We
arrived in March of 1982 in a 35 ft. sailboat after along trip through
the
Bahamas, Jamaica and Cayman Islands. We
sailed
through the Bogue between Guanaja and Roatan early in the morning and
marveled
at the beauty of the island with its many harbors and peaks. We tied up at the broken down customs wharf
in Coxen Hole and waited to be boarded.
In the mean time an islander and a gringo walked down the dock
to meet
the new (rare) visitors. They introduced
themselves and I said, wait a minute.
You see, the islander's name was given to me by a mutual friend. He lived in Oak Ridge, we were in Coxen Hole
and the first islander we spoke with was the one Honduran in the whole
world
who's name I knew. That was Calvin
Bodden. He is one of my best
friends. The gringo was Bill Evans who
built Coco View a few years later with Calvin and Calvin's wife Stella. This was a hell of a start.
We
spent about 1/2 of each of the next four years or more exploring the
many
harbors, most of them completely undeveloped and becoming friends with
the 30
or 50 or so gringo's there and many of the islanders.
We snorkeled a lot and ate a lot of fish and
drank too much beer. We started to write
down the island language. At that time,
we were mostly in love with the beauty of the place, the roar of the
waves on
the reef (when away from the roaring generators) and the friendly
people.
The
airport was short and dirt and used by light planes and DC3s. The road was a mountain dirt road and
impassable after heavy rains and scary as shit at Antigual all of the
time. You haven't lived till you have
gone over that road with 28 people in a 12 person bus.
I didn't feel a bump, I was between two enormously
fat women in the very back seat. Well, Calvin had told us to go to Oak
Ridge
and visit his and Stella's bar Happy Landing.
That is one of the fantastic local names like Green Valley,
Distance
View, and Quiet Hill. Well, we tied up
at the nice house just inside the entrance and asked Ginny Mayer if
that was
Happy Landing. BIG MISTAKE!
We then went a bit further to Happy Landing
and began our introduction to Oak Ridge.
Don't
ever try to keep up with a Roatanian at drinking. You
will lose. Well the custom was that you
sat down at the table and bought the next round, or whenever you could
beat
someone else to it. Bad form to just buy
for yourself. If you just want a beer or
two, kinda expensive when there are ten
or so people there. Well, it is either
spend too much for your beer or get flat ass drunk.
Easy choice there. At Happy Landing, Uncle
Rex (Rex Gough) the owner of everything big and the honcho of Oak Ridge
had the
table to sit at. It was always well
attended by the local shrimp boat owners,
captains and a few others. Incredible!
Weddings
were amazing, and often long. We videoed
one of a young preacher getting married by three other preachers and
the
service went for over 3 hours. He later
got on the wrong side of crack and in prison for murder along with
another
friend. Seems they wanted the crack and
the money. Bad stuff, and that drug is
one of the things that lead to where the island is now and where it is
heading.
Funerals were the most touching of any I have ever seen.
We have probably at least 50 friends of all
ages in the ground on Roatan. Way too
many. If a family can afford it the grave
is dug by workers that are paid. At the
graveside service, women sing hymns a capella while the entire grave is
filled
by hand by family and friends. None of
this one handful and bring on the backhoe.
It takes a very longtime!! This,
of course, is after the wake which may take a week while foreign
relatives
gather. The body is NEVER left alone. We have done that duty too.
We have seen them slowly decompose in the
coffin on the porch and drip into the wash tub underneath.
It is very personal, very human.
I
have walked into the above preacher's cabinet making shop to find
another
friend, a boat captain making a coffin. That seemed strange. I said, why are you working here, Pandy? I will never, ever forget his answer or his
tearstained face. You see, he was making
his mother's coffin because he could not afford to buy one. You get close to people.
Then
there are the kids. Boy did they teach
us a lot. We found a lot about the
duppies and spirits. Kids will tell you
the truth, while the adults try to please the gringo, until you get
very
close. I will never forget walking on the
reef crest at low tide with Calvin and Stella's ten year old daughter
Yani. I have a Ph.D. in marine geology,
but I learned a lot that day and was reminded to carefully put back any
rocks I
turned over so as to not hurt what ever was living on or under them. I learned that an octopus is a Sea Cat,
pronounced Sea Cot. When you watch them,
they are very catlike. I learned that
blue crabs are Ratti Cutters. I don't know how to spell it and neither
do the
islanders. Watch out or they will get you with their biters. The great blue heron is John Bull and the
buzzard John Crow.
I
once went wilk hunting on the reef with Calvin and Stella and Betsy one
night
with flashlights. He found 10 to every
one of mine. When he looked, all he saw
was wilks. I was looking at everything. In
those days, a trip with an islander of any age was an education. Now the men watch TV too much and shoot the
shit too little. Well, there are a lot of other things, that maybe I
will talk
about sometime like:
Lying
on our backs on the wharf and counting satellites.
Picking
our way through reefs at night in boats:
Having
friends who would kill for you:
Helping
fix the solar well that feeds a whole town and shaming the richest man
in town
into paying for it.
A
surprise birthday party for Betsy put on 100 yards from where we were
docked in
plain sight and her not catching on.
It
was all done by islanders.
A
midnight birthday for a 60 year old lady.
Taking
locals shooting in remote harbors.
Rescuing
a 40 ft resort dive boat and 15 people in a 70 knot norther.
Tuberculosis,
rapists, shooting up a bar with an Uzi.
Seeing
a good friend and a friend of his run down in the harbor by a French
Harbian in
a 600 horsepower speedboat.
Listening
to the amazing stories brought back from the fishing banks. Murder, piracy, and more.
Trading
beer, Marlboros and skin magazines for lobster on the Honduran fishing
grounds
while delivering boats from the U.S. through the Panama Canal. Needed the seafood for bribes in Panama.
Trying
to keep a land thief from tearing down a friends dock on Christmas eve.
Rescuing
a commercial fishing boat from Cayos Cochinos (twice) when he ran his
battery
dead. Couldn't call anyone else because
his girl friend, not his wife was aboard.
When I suggested towing him into Utila, where his wife was from,
he was
not amused.
Fishing
boats full of bullet holes and repairing compasses with bullet holes.
Best
times, best memories, and best friends of my life.
Too bad the diseases and exploding crime
drove us away. It was so very much
better before all of the improvements.
Before TV when people were the only entertainment.
When a trip from Oak Ridge to Coxen Hole took
all day and you felt lucky, if you had to get out and walk at Antigual,
because
that way you knew you weren't going off of the cliff.
Before wealth and before crack and before
hordes of mainlanders. Yep those were
the times.
Damn,
I miss it. Life was rich. Life was
intense. Life was real. Life was fragile.Yep, it is the
INCREDIBLE
ISLAND.