Are The Fishing Biting Today?

Yesterday was started out hot, humid and hazy. The haze had been hanging around most of the week and someone told us it was coming from the mainland where they were burning off the sugar cane fields. Is is now April, one of the hottest months here and there has been very little breeze during the daytime. We were all sweating our way through worship yesterday, happily anticipating an afternoon at the beach.

The breeze at West Bay was wonderful! Lots of people on the beach, escaping the heat.

The colors were so vivid! Such a nice change after a week of smoky haze. The sea was a bit rough with such strong wind here, but the snorkel was fantastic nonetheless.

This was taken at Infinity Bay, our usual after church hangout. We like to claim table under the palm trees for a bit of shade while we have lunch. We met up with old friends and got acquainted with new ones. Had a fabulous lobster quesadilla with fresh salsa, then a nice long snorkel out to the reef.

New friend, Linda, wanted to swim down to the end of the beach (by the big rocks in the second photo) to see all the fish that congregate there. Plenty of fish and all swirling around us. The cruise ship guides feed the fish to attract them for the cruisers. We had no fish food and apparently that disappointed them. Pretty soon, Linda popped up out of the water complaining that a large fish had just bitten her knuckle! While I was standing there examining her finger, with my hands in the water, a fish bit me and drew blood! Shark? Nope. Barracuda? Don said to claim that it was, actually, I don't know who bit me. Linda thought it was about the size of a parrotfish, silvery with some blue stripes.

Here is my chomped finger after being rinsed in seawater. Larry tried to cheer us up by speculating about what diseases fish might carry! I did not believe him for a minute.

Pandy Town

Welcome to Pandy Town, a fishing village sharing the Oakridge Bight with the town of Oakridge. It's about halfway up the island. This purple building in the above photo is the local gas station. No pumps here. Just pull up in your boat and they'll bring out a jug of gasoline, diesel or kersosene, whatever you need.

Debi and I attended a women's conference at the Church of God in Pandy Town this week. We had no real directions but knew Pandy Town was near Oakridge and Debi had a vague idea of how to get there. We've both been to Oakridge and knew our way there. Debi did remember the turnoff, but then we were clueless. After driving around, looking for English speaking people to ask for directions, getting mis-directed by Spanish speakers (including the police), Debi found a man who was able to literally point us in the right direction. We had missed it by one turn. We were late, but not really. Islanders rarely start anything on time. They have a very casual approach to time. So the main speaker had just barely begun when we arrived.

One of the reasons we wanted to attend this conference was to support the speaker, Darla. She's a former islander who has lived in Canada for 30+ years. Now that she's retired, she has dedicated herself to serving the women of Roatan by bringing Bible study materials (she provided us with Beth Moore's Believing God study, including the videos) and women's conferences. She was thrilled to see us come in and sit down. Islanders love to interact and interject during sermons and teachings, so there was a constant buzz of affirmations. Loved it!

Afterwards, everyone was invited to stay for lunch and they just insisted that Debi and I stay, so with just a bit of arm twisiting, we agreed. Fabulous rice and beans made with coconut milk and mutton peppers! Stewed chicken and cole slaw. Standard island food and, oh, so tasty!

After lunch, we drove along slowly, taking photos, drinking in the culture. This bight is very deep, allowing large fishing boats to come in for repairs. There were a couple of smaller fishing boats being built nearby. The main industry on this island used to be fishing with the largest fishing fleet in the Caribbean, now that has shifted to tourism.

The approach into Pandy Town. This is where we had to back track and ask for directions. We discovered that the part of the town along the bight is mostly English-speaking islanders, and that the Spanish speakers (from the mainland) live just up the hills surrounding the bight. We also found a cute little secondhand clothing shop here and spent some time browsing.  Shops like that abound on the island and get their goods from large shipments of clothing from the US and other places. This shop had huge plastic wrapped bundles of clothing stacked against one wall, waiting to be opened.

Looking back across the end of the bight at Pandy Town. Love the colorful buildings.
So glad we went. 

A Sunday Treat

Our usual routine on Sundays is to go to church, lunch and then meet up with friends at Infinity Bay for some beach time and good visiting (and snorkeling, of course). Last Sunday we were invited to the home of our friends, Lynne and Snider, who have a beautiful place at Blue Harbor. Lynne and Snider are pinch-hitting for our pastor who is on furlough with his family. Part of their duties are to continue mentoring and teaching some of the young Spanish-speaking men in the church. They chose to invite them, their significant others and us for lunch at their home. What a beautiful spot for lunch!!

