As a youth, Henry signed up to be a seaman. He was running bananas from the border of Nicaragua and Honduras to Tampa, Florida. Mr. Henry worked at SS Caravelle, an LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) ship from World War II. Eventually he worked as a seaman on a shipping vessel hauling cargo between Tampa, Havana, the Isle of Pines, and Haiti. “We were picking up chicken feed from Haiti,” remembers Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry’s wife Mrs. Sula, was born in Utila Cays on July 11, 1941 to Henry Rose Suniga and Evelyn Mae Howell. The two met at a dance at Wilson Hotel. “We mostly danced boleros,” remembers Mr. Henry. In 1961, they married. “Every one damn thing is different. They are hard to get along with,” says about the Caytons Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry learned how to shrimp in Texas in Port Isabel and became a shrimp boat captain in Western Caribbean. “I was the first one to fish [shrimp] out of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala,” says Mr. Henry. “I’ve been a shrimper all my life.” He was also shrimping out of Nicaragua and Louisiana. Back in the Bay Islands, he shrimped out of Mariscos de Bahía in Oak Ridge.

While he was at sea, Mr. Henry and Mrs. Sula communicated via single side band radio. Every day the young captain would call home to Utila to check how things were. The couple had eight children; five chose to live on Utila.

I’ve been a shrimper all my life.

Mr. Henry was the first shrimp captain to open shrimp grounds near Tela and Puerto Castilla. “I shrimped till I lost my eye,” said Mr. Henry. He lost his right eye in a fishing accident while motoring between Utila and Roatan. Mr. Henry took his dory and departed solo for Roatan to take part in a surprise birthday party. He had placed fishing lines trailing in the water, and three miles outside of West End he caught a fish that was hard to handle. After a struggle, a line slipped and bobby from the fishing rod hit Mr. Henry in his right eye. “Utila was so far I thought I was going to bleed to death,” remembers Mr. Henry. “I was bleeding like a hog.”

He was closer to Roatan and decided to just keep going. “I am going carry you to Anthony’s Key, there is a hospital there,” a Roatan fisherman he encountered off West Bay told him. The Good Samaritan towed Mr. Henry’s boat to Sandy Bay and likely saved his life. Since then, Mr. Henry had seven operations on his eye. The accident marked the end of his fishing career.

Utila was so far I thought I was going to bleed to death.

An old parrot and two small dogs keep the couple company. Mr. Henry and Mrs. Sula smile and hug one another as they swing on the porch of their tidy hillside home surrounded by a spotless garden. Mr. Henry feels most proud of “the days we spent together with his wife.”

A New Roads Should Create New Opportunities

Ten or fifteen years ago, the Roatan Municipality’s budget was not sufficient for such an ambitious project. Now, with an annual municipal income of over $10 million, the municipality has been able to embark on larger scale projects. “We have been making roads for about five to six years now, so everyone knew that this was going to happen at one point,” says Ing. Ricardo Castillo, infrastructure chief of the Roatan Municipality.

This summer, the municipality is focused on the Sandy Bay road building. Employing 120 road construction workers, the 8.3 km project − which began on September 20, 2022 in Sandy Bay − is expected to be completed in October 2023.

The nine meter wide road will contain two three and a half meter lanes and a one meter lane for walking or cycling. Using state of the art 5200 PSI concrete, the road is expected to last for thirty years.

The road’s most challenging segment is between Sandy Bay’s Ramírez and Anthony’s Key. By the end of June, the Municipality was 1.2 kilometers away from West End with the dirt work.

“A proper asphalt road should last 15 to 20 years without any maintenance,” said Castillo. Islanders got nearly double that lifespan out of their Sandy Bay road, which was originally built in the 1980s. Despite numerous repairs and emergency measures, the road survived nearly 40 years. Since 2010, funds have been available for pothole repairs and maintenance to prevent the road from deteriorating.

Most challenging segment is between Sandy Bay’s Ramírez and Anthony’s Key.

White topping road around 500 culverts are planned to be installed in the Mud Hole to West End. “We make them bigger, we stabilize the area around them,” says Ing. Castillo. “We are taking everything that is less than 36 inches and putting brand new material.”

