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Click on photos to enlarge. Updated Nov. 3rd ,12: Includes Honduras Feb&Mar/12 Colombia Mar/Apr '12, Bocas June through October and a couple of photos from 2011 just because.

Feb '12 Utila East Harbor: Looking back toward the mainland, the tips of the mountains poke above the clouds.

Feb '12 South of Utila, Honduras: Laura lands a 3 foot Wahoo-very good eating! Finally, something besides chicken or pork for dinner!

Feb '12 South of Honduras Bay Islands: A good sail from the Cayos Cochinos to Roatan. Mainland Honduras is in the background and only the two largest islands of the group are visible.

Feb '12 Oak Ridge, Roatan, Honduras Bay Islands: Sat afternoon at BJ's restaurant usually has a music jam session. BJ (the owner) and her bar have been around a long time and she has quite a notorious reputation.

Feb '12 South of Roatan, Honduras Bay Islands: Jim works at landing a large fish while under sail. I can only slow the boat to about 3 knots.

Feb. '12 South of Roatan, Honduras: Jim attempts to weigh his catch-a King Mackerel-while the boat is pitching in the wind and waves. We think it weighed about 38 pounds and made delicious BBQ and sausage.

Roatan, Honduras Bay Islands - 03/12 Took a day off from boat projects to relax in the shade on the cay located near the anchorage at French Cay Harbor. Usually, they cater to visitors off the cruise ships but they let us low life cruisers come in now and then.

Roatan 03-12 It seems everyone has a monkey or a parrot in a cage. Of course the places where they run loose, they tend to pick up any loose objects that visitors might leave laying around. Like your sunglasses, hat, shoes, computer mouse...if you're lucky they'll throw it back at you.

Roatan 03-12 Orchid blooming in a mangrove tree.

Roatan 03-12 The winds died down enough one day to drop the mainsail for a quick repair.

Roatan 03-12 Hard to tell the size of this ship from the photo but if you can see the people on deck, they are all young "at risk" teens. They headed out to the open water learning to sail and all the ships in harbor blew their horns as a wish for a safe sail, which was quite emotional. Since we don't have a horn, we have a bugle which Laura blows - we'll refrain from comment at this point but we'll try to get a movie of this on YouTube and you can hear for yourself.

Roatan 03-12 Usually the fish leave the frame before Laura gets the button pushed, but she captured this iridescent blue one along a great wall near the Second Bight anchorage where there was also bright blue fan coral and tall blue tube corals with other blue fish. Don't know why some areas have such different colors.

Roatan 03-12 Just a view over the coral. The water is a little cloudy from jellyfish spawning as the seas are calm.

Roatan 03-12 During one calm water snorkel, Jim pointed out this Lion fish. As beautiful as they are, they are killing the reefs in the Caribbean as they are an import, eat all the baby fish, and have no natural enemies due to the nasty stinging spines along the back. They are good eating if you can get around that one little problem.

Roatan 03-12 Spent St. Patrick's Day at a dive resort restaurant (not a "dive" bar rather a place where they scuba) called Marble Hill listening to gringos try to sing with the band. (Silly drunks!) Can't name everyone in the photo but at the table next to Laura is Lori and across from her is her husband Mark who run Turtlegrass Marina in Calabash Bight where we spent a lot of time. They have a small restaurant - The Turtle Shack - with awesome food and beverages, not to mention the great hospitality.

Roatan 03-12 This is what passes for a school bus. Luckily it's a calm day as no one has life jackets and they do look a little overloaded.

Roatan 03-12 The "water highways" of Roatan are passages cut through the mangroves and behind fringing reefs along the south side of the island. They don't cover the entire length of the island, but almost. Here we are passing under a walking bridge through to another bight. Sometimes there is a lot of taxi traffic and recently the police will stand by onshore and issue speeding citations if you go too fast through certain congested areas.

Apr 2012 Providencia Colombia - The teams line up the sailboats ready for the start of the race. At least 8 guys to a boat (one just to bail water as they heel over so far).

Feb, 2011 Panama This very large German ship dropped anchor next to us while we were anchored at one of the San Blas Islands. This is a cruise ship for people who actually want the experience of being at sea and don’t care so much for the fancy surroundings and food and drink you might find on the larger cruise ships.

Feb, 2011 Panama Another San Blas Island. Notice the surf breaking over the reefs. It will make your heart go pitter patter when taking the big boat through a break in the reef to enter a bay to anchor.

Feb, 2011 Panama The local Kunas have to paddle up river to get fresh water to drink and cook with. They also do their laundry in the river. It takes them up to an hour to get far enough up river to get salt free clean water. Even so I’m glad I don’t have to drink it.

Feb, 2011 Panama One of the many San Blas Islands occupied by a lone Kuna family. The Kuna Chief’s decide who lives on these Islands and who lives in the settlements. The Islands are beautiful from a distance but many of them have lots of trash washed up on the beach that no 0ne bothers to pick up. It’s actually quite sad.

