Roatan

 One of the things I love most about a cruise is entering and leaving a port---judging from the spectators above, I am not the only one who enjoys this.  Our first port was Roatan, Honduras.  We didn't schedule any excursions because we had had a private tour there a few years ago.  Click here to see our visit two years ago.

Roatan

We had never been to Roatan and decided to take a private tour with Victor Bodden, a tour company we'd heard about on cruisecritic.com (a forum for cruisers).
After a brief walk through the "Town Center" AKA Cruiseline-type shops. . .
We followed the "tours" signs to Victor Bodden's kiosk where we met up with our tour guide for the day. . .Blonde and blue-eyed Joanne Jones, a 5th generation Honduran of British descent.
She drove us around the island, telling us about its attractions and culture. Above is a Carnival cruise ship not too far from a ship wreck that is currently being used for dives. Roatan has the largest barrier reef after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
We drove through small fishing villages. . .
With many of the houses on stilts over the water.

Like many Caribbean islands, there doesn't appear to be much middle class.
Many from Europe and North America have condos in gated communities which then brings in places like. . .
Applebees!
One area reminded me of the North Shore on Oahu with swimming, surfing, fishing mostly for tourists, but very quaint and not crowded.

It was an interesting place with people of British, Spanish and African ancestry where the dominant religion appears to be Seventh Day Adventists and Pentecostals. Although English is spoken widely, it's a different kind of English. They call ours "Yank". When I asked why the British settled there suggesting trade, planting, piracy, Joanne said they really don't study much history about their area before independence 150 years ago. But, she suggested some British ancestors may have been prisoners taken there like in Australia. But, I'm going with piracy. . .
It was a charming cruise stop which still seems like sleepy fishing villages not the major tourist attraction like Cozumel was with 6 cruise ships!