretion:

La Ceiba Outer Breakwater approach 15 48.06 086 45.66
WP2 15 47.949 086 45.614
WP3 15 47.825 086 45.610
WP4 15 47.690 086 45.651
WP5 15 47.548 086 45.709
WP6 15 47.514 086 45.679
WP7 15 47.461 086 45.603
WP8 15 47.357 086 45.619
WP9 15 47.315 086 45.605

The La Ceiba Shipyard is your typical dusty, dirty shipyard. They have dock space for about 15-20 boats and they have a 100 ton travel lift. The yard probably has space for about 50 boats on the hard. Many boats are stored there on the hard for hurricane season. While La Ceiba hasn't had a direct hit from a hurricane in a long time, it will happen, and when it does any boat on the hard will be in big trouble as there's nothing to provide any shelter.

The shipyard provides all of your standard marine services such as fiberglass repair, mechanical services, welding, bottom painting, prop repair, etc. Fabrication of parts is outsourced to local machine shops. Materials not readily available in La Ceiba can typically be brought in from San Pedro. I would strongly suggest carefully monitoring all work done on your boat. Make sure that your boat is locked at all times when you're not on board as there have been several thefts.

A sub-contractor named Warner provides painting and detailing services. The painting work that we saw them do was very nice and we had the hull detailed and we were very happy with the work.

The Shipyard has a lightly stocked chandlery but can ship items into their shipyard duty-free. Note that their shipping is not inexpensive and the shipping of hazardous materials is very costly. Their duty-free shipping policies are in a state of flux, so you should contact them via e-mail to find out what the current policies are. Note that if you order parts through them, you need to stay on top of the order and make sure that the order has actually been placed for what you're expecting. Check the status of your order on a regular basis. We had an order that we were told had been placed, but had never been placed. It wasn't until we tried to get specifics on the order that we found out that it hadn't been placed. The shipyard can be reached at shipyard@laceiba.com or 504/441-2775 and their web site is www.laceibashipyard.com.

The Lagoon Marina is located about 1/4 mile past the shipyard. It's run by Toni and Rita and has room for about 20 boats. You can reach them via e-mail at rita@lagoonmarinalaceiba.com and their web site is www.lagoonmarinalaceiba.com. The majority of boats are med-moored to well maintained docks. The power at the marina is reliable and they have a generator that can support the docks. Note that they do not use standard marine twist-lock Hubble connectors. Instead they utilize standard US 115V 15A household plugs and you either need to bring your own adapter or buy one of theirs. 220V is available, but the plugs are what I would call US dryer "Y" plugs. Power is metered and at this point in time they charge $0.16/KW.

Dockage is relatively expensive at $25/day on a per-day rate, or $17.50/day on a weekly basis and $12.50/day on a monthly basis. Catamarans are 50% more. Boats with children get a 10% discount. Check their web site for current pricing. If you're leaving your boat there for a long period of time, I would insist that the boat not be repositioned while you're away.

The marina grounds are beautifully maintained by full time gardeners. The pool is wonderful and is also well maintained. The bathrooms and showers are spotless. Wireless Internet is provided free to the docks, but doesn't work well. (Note, do not complain about the Internet.) According to a sign at the marina, you should NOT plan to arrive or depart between Saturday noon and Monday morning as Toni and Rita are "recharging their batteries" during this time. Note that you will require assistance to get into/out-of most of the slips. We had significant issues at Lagoon Marina which were detailed in an earlier report.

Toni runs a small boatyard and does stainless and aluminum welding. However, this is pretty much a one man show, so don't expect to walk in and get work done. Toni is also the Mercury and Volvo/Penta dealer.

During normal business ours Rita will place phone calls for you to businesses or taxis. Unfortunately there's no pay phone to do this on weekends or nights. At times we felt stranded due to this. It wasn't until we were just about to leave that we found out about the VHF channels for taxis.