As the road widens, Roatan Electrical Company [RECO] moves electrical posts at their own expense, a process that started in 2018. “It gets a little bit rough, but in the end they do help us out,” says Ing. Castillo. A few RECO posts are waiting to be moved in Dixon Cove. Once that is done, the Municipal can finish sidewalks and cycling lanes in that area.

IDECA won the concrete paving contract for the road. Their winning bid came in at around 59 million Lps. ($2.4 million USD). The entirety of the project is estimated to cost the Municipality and the Roatan taxpayers Lps. 155 million ($6.3 million USD).

In the end, the road construction costs on the island are pretty competitive with road construction costs on the Honduran mainland. The key to that is doing the roadwork part of the road paving projects in house.

On the new and rebuilding road projects, the work is typically divided into two parts. The contractor does the concrete paving of the road, but beforehand, the Municipality constructs the earthwork, culvert, and gullies and sidewalks. They negotiate with property owners and easements, or access issues. “We give it a lot of attention, since we are from here,” says Ing. Castillo. “We don’t tend to buy land to build roads, but people tend to see how their property value could increase.”

According to Ing. Castillo, Roatan Municipality spends around Lps. 20 − Lps. 22 million per kilometer of road and, all costs included. “That, in the end, is the reason why we do what we do,” says Ing. Castillo. “We know the people, we know the work, and we know what to do. The neighbors usually try to help us out with the road construction.” That would not always be the case with a mainland company, whose employees don’t know or understand the island or its people.

There are two other sections of the PO-35 national road to be rebuilt. There is a 2.3 kilometer road from Mud Hole to the KIX scheduled to follow in 2024. The most complex part will be the white topping of the PO-35, the 1.5 kilometer road from the KIX sporting complex to the Roatan Airport.

The 1.5 kilometer road was sent out to an outside company for design, as it is the most complex portion of the island’s main road system. “We want an over bridge and some big construction on the site,” said Ing. Castillo. The sewer and rain escapes are a big issue in the steep terrain of the road cutting across Coxen Hole between the airport and Calle Ocho. That is planned to be done in late 2024.

There are two other sections of the PO-35 national road to be rebuilt.

There are some interesting features of the island’s revitalized road system. The Mud Hole intersection is to receive a traffic roundabout, the biggest one on the island. Coxen Hole center road will have three lanes of traffic, and the road will be reduced to two lanes around the KIX sporting complex on the north side of Coxen Hole.

There are more possibilities of roads the Municipality is looking at: a northern road that starts in West End, continues to Palmetto, climbs to Crawfish Rock, descends to the Pristine Bay roundabout, and connects to the Big Bight road and eventually ends at Plan Grande. All that is possible thanks to the heavy machinery that the Roatan Municipality owns. Municipality has begun dirt work on the old Palmetto to Tres Flores road. The paving for that portion is expected for 2024.

The municipality has gained much-needed experience in the road paving business. The stretch between Island Saloon and the oxidation pond was perhaps the most challenging earthwork in the process of rebuilding the municipality’s road system. The municipal was built in two months. “That was pretty hectic. We moved 1500 tons of dirt there,” said Ing. Castillo.

By the Madeyso store and by the Megaplaza mall the municipal had to move dirt out and replace it with rock to stabilize the road’s substrate. As much as 15 feet of dirt had to be moved and replaced.

How Roatan Communicates With Itself

Roatan is growing in leaps and bounds. With dozens of commercial centers about to open for business, the signage business is booming as well. Signs and signage are becoming more elaborate in order to help us orientate ourselves and recognize places we are attempting to locate.
The oldest surviving sign on the island is an 1898 lifeboat marking the name of its mother ship ‘Snyg.’ It adorns a two-foot piece of wood at a home in Coxen Hole.
The first signs on the island were simple painted wood announcing a business to customers that already knew about it. Even today, some islanders still rely on word of mouth to the point that they don’t have a business name displayed next to their establishment.
The island went through an evolution of the sign design business over the last four decades. In the 1980s there were wooden signs with painted, stenciled acrylic letters. In the 1990s, super large signs came with 3D and fiberglass. In the 2000s PVC materials arrived on the island, and in the 2010s LED and photo-op artwork proliferated. In the last couple years, LED and 3D art is flourishing.
The sophistication and scale of signage on the island has grown rapidly. The signage has become much more three dimensional, elaborate, and colorful. The signs increased in scale and scope. There are now half a dozen “I love Roatan” 3D signs as tall as a person; photo-op signs with picture frames 12 feet tall; angel wings signs and a dozen oversize beach chair signs sponsored by different hotels.

