Honduras 10: The Splurge Day

Booked a private boat and captain for the day in Roatán. We knew this island was going to be expensive going in, and figured this was as good a spot as any for our last hoorah of the trip.

Started with dolphins, which weren’t even part of the plan, more of a bonus we stumbled into. Turned out they were penned in rather than wild, so not quite the encounter it looked like at first, but we weren’t expecting dolphins at all so it was hard to complain. We wound through the mangroves, engine down to a crawl, green walls closing in on both sides. Snorkeled a patch of reef and the boys turned up starfish on the bottom. I strapped on a tank and went down after lionfish with a pole spear, they’re an invasive species out here and wrecking the reef, so spearing them is less “cool activity” and more “actually helping,” though it was both.

Then the sharks, which honestly deserve their own paragraph. We stopped near a spot where local fishermen clean their catch off the dock, so the nurse sharks and rays just show up expecting scraps every time a boat pulls in. Axel and I got in the water with them and they were not shy about it, circling in from every direction, brushing right past us like we were furniture. Genuinely one of the coolest things I’ve done in the water, not some distant sighting, actual close-quarters swimming with sharks that had zero interest in us beyond whether we had fish.

We also stopped at a little fishing village where they cooked up some of the lionfish I’d speared, right there. Water was so clear off the dock of the restaurant you could’ve reached down and grabbed fish with your hands.

Saved the big one for last. Xander’s been talking about deep sea fishing since before this trip started, and he finally got his shot, reeling in four blackfin tuna off the back of the boat, grinning the whole time with blood up to his knee. Cooked them up that night. Whole day felt like the kind of thing you plan a trip around, and somehow it was just one day in the middle of it.

#unpavedparenting