Honeymoon #4 - Part 4

PICTURES OF OUR PARADISE

There isn't much to tell really. We used the sun as our clock (up around 5:30/6:00am, in bed around 8:00) and when we weren't preparing meals, we were outside. We read, napped, swam, kayaked, snorkeled, and just plain relaxed. The weather was awesome-some days more sun, others more clouds, and we only got one thunder storm one of the nights for about 30 minutes. We had a radio in the house in which we could call Barry if we needed any supplies or had an emergency.

~Indoors~

**I thought the house was clean, except for the kitchen supplies. Its very humid there so things tend to rust, and its a rental property so the dishes and pots and pans were pretty hodge podge and not the best, but they were usable after we cleaned them**

Downstairs living room area.


Kitchen


Little gas stove/oven.


Jonathan hollowing out a coconut for me.


Dining room table. We never ate here, but it stored our wet towels beautifully.


There were a lot of windows in this house. No screens. The wind was awesome.


Our room upstairs. We slept here the majority of the time. It doesn't even get cold enough for blankets. Just top sheets!


Upstairs deck. We could see the sunset from up here.



Other upstairs room. We'd switch rooms depending upon which way the wind blew. We spent 1 1/2 nights in this room.



~Outdoors~

You can see the solar panels on the house. The island had a generator that we used twice. Once to charge our camera batter and the other for me to blow dry my hair on the last day. Other than that the solar panels had enough juice to power lights that ran off 12 volt batteries. They powered ceiling fans too, but not enough to move any air that we could feel.

Of course we took hundreds of pictures but I'll try my best to narrow it down to the best ones.

~Here are some views of the island~

This about sums up how we spent the majority of our days. It was really stressful!


The dock we came in on and where we began our snorkeling adventures.


View of the island and generator house from the main dock.


West side of the island.


The water was incredibly clear. It was also quite salty so we floated easily. We could spend a good hour in the water and barely need to doggy paddle to stay afloat.


These chairs saw our rear ends pretty much all day every day.


North side of the island.


View of the northeastern side where we hung out most days. We could sit there all day and the sun would pass from our right to our left. Needless to say we got a little burned but came home nice and tan.


The island consisted of palm trees as well as pine trees. It reminded us a lot of Florida! We think these trees get paired together in nature like coffee and chocolate.


We weren't total slugs. We did get some activity in during the days. We went kayaking around and here's our island from about a 1/4 mile away. The water here is about 2 feet deep and crystal clear.


We would jump off this end of the dock to cool off in the ocean. Yes, I was a baby and scared to jump at first. There were reefs all over and made for awesome snorkeling (scroll down to see those).


Jonathan would go for swims in the mornings, and I'd watch!
The island beyond Jonathan belongs to a couple in California and they do not rent it out. They rarely visit (we asked Barry about it and he filled us in-he maintains it for the owners when they are gone) and they didn't come while we were there. Perfect timing!


We couldn't help but be amazed at all the blues and greens. The island off in the distance is Water Cay and you could go to it for a day trip from Utila, but we saw people maybe twice. The main hang out was on the other side of the island (we realized that when we kayaked around it) so no one saw us and we hardly saw them.


This is our favorite picture and you will most likely see it enlarged on a wall in our new house very soon.

I read a lot! The best part was I could put the book down when I wanted to, not because someone needed a meal or because I needed to break up a fight between sisters! :)
I read "The Last Song" and "The Lucky One" both by Nicholas Sparks. I also saw "Dear John" on our plane ride from San Diego to Miami, so it was love stories for me all week!
Jonathan was reading books for his masters course so his reading wasn't as mindless as mine.

I read in the sun.


And in the shade.

We ate well, as did the rat we realized was our roommate. The first morning we awoke to 3 of our 4 packages of tortillas eaten through, as well as our loaf of bread. The rat was confirmed during the middle of our second night when we woke up to it trying to get into cookies in our room! Jonathan shined a flash light and we saw his little body go hiding. He was impressed that I was able to roll over and go back to bed and not be freaked out by it. Whatever. Its not like we could catch it. We just put our food up high where he couldn't get to it. More on that story in a bit...

How we seasoned our food. The rum did end up in a few of my drinks.


Here is Barry bringing us fresh caught fish. The first night he brought us Red Snapper that he said was caught down around 1000 feet and the second night he brought us shallow water Yellow Tail Snapper. He filleted those things right in his boat, and they were awesome!


The fish on the grill.


We made fish tacos one day for lunch. We planned on more but that dang rat ate our tortillas!


My birthday dinner (I turned 31 on the 22nd). We grilled chicken marinated in the coconut rum and coconut milk and we roasted potatoes and veggies in the oven.

~We didn't see as many sun rises as we did sunsets~

Sunset over Sandy Cay (Barry's other island).


A few moments later we saw this arrow in the sky. It was so cool! We figured next time we need to go to Sandy Cay.


Another sunset from our deck.



We did get up on my birthday to catch the sunrise.


This is the southwest side of the island. At night the wind would come in from this direction so we'd go sit over there, and a few mornings we hung out there too before going in to make breakfast. You can see the mountains of Honduras on the horizon.