Mr. Fausto’s Servicolor

Ávila begun by painting houses and assisting Pali Castillo, the one professional sign maker the island had at the time. Castillo would paint the names of fishing boats on their hulls and paint names on stores on wooden planks in Coxen Hole. Roatan’s biggest town was not exactly Times Square, and the sign business was in its infancy.

Ávila begun by painting houses and assisting Pali Castillo.

Castillo made signs for the Casa Warren in Coxen Hole, and different fishing boats around the island. In the 1980s and 90s, Roatan signs were simple and often large.

Ávila remembers creating a 20 x 12 foot sign in Los Fuertes announcing the Executive Inn hotel. “Now you can’t have signs bigger than three by four feet,” says Ávila, who is energetic and smiles when he speaks about his work.

As young man, Ávila learned his stencil technique when Romeo Silvestri, a French Harbour business man, convinced him to go on his own. Soon Ávila was making a sign for his wife’s beauty salon in Coxen Hole. It was 1991 and the island was just starting to grow.

In 1992 Ávila set up his Servicolor sign business and worked out a small wooden building on the side of the road by “el triángulo” in Coxen Hole. Ávila prefers working on marine plywood, painting, or airbrushing it with acrylic paints, then sealing the paint with polyurethane so it could last 10, 15 or even 20 years.

Over time, Ávila has worked on signs for some of the island’s biggest businesses: Anthony’s Key, Coco View, Las Palmas, and Port of Roatan. “I worked on this for two months,” says Ávila about a three by four foot welcome sign he built and painted at Anthony’s Key Resort. The sign shows in great detail each one of the resort’s bungalows and trees. He painted the original name of “Oso” transport ship back in the early 2000s.

Today, Ávila’s business is based out of a concrete home on the main street of Coxen Hole. He still creates signage for faithful clients like BICA and Anthony’s Key, and occasionally picks up new ones.

Sign Maker Gessell

Gessell Brousek stumbled into the sign making business by chance. While his father was building high end furniture for houses on Roatan, Brousek followed suit with a complementary business of his own: sign making. “I can draw and I can paint, I am artistic and I am creative – I can do signs,” recalls Brousek about his decision to go into the sign making business.

It all started with one developer in 1995. “John Edwards called and said: I need some signs” recalls Brousek. It was his first commission for signage, one he created for Lighthouse Meridian. West Bay was pretty much undeveloped back then, and there was only Foster’s, Tabyana, and Mayan Princess with beach front units built. Edwards was becoming the island’s biggest developer and needed a constant supply of signage for his projects, which included Mayan Princess, Parrot Tree, Century 21, and others.

Soon after his first commission, word travelled fast. Buccaneer wanted a sign, Gio’s wanted a sign. Word of mouth delivered a steady and growing stream of clients. Times were uncomplicated back then. Brousek did a sketch for the prospective client and got himself jobs. “[Developer] John [Edwards] was a constant customer for 20 years,” Brousek remembers.

Brousek works primarily in marine plywood, fiberglass, and in construction pine. “We have to work with something that withstands the weather and the sun,” he says. He works under the name of the company his father started: Maple Leaf. The Brousek family moved to the island from Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1993.

There is no plan. I just know how I want it to look.

Some of his signs survived well over a decade, like his Tabyana “stroll sign” for example. Others, like the Coco View sign, he renews every few years to give it more life and shine. The Iguana Grill was his first 3D sign, and Brousek also created the iconic Twisted Toucan sign for Roatan’s best know bar of the 1990s.

