The Crimmins point out that it is not uncommon to see police and members of La Fiscalía come and go from the Wesley’s hotel at odd hours with, what they presume to be, mistresses and prostitutes. This is a claim backed up by infamous local attorney Melvin Rosales, who said that it is well known that members of these groups get “special rates”.

At just past noon on Friday, August 19, Sam Wesley — a West End business owner (Crystal Beach Cabins) with roots on Roatán Island dating back to the 1840’s — came out of his house, pulled out a silver revolver, pressed it into Joe O’Donnell’s back, pulled the trigger and then walked back to his house without saying a word. There were at least five witnesses to the incident. As Mr. O’Donnell collapsed in the street, concerned shop owners Shannon and Christian ran to his aid, Mr. Wesley’s wife, Rosita, wagged a finger at them indicating her desire for them to leave the 40-year-old Australian dive instructor to bleed to death in the street. As a large crowd gathered, it seemed that Mrs. Wesley might get her wish. People took photos, screamed and gawked… but no one took action.

Fortunately, Paul Cleveland — an 18-year Roatán resident was on the scene, and his military training kicked in. He stuffed one of his fingers in the bullet hole, sent someone to retrieve a bag of ice, and secured a truck to transport Mr. O’Donnell to the local hospital. Mr. Cleveland, who describes himself as a long-time good friend of Mr. Wesley, was also the first to make a statement against him. He said the crime had “no motive” other than Mr. Wesley was acting “completely on his wife’s inclination”.

Mr. Cleveland also expressed amazement that Mr. Wesley could be out of jail in 24 hours. He said, “The law seems to be more concerned with cocaine possession, If Sam had been caught with a kilo they would not need anyone to make an accusation and he would still be in jail.”

You can read more of this article at Honduras Weekly: http://hondurasweekly.com/wild-and-crazy-justice-on-roat%C3%A1n-island-201108244034/

When you think of the idyllic Caribbean beach bar, you’re thinking of Sundowners.

There’s nothing quite like Sundowners. THE watering hole for West End, this is where town’s eclectic mix of tourists, dive instructors, locals, expats, and street dogs come together to toast the sunset with a cold beer or a glass of rum and pineapple.’

It’s called Sundowners for a reason: located directly on the white sands of Half Moon Bay, this site is privy to exquisite sunsets for most of the year. The popularity of sunset-watching is only eclipsed by the weekly game of “Chase the Ace,” where every Wednesday each drink buys you a chance to win a growing pot of money. When the pot gets full and the odds are good of winning, nearly the entire town will turn out for their chance to draw the Ace of Spades (the winning card). Hilariously, the crowd will cheer when you lose– it means another chance for them to Chase the Ace next week!

If you’re only in town for a few hours or just simply want a place to chill for the afternoon, Sundowners has immediate shore access to the shallows of Half Moon Bay. Wade in with a beer and beat the heat– just don’t be surprised if one of the bar’s friendly Rottweilers decides to join you! If getting salty isn’t your thing, Sundowners also offers beach chairs for sunbathing and a shaded lounge deck.

So the location is unbeatable and your relaxation options are great, but what about the bar itself? Drink-wise, Sundowners offers all the Honduran beers (all four of them, all equally terrible– Salva Vida is the most drinkable in my opinion), basic well drinks, and a few blended concoctions. If you’re new to Roatan, you have to try the Monkey La La, a delicious yet deceptively potent frozen drink (careful! it will sneak up on you!). Personally, I prefer sipping on rum and pineapple juice with a lime wedge; with enough rum and vitamin C to fight off scurvy, it’s the pirate’s choice!

Sundowners’ food is mostly good but a bit uninspired. The hamburger, nacho cheese chicken sandwich, and any of the chicken wraps earn high marks from me. Food delivery is usually reasonable (especially for “island time”), though it can become a bit of a wait if the bar is busy. Rarely do I crave Sundowners’ food; it’s more often that I find myself several rums deep and realize that I have yet to eat dinner!

The staff is friendly and, more importantly, long-term. Unlike most of the bars in West End, Sundowners staff has been around for a while. Not only does this make the bar run more effectively, it means that tourists can learn insider tips by simply sitting down and chatting. A personal shout-out goes to Paul, the (sometimes) afro-sporting cousin of the owner who is a killer bartender and really cool guy. Also: TIP YOUR BARTENDER! Trust me, it goes a long way to getting even better service.

