La Ceiba built ‘Pirate Ship’ Black Pearl and Gulf King resting in Oak Ridge.

 Old Ships Come to Rest in oak Ridge

And as nature would have it, time and wear & tear take their toll on all creature and creation, and these two unrelated boats, the Black Pearl and the Gulf King, are no exception.

Built in 2008 solemnly to serve as a tourist ship on the island of Roatan, the 88 feet long by 27 feet wide Black Pearl spent her short-lived heyday as an entertainment venue. She transported tourist around the island of Roatan sharing some of the secrets and fantasies of the island’s history, while delighting her guests with music and dancing all the way from the docks of Fantasy Island to the harbor of West End.

As part of the entertainment, her crew, including the captain, would dress in full pirate attire, bringing to life century-old scenes of pirates battles and pirates schemes. It seems like, as with her predecessors from hundreds of years ago, luck was not on her side.

Some locals believe that the deteriorating ship that has been parked in the same spot for the last three years, could be fixed and used as some type tourist attraction. “She is in bad condition but she is fixable if you could find someone that has the money to invest,” said a local business man. “She would make a great tourist attraction.”

The Gulf King 2, on the other hand, may have had a longer run as a fishing boat, but no history of glory here on the island. Hailing all the way from some port in the USA, he made his way to the island towed by another vessel, but he has never once made a fishing trip in his new and unfamiliar home. Made of aluminum and steel, he must have indeed conquered the deep sea while leaving behind a trail of triumphant conquest. With the absence of details or descriptions of past travel, one can only speculate about the Gulf King 2’s spectacular journeys around the Atlantic Ocean and beyond.

Authorities have not turned a blind eye on the disintegrating vessels that could disintegrate polluting the water and causing damage to passing boats. Jonathan Lainez, Roatan’s port captain, said that he has made a report about the Oak Ridge boats and six others abandoned boats on the island.

“The dive community should get involved and go to the owner. Sponsors could get involved and clean up the boat and sink it at a dive site,” says Shawn Hyde, a Roatan salvage operator with 20 years experience. “We would need SERNA and others to give us permits in order to sink them as a wreck,” says Nick Bach, of Roatan Marine Park.

Devoid of mast, winch and anchor, the essential equipment of a fishing boat, the Gulf King 2 is in a state of slow decay with iron rusts and flaking paint his most noticeable characteristics. After making stops at different shipyards around the island with no apparent solution to his ailment, the King has finally made his longest stop while awaiting his fate. “The fishing boat has a good steel bottom that could be recycled and used on other boats” said Norin Williams a former seaman who works as a taxi dorie captain.

As everyone and everything in the world has a purpose and could be of service to the world, so could the Black Pearl and the Gulf King. The former could possibly be a stationary pirate theme restaurant near the shore of Oak Ridge harbor where she now lays. The Gulf King could be sunk and serve as haven for marine life and a mooring for a dive spot.

“It would be nice if they could be re-purposed somehow. Otherwise, perhaps tow them out to the reef and sink them to make more reefs and a dive spot…, said Robert McNail. “To me, the way they are now, they distract from the quaint beauty of Oak Ridge,” he added.

The two boats that sit quietly in Oak Ridge Harbor, with a little creativity and effort, could play a more appropriate role as part of the landscape of the municipality of Santos Guardiola.

A bulldozer clears land for another phase at the Czech Village.

Roatan offers a Peculiar type of Attraction to the Central European Nation

The center of the Czech community is located in the quaint “Czech Village” spread across the hillside of Jonesville Point. “12 years ago, there was nothing here — no internet, no cell phone. No Eldons, no Megamall. (…) There was just a small road, it was completely jungle,” says the project’s founder George Czerny. The village is full of small, modest, wooden homes surrounded by white-painted fences.

Iri Maska, the original Czech pioneer, build a brewery and this pirate ship replica.

Czerny credits Maska, for being the man who brought him to the island and being the inspiration for building a Czech community on Roatan. Maska, who first came to Roatan in 1999, was “the first Czech on the island,” and the “great freedom” he saw here brought ideas for the future. Maska built the first microbrewery on the island, an imposing castle-like structure at the entrance to Oak Ridge. “I tasted Salva Vida, Port Royal, Imperial – no one from Czech Republic will drink that,” said Maska.

In 2005, Maska started building another ambitious project — a full-sized replica of Henry Morgan’s pirate ship, the Black Pearl. It took more than four years to build and includes such details as “six fully functioning bronze cannons, handmade canvas, ropes, a metal-tipped anchor and sheathing impregnated by hot blood from oxen.” Offering family-friendly pirate shows onboard the massive, 27-meter vessel sailing out of Fantasy Island, the Black Pearl was a jewel on the east side of the island.

Like some kind of gold fever in the Wild West, all the people want to come here

The Czech dream had a few setbacks. The brewery has been boarded up due to what Maska characterizes as “the illegal business practices of Cerveceria Hondureña.” Even the Black Pearl is slowly sinking by the dock in Oak Ridge.

The new wave of Czech developers on Roatan see the future in housing developments.Czerny has been working to make Roatan a household name in Czechia.“The sea. There is no sea in Czech Republic,” explains Hana Albertová, a Czech who runs a tour business on Roatan talking about the Czech fascination with the Caribbean.

“Like some kind of gold fever in the Wild West, all the people want to come here,”says Czerny. There is a second phase of this development called the Czech Village Marina, which will add another twenty houses on a two acre site overlooking a fully-built dock inside a sheltered cove. The third and newest addition is 13 acreTerra Chulawith plans of 150 houses.Where there was once jungle, there are now rough roads and wide cleared spaces with only gumbo-limbo trees remaining sticking out from the exposed muddy ground.

As Sherri Vickers, a neighbor of the village in Jonesville Point who runs East End Property Management says, “The first time I saw it [Czech village] from the water, I thought it looked beautiful.” Over the years, she’s seen changes such that, “Now I feel there are too many homes crowded into the area there.”

Christine Henley Pilger, another neighbor, thinks that the Czech community has a positive impact on the area, saying “they are bringing value to the neighbors around them, including us.” And it looks like the Czechs will just keep on coming.

While the original Czech Village is modest, the new developments are vastly larger. Near Camp Bay there is another Czech community under construction with a lower section called Diamond Hill and an upper area called Sunny Hill.

Started five years ago, Diamond Hill is, like Terra Chula, an enormous project on more than forty acres of land. There are 25 completed houses with plans for up to 200 once finished.

There’s a new restaurant and plans for the on-site Czech Republic consulate. There are also plans for a marina, a beach area and a two-story Czech castle that’s going to be built on the top of the hill.