After the government imposed lockdowns of 2020, his business scaled down. “I simplified a lot after COVID,” says Brousek. “Most of the time I work by myself.” The Canadian sign maker works from a workshop that is adjacent to his home in First Bight.

His workshop is an open space covered from the sun, with no walls and surrounded by groves of banana trees. It is a space full of saws, fans, compressor, stools, and work tables. He is intuitive, and has developed the knowledge of his materials and tools over three decades. “I just create it. There is no plan. I just know how I want it to look and go along and make it work,” says Brousek, smiling.

The signage business keeps him busy and his 3D installations have become bigger and more elaborate. He builds photo op structures such as beach chairs, and has ventured into sculptures and industrial art. He is making a fish school installation for a West Bay hotel.

Roatan’s tourist attraction owners constantly think of ways to create some interesting sculptures and artworks. Brousek created several challenging sculptures for Little French Key: a statue of Neptune standing in the sea, a giant seahorse swing, and a mermaid seating on a seahorse.

Alex Making Signs

For many island businesses, the importance of signage cannot be overemphasized. “Your sign is your main identification,” says Alex Montiel. Montiel’s Multiservicios del Caribe sign company works with a variety of materials: PVC, acrylic, vinyl cuttings, fiberglass, fome board. He develops the idea, concept, and design, and then manufactures signs commissioned to him throughout the island. Some of Multiservicio’s clients include iconic hotels and large island businesses: Ibagari, Infinity Bay, Pristine Bay, Sun Corporation, and Roatan Municipality.

Montiel moved to the island in 1997. In 2000, he started his graphics design company Multiservicios del Caribe. Signage was initially a small part of his business, but it steadily grew.

Montiel tries to stay ahead of the many technological advances in the industry. He attended trade shows about signage multiple times, such as Tradeshow Signs of the Americas. “We were using LED lights before La Ceiba did,” says Montiel about Roatan being at the cutting edge of signage design in this part of Honduras.

Multiservicios was the first company to start making LED lit signs. The first LED sign was ACE Hardware in 2013. Multiservicios built the iconic “I heart Roatan” sign in front of Petrosun in Flowers Bay. “That sign started trending, says Montiel. “It was preceding signs like that in La Ceiba, Tela, Guanaja.”

One of his clients is Stephanie Woods, owner of The Cove restaurant in Palmetto Bay. “Alex has been the go-to sign maker for over a decade. [he is always] keeping up with new, longer lasting quality materials,” says Woods.

While they do graphic design and paper printing, sign making is the most creative and challenging aspect of the Multiservicios del Caribe undertakings. “We love the radical and crazy ideas people bring us. We love to be challenged,” says Monitel.

His shop does custom designs and 3D installations. According to Alex, choosing materials is sometimes the biggest challenge. Moniel says PVC is not the best choice for big signs. It is too heavy and not so rigid. PVC, however, is an affordable, long lasting material. “We can mimic any type of material – copper, rusted metal – with PVC,” says Alex. “You have to touch it to tell.” PVC can last up to 20 years, and while they look like wood, they can last longer. “All the signs you see in Disney, amusement park signs – they are PVC,” says Montiel. It can last decades if protected from elements… Rain, sun, wind.

We love the radical and crazy ideas people bring us.

Montiel uses automotive paints for a smoother, easier to maintain surface as well as for a more lasting effect. “Over 20 years we have been trying and testing all kinds of materials, and PVC is the one that lasts the longest,” says Alex. “We use ACM – Alubond, a compound that is a combination of PVC and aluminum. Alubond is a brand of aluminum composite that is non-combustible, non-toxic, and odorless. Neon LED is the latest signage material that Montiel began using.

The island has a natural beauty; bad, poorly made signage can take away from that splendor. Montiel is conscious of the visual pollution that is increasing on Roatan. “I am against billboards,” says Montiel. “I am 100 percent against visual pollution.”

There are several other craftsmen making signs on Roatan. Painter Dennis Luma also creates signage. Luma is based in West End, and is more of an artist that is happy to create signs when things are slow.