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.