New Things in the News on Roatan
News from the Honduras Bay Islands and North Coast
17 September 2000
By Pierre Renaldo, The Coastwatcher©

In the next few days a new management team from a company in San Francisco will take over all operations of the Roatan Airport. This company currently manages San Francisco International Airport, and we are looking forward to some big changes in our little corner of the universe.

After talking with some of the airline personnel and other business people who work in the terminal, I have at least a few items to share. I cannot ascertain that this is all fact, or conjecture, but some of it will happen. I have had to resort to information gleaned from "people in the know" because my inquires to the new management company have gone unanswered. I guess they just want to surprise us.

Both Continental Airlines and American Airlines are considering flying into Roatan direct from Houston and Miami respectively.

Miami Air is considering weekly flights, after a disappointing try a few years ago.

Air Europe is now making weekly flights to Roatan from Italy and Spain.

Cayman Air has announced their intentions to institute service between Roatan and the Cayman Islands.

A Very Pleasant Surprise

I have recently had occasion to enjoy breakfast and lunch at the new Parrot Tree Coffee House,
located in of all places Parrot Tree.

This place is a real treat, friends. The breakfast menu is mind boggling and excellent. Imaginative presentations, with a most congenial and well-trained, efficient staff. In addition, the food is delicious. They also serve a wonderful variety of coffees, and offer some of the worlds most popular and exotic blends by the cup and for sale by the pound.

Good old-fashioned country breakfast sausages, real maple syrup on a mouth watering stack of pancakes. Yes! Real one hundred percent maple syrup, not artificial or a blend.

The luncheon entrees are just as exciting as breakfast, with home made breads, and traditional sandwiches, like a Rueben. Unheard of in this part of the world, on home made pumpernickel bread no less. I now know where heaven is, at least the one on Roatan. There are daily specials and you can order the breakfast omelets anytime.

But, that's not all. The location is very special. Old World ambience, with indoor and outdoor seating, all overlooking the new Parrot Tree Marina, and the crystalline lagoon on which it is located. Your hosts, Shirley and Joe a most gregarious couple.

Don't miss this treat. It is worth the trip anytime.

While you're there, take a tour of the island's premier community. It has turned out to be the ultimate.

I have been paid nothing, nor have I been offered any freebees, for the foregoing, unsolicited comments.

Another New Biggie

One of the most horrible roads on the island is no more. If you have been here in the past and have had the dusty, choking experience of rough-riding the pot hole strewn moonscape into French Harbour, I'm sorry to tell you that progress has obliterated this most charming bit of nostalgia.

I do not recall ever hearing it called by a name that I can repeat in print, except that most people refereed to it as "that *&%#$%+_***^%%#@! road" into the black hole. It is history. A brand new concrete road was dedicated just last week, an event of magnitude, broadcast live over island radio.

His Honor, Jerry Hynds, Alcalde for the Municipality de Roatan did the honors. In attendance were such dignitaries as Dale Jackson of Diamond Jack Equipment, and Edward Ake of Island Concrete, primary contractor and concrete supplier respectively, for the project.

This new stretch of concrete should soon become the graveyard of many Roatan taxis. There is now a new racecourse where these unskilled maniacs can play chicken games, and do suicidal feats and circus antics for the entertainment of all.

A Continuing Biggie

I never thought it would become a reality but the paving has already reached the halfway point on the road from West Bay to the Flowers Bay-West End Road. In addition, the Flowers Bay-West End Road is undergoing continuing improvements as new culverts are being installed in the areas where great canyons usually existed by the middle of the rainy season, making that road nearly impassible much of the winter/spring season.

Most tourists never ventured over this terrain because it looked so ominous. I have had great difficulty in a powerful four-wheel drive vehicle negotiating that obstacle course last spring. I would classify it as ravine driving and it could have been a major event for the TV audiences who like to watch those Monster Trucks that can actually drive over other trucks.

There could have been an event like that daredevil, Evil Kinevil guy used to do, like driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and landing on a bunch of junk cars. Fun stuff like that.

It has become a very scenic thoroughfare by comparison to what we were accustomed in the past. Not nearly finished, but very different from the terrible old days. See our reference map on www.eroatan.com/pierre.html

The survey crews continue their presence on the Flowers Bay-Coxen Hole Road. If this scenic waterfront drive is improved to any degree, and new bridges are placed where the rickety wooden structures now exist, then I will be convinced that I have truly found paradise. It is such a pleasant drive, the picturesque houses, shanties over the water, dugout boats along the shore, and the children playing in the surf.

People respond when good things happen, and fixing-up will begin. Community pride is a contageous thing, and color will take the place of faded unkempt facades, new will replace old, and people will take become aware of how good change can be for them.

We will see tourists taking pictures along this shoreline. It is a part of the island with great potential. Since the first time I visited Roatan I have had a notion that this place had the makings of a preferred tourist destination, just like existed in Hawaii, fifty years ago. It is only a matter of time. And a golf course or two will speed things up considerably.

It is beginning to happen.

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