Eileens Turtles

Not a great start for our last day on Roatan.  A bit of rain overnight and then cloudy in the morning.  Got the morning walk in, then it started to pour.  Rained hard off and on until about 10:30, then it cleared up.  Took off to Luna Beach, but missed seeing the guys before they went out for the 11:00 dive.  Paid off my dive debts at the office, worked out to be $37.50 per dive, which is quite a bit more than the flat $25 that I paid the last two years, but the prices at all the dive shops seemed to have gone up.  It's still probably the cheapest diving that you can do almost anywhere in the world.  They're all charging for equipment rental whereas in the past, if you did ten dives they waived the equipment rentals.  Might have to put a BCD on my next wish list.  This year was the first time that I have used integrated weights in a BCD instead of on a weight belt.  Don't ever want to go back to the belt.
After the bill was paid, we decided to stop in at Sundancer and see if we could hook up with Mr and Mrs Idiot from trip advisor.  We got there and couldn't find them, talked to the property manager and found out which place they were renting, but there was nobody home.  When I spoke to the manager I said that I was about to ask an unusual question, but he said that he'd heard them all.  I said that I was here to hook up with internet friends, didn't know their real name, older couple, little fluffy, longer grey hair, and he calls himself Mr Idiot on trip advisor.  Without much hesitation, he said they're staying right there in the next building, and they're the nicest couple you could ever wish for.  Unfortunately we didn't hook up....
We went to the Blue Parrot for lunch, which was right there.  Won't make my to do list for repeats.  After lunch I said I was going to have a cigar, and let's go back down to the beach and walk out onto the dock.  There's a big sign saying Sundancer only, but we made it look like we knew what we were doing and out we went.  Climbed up onto the upper deck and a few minutes later Eileen said, Are those turtles?   About a minute later they came back up for air, and for sure they were turtles.  I didn't realize it, but she has been here three years now and hasn't seen a turtle.  I went back to the car, grabbed the snorkel gear, changed into my swimsuit in the backseat got back to the dock, without my booties that I need for my flippers.  Said I'd go barefoot, so in we went.  Well she was on a mission so I was left in the dust.  Little did she realize that she went right over the first turtle without even seeing it.  I'm 25 metres behind by now, and this turtle takes off to deeper water so I know it's hopeless to try and call her back.  Fortunately, from her swimming I can tell that she's tracking something.  So she did get to see a turtle, feeding on the turtle grass and coming up for air a couple of times.  Good thing, because she said she'd have killed me if I'd seen one there and she had not.
We were going to phone the Blue Harbour people to come and visit their gardens and greenhouses but by now it looked like we were going to get dumped on again, so we decided to just head back home.  Shortly after getting home the sun came back out, so that was a missed opportunity.  Finished off the last of the beer and then went down to Smugglers for a sunset good bye with those folks.  We had a great hour or so with them, so much so that Eileen said to me, why didn't we come down here more often for sunsets with these guys?  Guess we should have figured that out sooner....might have to come back next year....We almost stayed there for supper but decided to stick to the sushi plan.  Neither choice would have been a poor one, Smugglers food is great and so was the sushi, just that it was 10 km away, which on a Saskatchewan highway would be peanuts, but that's a 20 minute drive here.  Not building up to any drama, uneventful drive, and a really good dinner.

mmmmm; sushi.  Mildly cropped to get my finger out of the picture again.

Part way through the meal, the owner came out and told us that they were doing some wine tasting.  Honduras has recently been trying to get a wine industry going.  I've been seeing some ads for this cashew wine, but this is the first time that I've seen it offered.  We sampled a couple of their offerings, but the dry was a little too harsh and the semi sweet didn't cut it either. So, so much for cashew wine. 

Got home, started to pull some things off of the deck for the night, looked up, and there was the Big Dipper.  I've been trying to find that sucker for a month and it was right there.  Upside down, but right there.  I don't know how I could not have seen it before.....

You know what tomorrow is.......pull out the suitcases and pack.  Probably leave the house around ten, pick up some subs to go for a later lunch (not much at the airport), maybe stop at Luna Beach and see if we can catch the crew between dives, and then off to the airport with about the same amount of fumes in the gas tank as we had when we picked the car up......

It's been a great February!!