Mangrove Bight Guanaja Honduras Bay Islands

Motoring around Michael Rock inside the reef.  Nicky on the bow looking for rocks, coral and shallows

Passing the End of the World – the rooms have fabulous views

The forecast had strong wind from the northwest through north and around to the east for the few days so on Sunday 16 February we decided to move north to anchor in Mangrove Bight.  From the chart it was clear that it would provide better shelter from the north quadrant winds than our current location off Michael Rock and we thought that, with lower land to the east of the Bight, we would have much steadier winds from the east.  At Michael Rock, the steep, high ground to the east causes strong downdrafts to affect the anchorage when the wind is from the east.  Couple this effect with very strong easterly quadrant winds and we thought that the downdrafting would be unpleasantly severe.

We waited until late morning before lifting anchor as, though we had the chart plotter’s GPS ‘snail trail’ of our route in to follow, we wanted to have the best of the light to see into the water and so avoid any possible obstructions we might not have seen on our way in.

But our transit out from the anchorage, around to the cut and through the reef was entirely uneventful and we even had time to take pictures, which is more than can be said for during our entry [Ed: in our defence, the light and the visibility were pretty dreadful then].

Clear of the reef and heading north

When we were clear of the reef there was still very little wind, so we motored the 3nm north to the entrance to Mangrove Bight.

Entrance to Mangrove Bight.  The reef isn’t at all clear in this picture, though you can see a wave about to break on it to the right of the shot.  But it was very clear to us in real life – the benefit of good light (high sun) and polarised sunglasses

Mangrove Bight is protected by the reef to its west and, as at Michael Rock, we needed to work our way in through a narrow cut to the anchorage.  The light was good so we could, in general, see the reef and the shallows around it quite clearly.  I stood on the bow for that extra bit of forward vision which was definitely worthwhile as, at one point, the reef on our port side extended further than Nicky had realised and I had to warn her to turn to starboard or risk running aground.

Making the approach through the reef with me on the bow this time

Again, we found our electronic Navionics charts to be very poor here and the sketch maps in our pilot book to be of much more use.

BV at anchor in Mangrove Bight

We anchored in about 5m of water in the wide, shallowly shelving bay and laid out plenty of rode in anticipation of the forecast strong winds.

Over the next few days we had winds from the north around to the southeast ranging from 15 knots to 25-28 knots, gusting to 35.  There were squalls and heavy rain but also long periods of bright sunshine.  Usefully, we had internet access at anchor so we were able to track down the problem with the Raspberry Pi.  We discovered that there is no internal clock but helpful feedback from Cruisers’ Forum gave us a command line to input on start-up to set the computer to the correct date and time.  We completed work on an article about our time in Cuba (the second of 2) for the OCC’s magazine Flying Fish, but were disappointed to hear that the next issue is already full, so it will have to wait for the autumn/winter publication.  And, of course, we toiled on with the blog backlog……

Mangrove Bight views

But we didn’t spend all our time chained to a computer.  Ashore we found Mangrove Bight to be a reasonable sized village or small town.  There’s a road that runs across to the Savannah Bight on the east side of Guanaja and there may even be a bus service, though we saw no buses, just an endless succession of bici-taxis or tuk-tuks.

Mangrove Bight town centre area.  The locals refer to it as ‘Mangro’

We found a couple of small shops selling food as well as a more comprehensively stocked (all things are relative) mini-market, with 3 aisles of tinned and dry goods, some bread, a fridge and a freezer with dairy products and meat, liquor and beer behind the cash desk and some rather sad-looking vegetables, no fruit.

Colourful murals on a house

Car tyre ‘recycling’

There are some surprisingly large properties in Mangrove Bight but most are quite modest, though well-kept.  Some have very colourfully decorated walls and we saw some novel other forms of exterior decoration too.

On the west side of the low land towards the north of Guanaja, Mangrove Bight seems to mark the end of the road.  At the east end of the road is Savannah Bight, a little north and west of Graham’s Cay and a major ferry port for the island.  Between the 2, closer to Mangrove Bight than Savannah Bight, is Mitch, a village strung out along the road.  We saw more people in Mitch than we had in Mangrove Bight, mostly sitting on entrance steps chatting and looking after children, or minding small shops, or working in one of an impossibly large number of motorcycle repair shops.  The buildings are mostly small and wooden and, even away from the water, building on stilts is a popular construction style.  Each home has a yard with bananas and other plants.  We saw chickens scratching around the stilts and dogs roaming the road.

Between Mitch and Savannah Bight

Between Mitch and Savannah Bight the land is generally flat with higher ground to the north and south.  But there doesn’t really appear to be farming here.  Perhaps the land is too low-lying and is boggy or salty.

Despite the rural nature of the area people were still on the move between the settlements.  As we walked east we were passed by lots of bici-taxis plying their trade between the villages/towns and a good number of cars too.

Savannah Bight

Savannah Bight is a much larger place than either Mangrove Bight or Mitch.  We walked all the way through it, past the ferry dock (which has a 2-storey ‘gazebo’ at its root just like the one on Bonacca) and to what we thought was the centre where there’s a large ‘Full Gospel Hall’ Church with a spire.  En route we were stopped by a couple of ladies pushing a cart ladened with doughnuts.  Would we like some?  We bought 2 (10 Lempira each, about US$0.40).  Super sticky and very sweet!

Savannah Bight

Surprisingly, since we had entered Savannah Bight we hadn’t been passed by any taxis so, with time pressing on, we turned to head back west as we needed to be able to return to Mangrove Bight on foot before sunset..

Bici-taxi / tuk-tuk ride from Savannah Bight back to Mangrove Bight and, yes, there were 4 adults and 2 children in the vehicle!

But on the outskirts of the town we got lucky and flagged down a bici-taxi heading into Savannah Bight.  The lady driver was only too happy to turn around to take us across to Mangrove Bight.  Exactly what the relationship was between the driver and the lady and 2 children in the back we never figured out but it didn’t matter and we squeezed in with Nicky taking one of the children on her knee.

We had a fun drive back, with stops to pick up a propane bottle from a filling station and then to drop it off outside a house in Mitch, and all too soon we were back at the boatyard where we had left the dinghy.

We stayed in Mangrove Bight until the worst of the overnight easterlies had ended and considered our best option for the coming days.  We had thought about returning to Michael’s Rock to dive again on the Pavilions and Michael’s Rock Key but the weather forecast suggested that it would be better to move on west to Roatan on Thursday, rather than wait until the weekend.  So we decided on St Helene as our destination and looked forward to visiting a new island.

Mangrove Bight, Guanaja, Honduras Bay Islands