Roatan bus ride and Mahogany Bay beach

I often run the camcorder looking through a bus window while I am ashore on these excursions so that I get a flavor of the place I am in.

Of course it is different than looking out the window of a bus in Chicago, the third biggest city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Honduras is not a wealthy country.

Not all the roads on Roatan are paved and there aren't many street lights or lights visible in shops some of which, as you pass, are in darkness except for the glass refrigerated cases. In some gardens you'll see trash that the occupants have discarded, leading one to surmise that weekly trash pick up and the use of landfills doesn't happen.

I imagine, as a result of this, repeat cruise visitors stay away from the villages and towns and spend their money as we did on Princess excursions or in Mahogany Bay so the money is not trickling down as it would in say an island like St. Maarten where an infrastructure is in place for the locals and the tourists alike and the shops see a lot of business.

Here's the video

Once back in Mahogany Bay we visited the ship and had some lunch on deck from the Trident grill which serves free burgers and fries among other grilled treats. Carol had the excellent thin crust Princess Pizza from the Pizza station on the same deck, by the Neptune Pool.

It was a beautiful afternoon so we decided to go ashore again and visit the beach near the ship.

Although there was a chairlift (for a fee) we decided to walk along a Nature Trail by the water.

The chairlift

Wooden statue on the trail

It was hot and the path was rough (not suitable for wheelchairs) so it was nice to find a bench

Cloudy

We come to the end of the Nature Trail

and the beach is straight ahead

You are never far from the ship if it rains...

 ...or you could take shelter here. Watch out for the giant sea creature!

More sea creatures!

We found some loungers on a nice sandy beach

Great swimming off this beach. Warm, clear water, no rocks.

After a couple of relaxing hours on this beautiful beach we decided to return to the ship but this time we would take the chairlift just for fun...

While we walk to the chairlift here is video from our beach afternoon...

A dolphin called Tilly

Here is a video clip of our boat ride to Anthony's Key

Dolphin behavior, in particular how they communicate with each other is studied on the island at the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (see National Geographic magazine May 2015 for an article on the research there).

We waded out into warm clear water above waist height to meet our trainer. He would have one dolphin with him. Her name was Tilly and she was two years old. A Bottlenose dolphin.

Using a whistle and hand signals the trainer tells Tilly what to do and she responds immediately.
Here she poses with a couple of tourists.

Tilly was warm and very smooth to the touch, befitting an animal that can swim at 20 mph underwater

 The trainer has a cooler full of small fish to reward Tilly with after she obeys his commands

Everyone got a kiss from Tilly

After all the close contact maneuvers we were allowed to go ashore to get our cameras so that we could get shots of Tilly performing tricks on the water. I brought my point and shoot Canon and my camcorder out into the water.

 After each trick- a reward...

 The dolphins are within a caged pen but once a day they are allowed out into the open sea for an hour-and they always return when told to, as they love the free fish that they don't have to catch!

During the time we were with Tilly her mother, who was swimming free in the pen and not engaged in a show, would come along occasionally to visit her.

New instructions for Tilly... go stand on your tail and swim backwards with another dolphin.

All too soon our hour in the water was up and we were taking the boat back to the landing dock where our bus waited to take us back to the ship. We had to visit the Gift Shop to buy the digital photos that had been taken with Tilly.

Here's the video I took in the water

To Anthony's Key

Once our tour guide had rounded us up in Mahogany Bay we were escoted to our minibus for the drive to Anthony's Key where the dolphins are penned.

We passed through the port gates where local vendors were grouped hoping to sell tour to those who walked through the gates or drove a rental car.

Roatan is hilly and we drove a winding road, passing through one small town where there were a lot of people just standing around in the streets with no work to do. Along the country roads were many wooden houses which were dark inside. Perhaps they had no electricity or were saving it until night time. Gardens showed a lot of trash, including broken pieces of furniture or old appliances.

After 25 minutes or so we turned off the road and went downhill to sea level. Once out of the bus we were led to a jetty where we would wait for a boat to come pick us up and take us to the dolphin pens out in the bay.

As I stepped down onto the jetty a man behind me missed the step and crashed face-first onto the wooden deck. I went to help him as I was the closest person and found he had some bad cuts on his head so I called to the guide to radio for medical help. I comforted him and kept him laying down and within just a couple of minutes a boat arrived at the dock and he was taken away at speed for medical treatment. He was wearing sunglasses and didn't see the yellow lines warning of the step.
His wife went to the hospital with him.

He was given some stitches at the hospital and was returned to the ship where the onboard doctor could give him follow-up treatment.

Even on vacation you have to be careful and aware of your new surroundings at all times.

Across the bay were vacation bungalows on the water

As we had to wait for another boat to come pick us up we had time to visit the small museum by the dock.
The museum highlighted some of the fish and mammals that can be found in the waters of Honduras....

and artifacts from the history of the region

Examples of local lace-making

Soon our boat came and we boarded for the short ride over to the dolphin pens

Two other groups were already in the water with the trainers ( in blue shirts.)

I had all my cameras with me but at the shoreline learned that the first half of our hour with the dolphins wouldn't provide an opportunity to use them and that one of the staff would be taking photos for us. After that we could use our own cameras. Under this thatched roof you see above was a platform with lockers so we could keep our cameras safe there.

Now we could enter the warm clear water where our dolphin trainer was waiting 20 yards out from the shore....

Roatan video

Before going ashore we had our usual breakfast in Sabatini's. French toast with bacon for me.

While I'm eating this you can watch the video I shot as we docked at Mahogany Bay...sorry about the wind noise, but I blame the wind!

So the ship is docked and we have had breakfast and now are ready to step ashore in Roatan for the first time. Although it was cloudy it was warm-high 70's F.

On most cruises when you get off your ship, there will be members of the ship's photographic department at the gangway on the ship or near the gangway on the dock. They are often in costume and want to take your photo. Later if you want you can buy the photo for $20 for an 8 X 10. We usually buy them if they come out well.

We meet the photographer in this clip...

Mahogany Bay is a beautiful, manicured village of tourist shops, bars and restaurants which is not at all like the Roatan outside the gates. You can rent cars there if you want to explore and see the real Roatan for yourself. All the rental cars are white so you will be instantly recognized as a tourist in a rental car. There is a lot of poverty visible on the island and I was happy to be driven to our dolphin destination in a mini-bus. I am not saying any harm would come to you if you walked the streets but with the amount of camera equipment I carry I would hate to take a chance on keeping it all safe when I was distracted taking photos and video.

You could easily just spend the day at Mahogany Bay, shopping, having lunch and a few drinks and enjoying the beautiful beach there.

You could eat and drink in Fat Tuesday and never lose sight of your ship

Carol waits for our tour group to assemble. All the tours have a tour number and the tour leader will hold up this number when it is time to rally around and show your tickets so you don't join the wrong tour.

When I was on the ship I saw the beach area of Mahogany Bay and it looked very inviting. I thought we would have time to visit it after our excursion.

Next up- Dolphin encounter!