There are only two homes built in this development, giving it a nice park-like setting.

Part of the invitation included taking a dip in their infinity lap pool. It was a little on the cool side, so I was enjoying sitting on the side of the pool, talking to Snider.  Spectacular view.

This part of the island doesn't have the white sand beaches and does have a LOT of sand fleas. Snider is constantly searching for ways to combat them. His latest method, a fogger, seems to be working pretty well. We got very few bites.
A lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Water Weary

Oh, the fun with water never ends, and I'm not talking about snorkeling either. Don is getting pretty fed-up with this continuous string of water-related incidents.

All our problems stem from the water tank leak that Dennis had about 10+ days ago. Don had fixed our shower, fixed the sink, fixed the toilet and then cleaned out our reserve tank. The new internal toilet parts have not wanted to work properly, mainly refusing to shut off, but we were putting up with it until he felt like putting on his plumber pants again.

Last night, while cleaning up the dinner dishes, we had no hot water. Our kitchen hot water comes from an extra small heating unit mounted under the kitchen sink. It occurred to us that perhaps some of the sand that had clogged up everything else might have found its way to the water heater. So, this morning, Don reported for plumber duty, and sure enough, nothing went right. That's why he hates plumbing so much.

He worked on the water heater first and emptied out a dish of sandy water. He flushed and flushed the water lines and in the process, got the inside of the cabinet quite wet; it is now being fanned back to dryness and the contents of the cabinet are strewn all over the kitchen. Next he went to work on the toilet and actually just replaced the new flushing assembly with the old one. It didn't want to work. So, one wouldn't work at all and one wouldn't quit working. And somehow, during all of that, he lost the washer from the water line to the toilet, so had to borrow the cold water line from the kitchen sink in order to make the toilet work. He also re-installed the new flushing assembly. The toilet works, but now I have no cold water in the kitchen!  He'll have to buy a new washer tomorrow after we get our car back (yes, it's in the shop again!)

I strongly encouraged him to go up and talk to Dennis about our continuing water problems and try to find both a cause and a solution. Dennis wasn't home this afternoon, so that conversation will have to wait.
I don't think Don can take many more of these plumbing issues.

And you thought life was carefree on the island, didn't you!

The Revenge of The Cat

I didn't see it happen, so I can't prove it, but it could well be that the pepper-sprayed cat has taken his revenge on Don.

Here's what happened. This morning, while sitting in the porch swing doing my Bible lessons, I began to notice an unpleasant smell. Now, I am unusually sensitive to odors, so I didn't get too concerned right away. But then the scent seemed to grow stronger and was somewhat familiar. Suddenly, the awful memory of cat urine popped into my mind. Oh no! I hopped off the swing and began looking around for the source of the smell. And then I saw it. A suspicious puddle in Don's flip flop! I cautiously picked up the shoe and sniffed. Yup. Cat pee.

I did not see a cat slip onto our deck while I was sitting out there, so I have no way of knowing if it was the cat who was sprayed spraying back. Does seem somewhat fitting though, doesn't it?

So I grabbed the box of baking soda and liberally sprinkled the shoe and the small spot on the deck right beside the door. After a while, I blasted both with the hose. I sniffed the shoe again and decided another dose of baking soda might be in order.  And here's where the cat's revenge extended to include me: I opened the door, took one step inside, immediately slid on the wet tile floor (which I didn't realize was wet), and then pitched forward, landing HARD on my hands, right knee and foot. OUCH! I may be black and blue for a few days.

Not sure the baking soda really helped Don's shoes. They may get tossed in the trash, along with the cat if he shows up here again!

Mr. Don, When Can We Swim?

                                              Hilda, Gracie, Leydi (and the fingers of Hasey)
Leydi has been asking that question every time she sees Don; she wants to go swimming! Rick and Luz Maria took the girls swimming for the first time while they were here early this month. Leydi was initially very fearful of the water, but Rick said she began to get more comfortable with it by the end of that afternoon. And then she was desperate to go again!

We told Leydi that we would also take Hilda, Gracie and Hasey. They were all so excited. We just had to find a suitable pool. Don and I checked with the manager of the pool at the former Oasis Bar and Grill and he gave his approval. Business has been very slow there and he was excited at the prospect of having customers. The day we stopped in for lunch, we were the only customers.

                                                                       Little Hasey.