Both the shipyard and marina are located several miles from town and both facilities provide rides into town at specific times. If you want to go in at other times, you'll need to take a taxi. Our favorite taxi driver was Cardi as he spoke perfect English and was always on time. He'll be glad to assist you in shopping. His cell phone number is 965-4969. Miguel, who speaks a little English, hangs out at the shipyard and is on VHF channel 8 as "Miguelito". Other taxis hang out on VHF 11. We typically paid 35 limps per person for a trip to/from town during the day and 50 limps/pp at night. We also were able to rent the taxi for 150 limps/hr and we made as many stops as needed. The exchange rate at the time was 18.7 Limps per US dollar.

 

Diesel fuel can be delivered to both facilities via truck. Typically you need at least 30 gallons. Contact either office to arrange this.

There are several large grocery stores located in town. SuperMercados is located in the Mega Mall. Super Ceibeno #1 is located across from the park downtown and #2 is located several blocks away from #1 and is much smaller. Super Ceibeno has been purchased by Walmart and may undergo a name change. One confusing thing in the Super Ceibeno's was that for some items you needed to pay for them where you bought them. Navigating the meat counter is interesting, so bringing someone with local knowledge is probably a good idea. All of these stores stock different items which they may or may not have tomorrow. If you see a product and think that you might want to buy it later, buy it when you see it, as it might not be there next time.

D'Todo, located on Ave. 14 de Julio, and Fiesta Imports bring in US products from Sam's Club, BJ's and COSCO and resell them. All of these stores take credit cards. Casa Colorado stocks a large selection of beer, wine and spirits at discounted rates, but charges a fairly hefty fee for using a credit card. Both stores speak English.

Laura's Bakery has 2 locations. The main store is located in the yellow building across from Bo. La Merced, 13 calle. An outlet is located on the second floor of the Mega Mall. They have all kinds of great wheat and rye breads, pies, baked goods, etc. It's currently run by an American couple and is well worth stopping by.

If you need to get your hair cut, colored, styled, a manicure, etc, we can recommend Renova. Both of our haircuts were about $4 US and a manicure and pedicure for Sue was about $11. They stock a lot of product too. They're located in the Plaza del Boulevard, Boulevard 15 de Septiembre, Colonia Sitramacsa, Fte. Fusep and their phone number for appointments is 441-2432.

Kawa's Motores is an amazing resource for marine supplies. I've learned to go their first before searching elsewhere for parts. Several of the people who work their speak excellent English. Every taxi driver knows where its located. Their telephone number is 443-2161/0658.

Central de Mangueras is the place to go to have hoses made, obtain bearings and they have a huge selection of o-rings. Their phone number is 440-0750 but little to no English is spoken there.

UltraMotor is a Yamaha dealer. They're located at Barrio el Centro, 12 & 13 Calles, 14 de Julio. Their phone # is 440-1400.

ATM machines abound La Ceiba. Most banks seem to have them. There's a financial center at the Mega Mall which probably has half a dozen banks located in it.

There are lots of places to eat. Expatriates is a common cruiser hangout featuring lots of grilled food and is very consistent. They have a projection TV system which is typically tuned to sporting events. They have another restaurant located on the Rio Cangrejal which has stunning views, but is quite a way out of town.  The Mega Mall has an Applebees. You'll find Pizza Huts located across from the Mega Mall and downtown by the park. For those of you needing fast food fixes, you'll find KFCs and Burger Kings located throughout the city. The Green Parrot is located just outside of the gate to the Shipyard and provides fixed lunches (which are typical food and are generally very good) for very good prices ($3/pp). 

If you don't want to stay onboard your boat while its being worked on, we can recommend La Quinta which is located between the shipyard and the mall. Think of it as a Holiday Inn quality hotel. The rooms were very clean and its a quick walk to the mall and restaurants. With taxes the cost was $60 US/night. The restaurant served the best beef that we had in La Ceiba for a very reasonable price. Their phone number is 443-0223 and their e-mail address is laquinta@psinet.hn. If you want a nicer place on the beach you can go to the Quinta Real.

Log ID: 820