The three Bay Islands sit about 10 miles off the coast of Honduras in the Carribean Sea. All of the islands have a history based in shipping, fishing, pirating and being discovered by Christopher Columbus himself (CC landed on Guanaja in 1502). The islanders speak primarily English as well as Spanish...very good for me. My Spanish, used extensively on the mainland, consists of "hola", "uno mas" and lots of hand gestures. Roatan (see: Roatan & the West End) is the most populated, most visited, has a cruise ship port and an international airport. But there are three islands all together...Roatan, Utila and Guanaja. (Said Gwa-NAH-ha). About 8 miles from Roatan is the least visited island of Guanaja.
Wikipedia tells me that there are about 10,000 residents of Guanaja. I find that very hard to believe. But what is definitely true is that the majority don't live on the actual island (which is very hilly and densely wooded), most live on a small cay called just "The Cay" by residents. And there is not one car. Just alleys and sidewalks and houses and boats jammed packed into this tiny space. It's actually been called the Venice of Honduras (a bit of stretch but let's go with it).
I am not going to lie. I LOVE GUANAJA. It is probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. The water is fantastic, all the travelling that you do is by boat...there are no roads, no cars, the locals are friendly, there is surprisingly little tourism...I had so much fun. But let's go back to the beginning...how I got to this relatively remote spot.
I am also going to report the rated PG version (this blog should be read by adults and kids alike). Our gracious host, George, is a self professed pirate, total party animal and all around nut...in a super fun, later middle aged, TOTALLY crazy way.
He lives in Roatan, has a few boats there, he knows Guanaja very well and he wanted to show it to us. Sounds good to me.
We drove about 40 minutes from the West End to the fishing town of Jonesville in Roatan to pick up the boat. It was sandwiched between a bunch of huge fishing and shrimping vessels and an even larger stack of lobster pots. (Captain George is wearing the red shirt).
Click here and here to read the rest of the article and see more photos on San Pedro Scoop