(no subject)
Travel writing story #2 - 500 word advertisement for Roatan Island...
The price you pay to visit Roatan is the ferry ride from the coast of Honduras to the milky cerulean coast of its largest bay island. Nicknamed “The Vomit Comet” by smirking locals, the ride takes 45 minutes and comes with a suggested dose of Dramamine. The man in front of me at the ticket booth refuses the small packet.
“I've been on a cruise before.” He says haughtily.
I make a note of his face and promise myself I'll sit on the other side of the ship. I take the pack he refused, then mine. Then I request a third for the road.
The lazy island arrival into Dixon Cove begins with a series of shipwrecks. Flung half-submerged just off the coast, spattered with oranges layers of rust, the remains are dramatic and mysterious, made more so as the stories behind them remain elusive. The ferry disembarks and passengers wobble ashore, green from the motion or pink from an antiemetic-induced nap in the Caribbean sun.
Once on the steady ground, the Roatan mindset settles in immediately and finds you using phrases like “my island life” before you even reach your hotel room. By the next morning the anchored cruise ship parked on the ritzier size of the island will have you complaining about your fellow travelers.
“Ugh,” you say over your plate of conch fritters, “tourists.”
Roatan's motto, if their T-shirt shops are to be believed, is “Live and Let Dive.” Unless you plan on missing half the island, you had better take them seriously. Off the shore of Roatan is the second largest barrier reef in the world, behind The Great Barrier reef of Australia, and diving, or at least snokelling, is essentially required. Lemon-colored fish float lanquidly by your mask, ignoring the ominous moray eel. An arrow crab picks its way across a large green-gray brain coral and a long fat fish spotted with yellow, red and blue shoots suddenly into small an opening hidden by deep sea ferns.
Multi-tasking is another requirement in Roatan. You might sip a coconut daquari while simultameously watching the sun set, declining the fat joint offered by a man in the bushes, and listening to Garifuna music seeping through the story of your grizzled expatriate neighbor.
“I've held that crystal skull from the Indiana Jones movie in my hands.” he tells you excitedly. “But I can't tell you how the real one was made. You would shit yourself.”
When it comes time to board the ferry deck for the voyage home, you slip reluctantly into your seat, slick all over from the morning sunbath, sleepily curious if a fourth Dramamine is in order. The deck hands finish spraying the sick off the rear of the boat and the ferry vibrates past the creaking sheets of ship wreck metal towards the mainland.