Kelley
A couple weeks ago I went down to the Bay Islands of Honduras for an interview on the island of Roatan. The interview took place Friday morning, and so I had pretty much the entire weekend to soak in the beauty of the island.
Roatan is about 30 miles off the coast of mainland Honduras. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get there on the ferry. The island itself is long and narrow- about 33 miles in length, and 4 miles wide at its widest part. It used to be occupied by a group of Indians who were descendants of the Mayan, and who also apparently had a huge female to male ratio. The name of the island in their native language meant "Island of Women". Although the ratio has evened out a bit since those days, I still was hit on by a lesbian during my brief stay. go me.
The island is nearly surrounded completely by barrier and fringing reef. It is really spectacular. I had a hard time deciding which was more awesome: the beauty of the reefs that were right off the beach, or the fact that this island was discovered by pirates. Yeah, that's right. The first Westerners to hit up this island were pirates. Because pirates are the best. Despite the superiority pirates hold over ninjas, the reefs won out. I nearly drowned a couple times because I was gasping or giggling through my snorkel because I was so overcome by the awesomeness of what I was seeing. Although I still have not seen a whale shark (hopefully in a couple weeks I will get a chance!) I did see another animal on my "Things I Wanna See Real Real Bad" list. Ever since working at the aquarium, I have wanted to see a cuttlefish in the wild. I didn't even know there were cuttlefish down here, I thought they were only in the Red Sea and around Japan. But I saw TWO! One even hunted a little fish for me. I also got to see a four-foot long parrotfish eating some coral. That wasn't on my list, but perhaps it should have been. It was amazing.
I met a really cool taxi driver named Lenin who showed me around the island and bought me beer. He was by far the coolest taxi driver I have ever had, and he was very knowledgeable about the island and its history. He also showed me the best spots to snorkel from the beach so I wouldn't have to pay for a guide or a boat. Another reason I liked him is that he speaks a little English, but he only spoke in Spanish to me, and he made me speak Spanish, too. No one likes to let me practice my Spanish, because they always want to practice their English!
If you ever feel like seeing one of the most beautiful places on Earth, I recommend you make the trip down to Honduras's Bay Islands. Especially if you want to get SCUBA certified, because this is the cheapest place on Earth that has legit PADI certification, no exaggeration. In the immortal words of Ben Stiller in Starsky and Hutch, Do it. Do it.
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