May 2012: This catamaran, named Mother Jones came in to the anchorage in Providencia early one morning. We later met the owners, Damien and Lorie. They had a very bad passage just east of Honduras. High winds shredded their foresail, as you can see. They also lost their steering and called for help. The US Coast Guard who came to their rescue. One of the CG crew had some boating experience and was able to fix the steering problem and get them on the way. They were Lucky

July, 2012 Providencia: Laura and I along with Tony and Ann on Pavo Real donated money to purchase baseballs and a catchers mitt to the youth baseball program. The coach of the team, Rodriquez played minor league ball in the states for a while. Also in the picture is our friends Orvile and Arelis. They run the Bamboo Restaurant where the cruisers hang out. They speak 3 languages and know about everyone and every thing on the Island. In short, their just good people.

July 2012: This photo of one of Providencia’s bays was taken from the road over looking the ocean. The Island is home to about 6,000 people. Providencia is owned by Colombia however it’s much closer to Nicaragua than Colombia. The locals in Providencia refer to themselves as Islanders, not Colombians. They feel their so far away that the Colombian Government forgets about them

July, 2012 Providencia: Flying the spinnaker. This sail is used in light wind. It’s a big light sail and you don’t want to be caught in a thunderstorm or strong wind flying the spinnaker. We don’t often use it because it’s difficult to get it out of storage below and takes a while to attach and hoist it. It also takes as long or longer to take it down. Maybe I’m just lazy. However it sure is a pretty sight when it’s up.

June, 2012: One of the many Islands in the Archipelago of Bocas has a Chocolate Farm or a Cocoa Finca. A gringo couple that purchased several acres some time in the 80’s owns this finca. They have worked the land and cultivate chocolate. They showed us how it’s done start to finish. It’s a very interesting process

June, 2012: A Bird of Paradice at the Cocoa Finca. It was so bright it was screaming, “Take my picture”, so I did.

June, 2012: The Cocoa Fruit grow on the limbs of the tree. Inside are pods with the Cocoa Beans. I don’t know what I expected but this certainly not what I thought of when I thought of chocolate.

July 2012: I hoisted Laura up the mast to replace a bulb. She took the photo of the marina while up there. They have a full time Grounds Keeper who does a super job.

08-2012 Woodstock, Ga.: Laura and her Mother after taking a walk at Jim’s Mothers house in Woodstock, GA.

June, 2012: The Cocoa Beans after roasting. The shells are then discarded, the beans are ground up and there you have pure chocolate. We were told some of the chocolate candy bars are only 5% choclate. The rest is sugar etc, etc.

09-2012 Casa Grande, AZ: Jim’s son Clint and Grandson Hunter. Clint is giving Hunter scuba diving lessons. You can’t start to young.

June 2012: Nilaya is just a speck in the distance from the Cocoa Finca where she is anchored with two other boats.

My son Clint, ready to go to work, swing shift. I’m not ready for work being retired and all. He wants to live my life retired on a sailboat in the Caribbean and I wish I was young and had an interesting job working the border in the desert. Go figure.

July, 2012 Costa Rico: We took the bus to San Jose, Costa Rico to fly from there to the states. It was raining very hard and had been raining for several days. We saw some homes flooded with water to roof level. We stopped once where water was flowing over the road very fast. There was a long line of cars where the drivers had wisely decided not to cross the flooded area. Our bus driver threw caution to the wind and went Hell Bent for Leather across. I think he had a hot date in San Jose. Any way we made it, no harm, no foul.

10-2012 Bocas del Toro: This boat was pulled up on the shore, none to gently at the Bocas Police Dept. It’s evidence in a serial killer case involving a Gringo killing other Gringos to get their land. He is currently in prison waiting for trail. It sucks to be him because the jails here are horrible, so I’ve heard.

08-2012 Indian Harbour Beach, FL: My Daughter Kathleen, her main and only squeeze Brian, my Brother Greg and his only squeeze Kris, and Laura and Jim enjoying an afternoon at a local laid back beach bar.

10-2012 Bocas del Toro: This Sport Fisherman Power Boat came into Red Frog Marina in October 2012 with transmission problems. They were coming from Colombia heading to Costa Rico so I was told. While they were waiting for repairs the Police boarded the boat, all armed with automatic assault weapons. They arrested the two crewmembers or owners; I’m not sure what they were. The Police then unloaded 650 pounds of coke from this boat and then towed it to the Police Station. The two-crew members are now keeping company with the serial killer. What a life!

08-23-2012 Little River Methodist Church, Woodstock, GA: Jim’s Mom, Doris at her 90th Birthday Bash. Open bar all the sweet tea, regular tea and Lemonade you can drink along with Bar B Q from the Bar B Cutie. A good evening had by all.