Sea Day 1 of 2 to Roatan (island off the coast of Honduras)

My back is NOT happy. I’m quite sure it’s the bed. It’s too soft.  MUCH too soft. After much complaining, they put some kind of semi-rigid mattress underneath, which presumably was supposed to make a difference.  Needless to say, it has not.  Even ?three ?four massages have only offered temporary respite.  And I’m getting through our stash of Paracetamol pretty fast.  Last night, I went to the little shop to try and get some sort of pain relieving cream. They used to stock Ibuleve. Sold out.  Paracetamol? Sold out. Aspirin? Guess, go on, I dare you. Nothing whatsoever, except after sun. Not even bite cream.  In. The. Tropics.  Whoever is in charge of stock control needs to be quietly taken outside and shot. This is not kind.  Never mind the average age of the passengers, even crew get headaches!

So I went back to the cabin and put an appeal on this cruise’s private passengers’ Facebook group! Sure enough, within half an hour, there was a message in my Inbox, telling me it was outside their cabin ready for me to collect.  How lovely is that?! Now, all I have to do is figure out who she is, so I can thank her in person!  In case you’re interested, it’s Morrison’s own brand, but it’s still Diclofenac, so that’ll do nicely.  Although I’m starting to think it’s a tear, not a strain. Still, we’ll see how it goes.

As noted at the end of the last missive, I have lost all understanding of time.  So far, on this cruise, we have lost/gained 4 hours getting to Bermuda, then another one on the way to Florida. Then another one to New Orleans.  Then we got one or two back going to Barbados (?!), then we lost them again to go to Panama and Costa Rica.  The clocks changed again last night, but I’ve given up trying to keep track. So has my phone, for that matter.  I just ask Dad to look at his watch! And hope he’s keeping more on top of things that I am.  How the crew cope with it, I cannot begin to imagine. Whoever designed this route must have been high as the proverbial kite at the time.  I don’t think a cat would have drawn a course this daft. Try and follow it on a map, it’s insane!

For longer-standing readers, the name Roatan may ring a distant bell. That’s the port that was cancelled when we had to stay in Los Angeles for an extra day, due to the immigration foul up that cost the local Head of Homeland Security his job. And all the people yelled in Reception about how badly they wanted to go there.  Remember that?! Well, now, finally, c. 12 years later (was it 2011?), we might finally find out what all the fuss was about.

Sadly, tomorrow will be three weeks to Southampton.  The countdown has already begun for some. People are messaging me from home to arrange meeting up – I think they think there will be presents! Ha ha!  Bills are arriving, MOT reminders, even mortgage renewal quotations. Steady on, people, this is still my holibobs, do you mind?! Talking of which, need to stop nattering and plough through some emails.  I’m sure SOME of them actually require my attention.

Sea Day 2. Blinked and missed it. Can’t have been very exciting! Oh, but dad and I earwigged the quiz while we played Quirkle and got 16 out of 20! Mind you, table 3 (NOT the BWAW) got 19 out of 20, so there’s that.  Amanda does ask easy questions, but she still hasn’t learned to pronounce the answers correctly! We have to ask her to spell words, because she simply cannot read them out properly. She asked what an “entomonologist” studies. When she was made to spell it, it turns out she meant entomologist. But it could have been etymologist, or entomogenous (although that’s an adjective, not a noun). She has a clear voice and a decent microphone technique, she’s just not very bright! We all found the questions very easy, but she had been up all night picking questions she thought were quite hard! Oh dear.

Afterthought about Costa Rica. Peacocks.  They are very large, close up. I’ve always assumed they were flightless, partly due to their size and partly due to the apparent uselessness of their eyes as feathers to provide lift – if the air can get through gaps, that’s not going to work, I thought.  Terrifyingly, they are not! They only do short hops/flaps, rather like chickens, but when you see one of those coming towards your head… Bird phobia fully reinstated.

Roatan

Oh, NOW I get it. Roatan is quite possibly the ultimate Perfect Caribbean Island™. White beaches, turquoise, clear waters, plenty of thick rainforest and wildlife, and heat and humidity that even the Devil would find difficult to take.  And not a breath of wind to relieve it.  Everyone on deck moved their sunbeds into the shade, it was so fierce! Roatan is home to the world’s Second Largest coral reef, and people come here to dive the reef and the plentiful wrecks that ran aground on it and sank over the centuries. 

But we don’t dive. Nor do we like lying around on sandy beaches. And the pier walk looked pretty epic. So we stayed on board. Those who went ashore loved it, but my curiosity was fully sated by looking out of the window.

Roatan is the first of four ports in four days, so if the paragraphs get a bit perfunctory, forgive me, I’m probably knackered.

Belize City. 

I’ve wanted to visit Belize ever since I was taught that the UK purchases their entire Cavendish banana crop every year. Nowadays, they do allow some other countries to have some, but we still get ours either from here or Costa Rica.

We must be quite far north of our recent stops, because the temperature has dropped at least 7 degrees overnight. Today is overcast and 23 C. Still humid as all getout, mind you. 

This is a tender port. Cruise ships aren’t allowed to dock. In fact, we are moored so far out, we can barely see the town/ land! I’m not sure how the people of the private island inbetween us and the shore feel about us looming outside their windows, but we’re smaller than the Celebrity Constellation which is moored roughly a mile off our port side. Apparently, it takes 20-30 minutes just to get ashore. Tendering ashore is usually fine, as long as the water is calm. Here, today, it ain’t. We have white horses.  Dad and I took one look out the window and agreed we’re not getting on a small catamaran in that! Catamarans float on the surface, so are more prone to both pitching and rolling waves. A ‘proper’ boat keel cuts through the water, and is therefore less prone to throwing its passengers about every time it meets the tiniest bump in the road. Also, the faster it goes, the more the back goes down into the water.  But the boats being used were cats, called Belize Spirit and Yura respectively, so nope.  Curiously, both cats wore Diamonds International sponsorship adverts on their roofs, so one would imagine their shop might have been open, even though today is Sunday.  But we don’t buy diamonds, either!

Those who went ashore found that the water-based tours had been cancelled, due to said choppy waters.  Those who went on the trolley train (which was our plan), said it was very pleasant, but it’s Sunday and the entire place is SHUT. Not even market stalls on the quayside. Someone posted some pics on Facebook of some buildings and a statue they saw on their “stroll”, but it is NOT a place to come to for a simple tourist, and definitely not for anyone of limited mobility.  I’m sure it’s a bit more inviting and interesting when it’s not a Sunday, but, thanks to P&O, we’ll never know!

Still, the seas are turquoise and the sun shone for a while, so it was a pleasant enough view!

Tomorrow and Tuesday are Mexico – Costa Maya and Cozumel respectively.

NORA: YOUR ESSAY DEADLINE IS TUESDAY. I have received nothing to proofread yet…