The Green Tunnel (The CoastWatcher: Caribbean West)
News from the Honduras Bay Islands and North Coast
09 March 2001
By Pierre Renaldo, The Coastwatcher©

Hola! Wake up all you "B" people. You're really missing it. Well maybe not, especially if you live in one of those dreary climates up north someplace. I remember the winters in New York, when there would be an article in the morning paper about how many consecutive days we endured without sunshine. Yuck!

One winter when I was busiest ever, building a chain of H. Salt Fish & Chips Restaurants, I was treated to the worst winter in 30 years with over one hundred fifteen consecutive days of cloud cover for the entire duration of daylight hours. This lovely interlude occurred between mid-November and early March. I was so used to the drab light that I almost went into shock when somebody turned on a lamp.

Anyway, this morning arrived with a crimson sun lighting up our world on Roatan. I could see the mountains on the North Coast shrouded in the morning mist, but visible all the same, like sentinels guarding the coastline.

My feline entourage was mostly present, all except for Buddy and Patch. Once the daylight was intense enough, I noticed them down along the iron shore formations, hunting. Night vision must be nice.

It was then that I noticed someone walking west, along the jungle path that parallels the sea. A workman heading to his daily routine, and as I watched he was swallowed up into the green tunnel that nearly covers the entire trail. It is a canopy that envelops the pathway for quite some distance, a good portion of the trip to Pyrates Cove. I do not mind the shade when I venture that far into the tunnel. It is cool and pleasant, not dark and drab. An occasional break in the foliage is like walking under a skylight, where brilliant sunlight brightens the trail.

We have had many visitors to our island so far this month. The place is a beehive of activity. It was great meeting some of my readers who stopped in to chat, and I had a fun evening with one couple who I helped celebrate their wonderful find on top of Lookout Mountain in Port Royal. They are wildly excited about the perfect place for themselves that they found and no wonder. Great breezes, a view of the mainland, their own boat dock and a neat little beach on water so clear it looks like air. Now is that paradise or what?

Retiring from the restaurant business in Aspen Colorado, they will be making pasta and French bread on the east end of the island. It will be more for fun and for neighbors than for business. A very welcome addition for those of us who savor such delicacies, and certainly a welcome new reason to travel east.

The first few days of March brought with them very hot weather for this time of year. It was reminiscent of mid-August when the breezes dissipate and the dog days of later summer bring the truly tropical climate to its pinnacle. Someone suggested that the seeming irregularities in weather patterns all over the globe have been brought on by a wobble of the earth. Here is how he described it. (I think he had just finished his second Roatan Rouser, the kind with the rum in it, when he advanced this theory).

When you watch a toy top spinning it is rotating on its axis perfectly and suddenly it wobbles for a second or two, then returns to a perfect spin. He inferred that our planet does exactly that on occasion and the differing rotation places the polar and equatorial regions into a variable point of convergence from the sun's rays thereby creating brief periods of untimely/unusual weather. Let's just say it was very hot for this time of year.

Good News Going Over the Top

The road from West End to Flowers Bay and West Bay is actually being paved. I have seen it with my own eyes and bounced over the unpaved parts of it in my own truck. It really does appear that the entire two and one half mile stretch will be included. Work is progressing, albeit slowly, on the culverts and drainage all the way along the new roadbed. Oh, happy days!

Bad News Again on Hondutel

The ever unattainable remains out of reach. The deadline has again been pushed to a date "sometime in June", in order for the 'negotiators' of the world's worst telephone company, to find some other telephone company dumb enough to buy a dead horse. They have squandered great opportunity for the people of Honduras, in order to try to squeeze some blood out of a turnip and make themselves heroes of the republic. Maybe even a little mordida in it for some big shots too. Deadlines come and go and so what?

When other ineffective telephone companies in Central America have been taken over from the governments who have run them into the ground, the results have been remarkable and swift. It makes a big difference when you have people running something as important as the major communications link with the world, to be in the business the of running such enterprise effectively. Armies and governments can't cut it.

Some news about my books. "Red Dog Chronicles" will be in print and in bookstores by summer. The story recounts some milestones in aviation history for those of you who are interested. There was in existence shortly after World War II, an airline that carried mail only. That in itself was no biggie, but this company picked up the mail on the fly, without landing. The name of it was All American Airways, Inc. It was an exciting and unusual chapter in early commercial aviation, helping to spawn the growth of a fledgling airline industry that is today without parallel.

You can preview "Red Dog Chronicles" at: http://www.eroatan.com/cgi-bin/pierre.cgi?books

Thanks for joining us. Stop in to say hello when you come to visit Roatan.
For questions or comments drop a line to: elouis@globalnet.hn

Ciao, Pierre

By Pierre Renaldo, Mountain Coastal S.A,. General Contractors, Construction Management and Construction Consultants.