Prices are reasonable across the board. While the drink prices are a fraction higher than other bars in West End, they’re still less than the overpriced West Bay bars and in a range that most tourists will find acceptable. Locals and expats typically find the marginally higher prices a bit of a turn-off (and are vocal about it), but that doesn’t keep them from gathering together for the daily sunset. Backpackers, sorry, but you’re in for a shock: Roatan is not mainland Honduras, and the prices are significantly higher… but then again, Sundowner’s isn’t some trashy mainland hole or sulfur-reeking shanty on Utila.

One other thing to note: Sundowners is the “early” bar on Roatan. It’s usually closed between 9 and 10 pm. If you’re looking to carry on with your evening elsewhere, just follow the crowd on the nightly West End “drift dive” to the next hot spot.

It’s time to break out your underwater cameras: the Roatan Marine Park is holding its Third Annual Marine Photography Contest!

Winning images will be printed in the 2011 Roatan Marine Park Calendar in order to showcase the natural beauty of Roatan’s coral reefs and highlight threats to their future survival.

Entries accepted for six categories:

• macro
• reef inhabitants
• black and white
• divers
• reefs at risk
• invertebrates

Deadline for submission:
31 July 2010

Details:

• All images must be from Roatan
• Images should be in .jpg format. Please include your full name, entry category, where image was taken, and a title
• Photos may be under or above water, but must maintain a marine context
• 1st and 2nd place in each category will be featured in the calendar with small images for runners-up
• Submission of images constitutes your permission for the Roatan Marine Park (RMP) to use these images free of charge for the 2011 RMP Calendar and other RMP publications. All images will be credited to their owners when used.

For more details of the competition, visit www.roatanmarinepark.com.

Email images to: info@roatanmarinepark.net

Lia and I go back a few years when I was a scuba diving instructor at Coconut Tree Divers on the island of Roatan, Honduras. When I first met her, she was helping film the hilariously disastrous Roatan Movie— the making which was infinitely funnier than the final result. We later collaborated on photo shoots for a few web projects around the island.

Lia probably holds the world record for most time spent inside a homemade submarine (not including Karl Stanley and Barry, of course). For theses images, she was crouched for hours in a tiny spherical dome. She had to keep her lens close to the mere five inches of convex glass separating her thousands of pounds of crushing pressure— but not too close or the cold condensation dripping from the ceiling would fry her camera. She had to wait— and wait— and wait until the right deep sea creature swam by, then try to snap off quality shots with both the submarine and the creature in motion. The results are nothing short of incredible.

Lia has since explored the seas and land of Asia and the South Pacific. She is currently in Australia.

Luca Pagliaro, an Italian native, has disappeared in Roatan, Honduras last week, probably on 16th March 2010, with Mauriliuo Mirabella, owner of a diveshop who has also disappeared. Everybody who has useful news about him please contact me and my mother without hesitation.

Please let me know also when is the last time you have seen him. Thanks.

Licia and Francesca

liciapagliaro@hotmail.com
francesca.vcr@libero.it

map of the undersea cables connecting the internet around the world

Click here to see the full-resolution map of the the undersea internet cables

Related article:

Cracked.com: 5 Reasons The Internet Could Die At Any Moment

The goal of TiR is to promote tourism and support local businesses on the Caribbean island of Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras through online marketing. TiR aims to be Roatan’s premier information service for travel, living, and island news. The site combines a clean modern design, advanced web technologies, and the power of Google Maps to present the beauty of Roatan to the outside world as never before seen.

The Story of TiR

Steve was sick of computer programming.

After wrapping up his Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Steve sold most of his belongings, packed his bags, and moved to the small Caribbean island of Roatan to teach scuba diving, drink rum, and live the beach bum lifestyle. He fell in love with the island’s jaw-dropping coral reef, friendly locals, sweeping white sand beaches, and laid-back attitude. His original plan to stay for three months was postponed… and postponed again… and again… until a year and a half of living the good life had passed by.

Steve returned to the so-called ‘real world’ to program professionally for a video game company in North Carolina. The job was good, the pay was fine, but something was missing. Staring at the photo of scuba divers on Roatan’s reef adorning the background of his computer, he knew he had to go back.

Meanwhile, a few websites Steve had made for Roatan businesses were starting to generate real results. A crazy little idea crept into his head: he could make a genuine impact on local businesses by driving tourism to the island through online marketing. Once again, he sold his stuff, packed his bags, and returned to the island he loved.

