OAK RIDGE CAY ROATAN, HONDURAS February, 1997

I first read about Roatan in the winter of 1994 from an article in the New York Times Sunday travel section. I was very intrigued, cut out the article, filed it, and never looked at it again -- until the Internet. During my favorite computer pasttime, browsing the travel connections on the net, I came across a Roatan Honduras Oceanfront Vacation Home and I knew immediately I had to be there. Well, a year later, we are here to report our Bay Island experience.

The house was just perfect for us and if you need more info, please visit their site. The highlight of our trip was Romelia, the housekeeper/cook. She is absolutely everything the owners said she would be. Never having had a housekeeper/cook beforeousekeeper/cook before on a vacation, we didn't really know what to expect. But after two weeks of great meals and fun times, we defintely got attached to Romelia and would have kidnapped her if we could.

One of our excursions included a mangrove tour with another buddy we made, Thomas.

At the end of our trip, Romelia had him stop at Lindy Matuti's mahogony woodshop where he makes furniture and souvenirs. The craftsmanship is superb. Here, Romelia really went to work as she bargained for some little goodies for us. We went away with a great cutting board and some trinkets at a very reasonable price. Thomas also took us out to the privately owned Lime Cay, which sits in the middle of Port Royal. The winds were relentless for two weeks and the seas were high. When Romelia found out we went into the open ocean in a taxi dory, she sent a posse out to find us, but we had the ride of our lives. Much better than any Disney attraction. Another time, Romelia suggested hiring a private car for an island tour to see how the other half lives. Oak Ridge is at the less developed end of the island far away from the maddening tourists. This was all fine and dandy for us!

The weather wther was great for two weeks except for those darn winds. On one hand, they kept the bugs away and the temperatures moderate, but they also kept us from fishing as much as we might have. Still in all, Geoff managed to hook into some bonefish down the road from us. Unfortunately, no photos so you'll have to take his word for it, I did! Plus, he was able to catch various caribbean species--one of which was a rather large needlefish, which we had for din-din.

Seeing as how we trekked our bikes, through land, air and sea, we were determined to ride! In order to get over to Oak Ridge Cay, you need to take a taxi dory. So while most people were loading their diving gear on their dive boats, the locals got pretty used to us loading up our bikes in their dories. Although there is a paved road on the island, it is the ONLY paved road on the island. The in-roads are steep and quite gutted. Our first adventure took us across the inlet to Pandytown, then up to the road and over the ridge to Punta Gorda (home of Romelia). A nice community town by the sea. We trucked back up the ridge and decided to press on towards Paya Bay, first stopping at Henry's Dive Resort (Henry, however, does not dive--go figure) to get some fresh water. The place looked lovely, but deserted. A few miles down the road (which felt like a hundred miles down the road) we made it the Paya Bay Beach Club. What a spot! This place also was pretty deserted, but Lurlene, the owner, said we could stay as long as we wanted. The beach was great, and they have a great sun deck with a beach bar and a terrific restaurant. We had found ourselves another home on Roatan! At another time, we took the road a little farther down to Camp Bay beach. This road also needs some caution. The beach here is nice with no facilities, but really NO people just tons of sand flies. We played connect the dots on our buns when we got back!

These stories just scrape the surface of our experience. For what makes travelling for us so special is the people we meet. It's not just the things we might do or not do, but meeting and experiencing different people's lifestyles. Staying in Oak Ridge Cay gave us that advantage--to able to kick back and hang out with your neighbors and be an islander for a couple of weeks--even though we really are just tourists.