We had a 7AM flight out of Puerto Lempira but we knew it wouldn't be leaving before the plane arrived in Puerto Lempira. We checked in at the airport to get our boarding passes and drop off the luggage. Then we headed off to do a few errands while listening for our plane to arrive.

The main errand was to deliver the diver back to the care of Dr. Fitzpatrick. Unfortunately, the doctor didn't arrive at the hospital by the time we were forced to leave at 7:15AM. So we left a note with the diver, along with some collected cash for living expenses, and headed back to the airport terminal. At the time of this writing, I'm trying to get back in contact with Dr. Fitzpatrick to learn what happened to the diver.

The flight out of Puerto Lempira takes us to La Ceiba where we're planning to catch a ferry to Roatan Island, our Central American departure point on Sunday. The flight follows the coast of Honduras as it changes from the savanna plains near Puerto Lempira, passes over the rain forest surrounding the Rio Platano and follows the coastal mountains into La Ceiba.

La Ceiba is a sudden return to bustling humanity with Pizza Huts and Wendy's near the downtown plaza. Almost without delay, Bob decides he'd rather fly to Roatan and get on with the expose' work he's hoping to accomplish in the next few days. I'd been looking forward to the ferry ride and decide to stick with that plan. We'll meet in West End on Roatan that evening.

With a few hours to spend before the ferry leaves, Juan and I hang around the courtyard of a hotel to rest and have something to eat. Sitting at the next table is Cheryl Schraeder, President and Project Director for International Health Service. Juan recognizes her having met in the same place one year ago. Being his typically shy self, he's soon talking to her and pulling her away from her companions to join us at our table. This is where I learn about the community development and care teams IHS sends out to remote locations in Honduras; this year's group includes a Dr. Tim Fitzgerald working in Puerto Lempira. The coincidence of running into Cheryl is almost as fascinating as the work of IHS. I highly recommend checking into their efforts and helping as you are able. The teams they send out tend to focus on dental and eye care though some of the larger communities (like Puerto Lempira) have doctors among the team.

The Galaxy ferry to Roatan leaves from a port outside of La Ceiba. We got there early enough to spend some time checking out the commercial section of the port. There, we found only one lobster diving boat; with the Honduran season soon closing for five months, every other boat was out.

The Galaxy was a very comfortable ferry (air conditions, playing an English version of Zorro on the cabin TVs, main deck entirely enclosed and very fast) taking less than 2 hours to make a crossing that was much rougher and wilder than I'd expected. Quite a few passengers did NOT enjoy that ride.

Off the Galaxy on arrival in Coxen Hole, Roatan's main urban center, the challenge was collecting luggage. The process was a zoo with passengers (there were a lot of them) crowding a picket fence while bags were dumped on the ground on the other side. Getting your bag was a process of getting a porter's attention and trading your baggage stub for the bag.

Coxen Hole is described, in the guide books, an unpleasant town and a place to move through as quickly as possible. That's probably a reasonable description for newly arriving tourists. I found it to be a fairly typical Central American town with very typical bustle, noise and squalor. YMMV.

In pursuit of saving every last nickel and dime, Juan led me to a minivan that serves as a Roatan bus. With luggage piled, literally, on top of us, every seat taken (sometimes two to a seat) and jammed with school kids, we head off to West End.

Thirty minutes ride (with numerous stops along the way) brought us to Roatan's West End, a sleepy, laid back tourist destination with more dive shops per square foot than any place I've seen or heard of. West End will be our base of operations for the last few days of the trip. Bob's agenda is to tied a bow in the trail of Central America's lobster exports to the United State. My agenda was to get in a few dives in this popular dive location.

Juan and I checked into a shared room at the Pura Vida hotel, an Italian-owned, very comfortable hotel/pizza restaurant/PADI dive store located, as are most things in West End, right on the water.

I mostly enjoyed West End. It's a gather place for mostly young, world travelers: more Europeans than Americans. The pace is very laid back. You can get cheap accomodations ($5/night for a bunk in a dorm at Valeries) or, like we did, pay tourist rates for a comfortable and clean hotel room. We lucked out with our accomodations because West End was pretty full up. The thing I didn't enjoy was the sudden return to tourist prices: hotel, food and everything else suddenly double, tripled or more in cost.