Real Time Development On Island Time

Upon returning, Steve began researching how he could make the biggest impact on the local market. Being relatively undeveloped, the island presented some unique challenges. As roads did not have names, local businesses did not have mailing addresses. There was hardly any news media on the island. Internet access was limited and quite slow by first-world standards.

Steve wanted a website that would do more than just act as a business directory. He saw a website that would show visitors exactly where everything was located on Roatan. He believed that media transparency was essential to promoting good business practices in the developing world. He envisioned a site architecture that would offset the slow internet speeds by incrementally streaming data in such a way that the website would never have to be reloaded. He dreamed of a website that would be sleek, modern, and beautiful—a place where local businesses would be proud to appear.

Steve was as naïve as he was ambitious. He thought the website would take six months to build. Unreliable electricity, crashed computers, political turmoil and personal hardships perpetually delayed the project. Progress was steady but aggravatingly slow. He poured his heart, soul, and personal finances into the project, bankrupting himself in the process.

The Dream Becomes Reality

Two years later, Steve finally published the first live version of TiR.

TiR remains the project of which Steve is the most proud. The website is proof that hard work, determination, and a fair bit of insanity can unite to create something incredible. Steve continues to refine TiR to fit the ever-changing needs of local businesses with emerging web technologies, allowing business owners to reach their online customers.

Steve hopes you enjoy the unique experience of TiR almost as much as you enjoy your stay on Roatan. If you find this website useful, please consider making a donation through PayPal; every buck goes a long way towards keeping the dream alive.

It’s a great three-act script worthy of a Hollywood movie. “Based on a true story.” Hand over the Oscar, thank you.

In our 21st century marriage of entertainment and journalism, this is the story the mainstream media (MSM) would like you to believe transpired in Honduras during the summer of 2009. Americans were fed the tale of Honduran President Mel Zelaya, champion of the impoverished, ousted at gunpoint in his pajamas in a classic coup engineered by power-hungry elitists. Clips of Zelaya demanding his rightful reinstatement were interspersed with stock footage of civil unrest in the 1980′s, unrelated political demonstrations, and Hurricane Mitch. US President Barack Obama declared the coup illegal, and she-bear Hillary Clinton promised to see Zelaya put back in power.

But Honduras didn’t stick to the script.

As most of us who actually lived in Honduras during that fateful summer can attest, the actual events were far different than the Hollywood script MSM was jamming down American throats. I recently stumbled across an excellent article summarizing the role of MSM in deliberately misconstruing the facts about the coup to fit their storyboard.

Storyboarding the News: How the MSM Turned the Honduran Crisis into A Comic Book – by Mark Klugmann

To “storyboard the news” is to replace straight news reporting with a pre-shaped comic-book narrative, an edited fable sustained by selective reporting.

Victims of media fraud suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder will be excused for hearing the phrase as a riff on Guantanamo, that “storyboarding the news” occurs when the MSM submerges the facts underwater until the truth surrenders.

The truth about Honduras – such as why the so-called “coup” was not a coup at all – was left by the MSM on the cutting-room floor, edited out of the news reporting because it did not fit into the storyboard.

You can read more of this article at: http://bigjournalism.com/mklugmann/2010/01/06/storyboarding-the-news-how-the-msm-turned-the-honduran-crisis-into-a-comic-book/

How far will globalization go? Baleadas at Wendy’s? Surely the Apocalypse is upon us……..

Upon receiving the good news of the curfew’s end, we laughed, swam in the sea, played poker, drank rum, played trivia, jumped in the pool, and laughed again. It was as if all of West End was celebrating an early release from house arrest. Spirits were high, the beer flowed, and, for a brief instant, life as usual resumed.

But then we stumbled home, tuned in to the world news, and recalled how despondently screwed we are.

I really don’t know what to make of this situation… it completely breaks my heart, really. I spent a good hour crying as I packed some stuff. I’m not ready to leave. This is home. This is five years of my life. This is dreams pursued and dreams lost. This is Roatan, and I love my life on this island.

My plane leaves in eleven days. I don’t know if I’ll be on it. Not yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Make sure you read Micheletti’s letter to the Washington Post in the article (also available at http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/2009/09/washington-post-moving-forward-in.html). It shows a leader with a level of intelligence rarely found in this part of the world, and point-to-point reiterates my arguments against Mel Zelaya. Too bad the rest of the world sees this guy as the De Facto Dictator of Honduras.

Until later, pray for me and this crazy situation. It’s certainly not your average day at the office……