~We got good at taking photos of ourselves with our new camera~

Us on the Jumping Dock


Us one night before a sunset.


Another night, another sunset.


Us kayaking.


Us on the morning of my birthday.


Us in the ocean.


Us and the BEAUTIFUL view of the ocean!

~We made some animal friends along the way~

The pelicans were around non stop. The entertained us with their dive bombing for meals. We usually had 4 hanging out with us.

Mid fish gulp.


Here's one in a pine tree.


We also encountered hundreds of hermit crabs.


The sun would go down and they'd come out of hiding. One night we ate outside and Jonathan dropped a piece of pasta on the ground. Withing seconds there was a train of hermit crabs coming towards us fighting to get to this food. It was a little creepy. We could hear their shells clanking against each other and the big ones had no qualms about climbing over the little guys to get to the food.


One quiet little crab making his way across the beach in the morning. He left his trail behind him.


One morning we had a giant moth in the kitchen. I put a lime next to it to try to give some perspective.


This little guy was trying to sneak inside the house. He looked mean!


We told Barry about the rat the day he came by to discuss when he would need to pick us up on our last day. He told us he had a "rat catcher". We said "oh yeah?" and he said "yeah, a cat!". A few hours later, Rigoberto joined us for the last day and a half of our stay and he was a great little guy. He was very frisky and friendly, but I don't know if he ever got the rat. The night he arrived we woke up to him sleeping on a bed, not hunting vermin as he should have been! He knew his way around the place as Barry told us he's been on the island before but keeps him off when there are guests because some people are allergic, or just doing like cats! We greatly enjoyed his company. Jonathan is feeding him raw ground beef here (as per Barry's instructions-I'd never do that on my own).


We had left over milk too, so we shared that with him.

~Snorkeling~

Jonathan convinced me we needed our own snorkeling gear. He said it would be cheaper if we just bought a set versus renting it from Captain Morgans Dive Center so we brought our own gear. It was quite peaceful and fun to go explore the reefs together.

Of course I had to have pink!


We'd give each other a thumbs up if everything was going well.


Jonathan would dive down and I was just find hanging out near the surface!


See, its very reefy! Utila and the surrounded area is know for its diving.


Giant schools of fish!


Fish in the reef.


Another big school.

After 6 days of our own island, it was time to leave. I was sad to go! Spending that time together cannot be explained in words. Barry picked us up around noon so we could make the 2:00 ferry and after we paid him (Jonathan said he felt like he ripped him off-it was only $115 a night and Barry didn't even charge us for the fish he caught!) we asked him about his accent. He said he was born and raised in Utila and he claimed his dialect was basically English (British, not American) and Spanish mixed. To us, it sounded very Jamaican and Cajun as well. It was fun listening to him talk.

We took our Dramamine ahead of time, and knowing what it would do to me I didn't want to chance puking on the ferry. We walked around Utila again after Barry dropped us off, had ice cream and headed back to the mainland. Jonathan and I were both pretty tired and we sat this time and closed our eyes on the ferry for the return ride and did well. Manuel was waiting at the port to take us back to the Lodge and by the time we arrived, my Dramamine buzz wore off. We checked our email, got settled in, ate dinner and realized that we had only one more day in Honduras.

~That final day in country, we walked around the property to a water fall and a swimming hole~

The front desk had a nice map for us to follow.


The hiking trail. On the way out, it was pretty much all uphill.


The loop trail was to take 2 to 4 hours and we had to get back in about 2 for lunch and massages, so we just went to Mermaid Falls.


A snake we almost stepped on!


Looking at the falls. Go ahead, make fun of my "jorts".


We chose not to swim here and go to the other swimming hole that was supposed to be better. We took our normal self portrait and headed back.


We go to the point where we had to descend 162 steps to the rest of the trail that took us to Las Pilas swimming hole.


Yes, that is sweat on my back and my arm is glistening. We were soaked from the humidity!


This water was ice cold but it felt great!


Jonathan figured out what rocks he could turn into slides. No, I didn't go on them. If I had on boards shorts and water shoes, then maybe, but I wasn't about to scratch up my behind and my feet and possibly turn Jonathan into a widower.


I just watch and take pictures.


Time to go back up the stairs.


We didn't carve this...it was already there!


We got back, ate lunch (here's an idea of how they serve up the food) and had another run in with Marta for massages. We opted for the 30 minute back massage due to our sun burns.


Time to leave!


In case you didn't know, this is what chocolate looks like! The coco beans are inside this orange pod surrounded by a white goo. You can actually eat the goo (we did) and it tastes both sweet and sour like a jolly rancher.


On our plane back to the US. The second we landed we called the girls, enjoyed our last night in Miami and were dying to get home to see our babies. We even tried moving up our flight but it was going to cost too much money to get home 2 hours sooner. We knew they were in great hands and had so much fun with Grammy, Grandpa, Nama and Bopa and we can't thank you guys enough for keeping them so we could go on this trip. We love you guys!

Until next time...