We agreed to pick the girls up at Son Rise church at 2:00 and they were ready and waiting for us. We loaded them up in the car and went by to pick up David Cowan. The minute we started driving towards the Oasis, Hasey began crying. I asked the other girls to find out what was troubling her, but she wouldn't say. A short drive later, we pulled into the Oasis and everyone got out. Hasey, who was still crying, immediately took off toward the road. I hollared "Stop, Hasey! No! No!" as I ran after her. She did not want to come back with me and wouldn't answer me either. I called the other girls over and they began asking her what was wrong. Finally, her big sister Gracie pulled her into her arms and just held her. She talked to her softly for a couple of minutes and all of a sudden, the tears stopped and she was fine. I was perplexed, but glad that she recovered. Gracie just shrugged when I asked what that was all about.

Once we got into the pool, Hasey was all smiles. Ear to ear.

Of the four girls, only Hilda can swim, so we had to keep a very close eye on the other three. The pool is quite large with a swim-up bar complete with underwater stools. We were the only customers again, and the girls loved splashing over to those stools and then back to the wide steps entering the pool. Leydi was the most timid, and actually, if the water had been a little warmer, she might have been a bit braver, but she spent a great deal of time shivering, teeth chattering. We've had a number of cloudy, rainy days, so the water was a little on the cool side. It was a warm, but not hot, day with alternating clouds and sun. I told her she could keep warm by moving, kept encouraging her and finally got her to hold onto the side of the pool and kick her legs. None of the girls are afraid of putting their heads under water. They would let go of the side and glide towards me, as long as I wasn't too far away.

The one who amazed me was little Hasey. I asked her if she wanted to learn to float and she nodded. At first she was holding onto me for dear life but after awhile, she was just laying across my arms. I'll bet she'll float on her own the next time we go!

And Hilda! A fish!! She was jumping from the sides, doing cannonballs, swimming under water, on her back, ever which way and did NOT want to go home.

The girls worked up quite an appetite. Don had told them he would buy them something to eat AFTER they swam. Leydi was starving from the time we arrived and was having a difficult time waiting. Hilda swam so much that she probably burned up a couple thousand calories and was also starving. So, we finally had to pause and order. They all wanted hamburgers and fries! And 'cokes'. Actually, they all wanted more than one hamburger! Rafael discovered that the kitchen only had 3 hamburger buns (the bread man had not shown up). Finally, two of the girls changed their orders to chicken fingers and fries. Then they could hardly wait for the food to come out. I began to think that these girls had not had any lunch before they came. The two who had ordered the burgers ate some and then wrapped the remainder to take home (they were huge burgers). They ate every french fry, though. And some chips and salsa. And two  'cokes' each. A very good day.

More Water Woes

We've had more fun with water today. After finally flushing out all the pipes and cleaning the bathrooms, we thought we were home free. This morning, while using our bathroom sink, I noticed a leak around the faucet assembly. Then I heard a small drip, drip, drip under the sink. Don was called into action. He soon concluded that that particular leak could not be fixed; the whole assembly would have to be replaced. Fortunately, we are going to French Harbor tomorrow and can stop by the new Ace Hardware store for a replacement.

We live on a steep hillside. That's our house in the photo above. Along side both sides of the road, there are gutters to drain rainwater. We've had a lot of rain over the past four days which washed a lot of leaves into the gutters. The coral trees lining our side of the road are dropping leaves (aided somewhat by the leaf-cutter ants). The heavy rains have pushed all those leaves down the gutter and deposited them beside our top step, plugging up the small culvert under that step. The plug kept growing larger with every rain (we kept forgetting to go unplug it when it wasn't raining). This morning, while Don was working on the faucet,  I decided to pick up all those leaves, not realizing that there would be ants under the leaves just waiting for someone to bite. Yikes! One foot covered in ant bites. At least they weren't fire ants.

This is an old photo of Rachel and Don standing on the road beside our house (and Merlin's workers walking up the hill).

Another shot from in front of our house, looking down the road.
Those gutters work much better when not full of leaves.

Dennis stopped by with our electric bill this morning. We were discussing the water situation, how dirty the water was at first, how our reserve tank had collected a lot of that dirt. He said he had switched us over to his other huge tank which is now full of clean well water and safe to drink. He said that he has spent so much money on pump repairs, tank repairs, pipe repairs, that he is going to have to charge us more for water.  At least we have clean water again. I'm now catching up on laundry and hoping that our water woes are firmly behind us.