A smaller group stayed behind in Punta Gorda, where they remain to this day a thriving, dynamic community.

Gradually, the Garifuna diaspora spread all over the Central American coast of the western Caribbean, from Livingston in Guatemala to Puerto Limón in Costa Rica. Here on Roatan, Punta Gorda remains a compelling place to visit with unique foods, dancing and their unique language, which contains some French and English words. Until recently, most houses in PG, as it is popularly known, were wattle and daub with palmetto thatch. The Garifuna culture revolves around fishing using handmade dugout canoes with a small amount of subsistence agriculture, but with the recent influx of visitors, most of the economy revolves more around tourism.

The second most important permanent settlements were of enslaved people and slave owners who originated mostly from Cayman and Belize, beginning in the 1830s, mainly after 1834, when slavery officially ended in the Cayman Islands. The Bay Islands population rose exponentially every year and peaked in 1844.

In 1838, with the overwhelming influx of English-speaking settlers, the Spanish authorities declared that all settlers should apply for residence with the authorities in Trujillo. This created some dissatisfaction, at which the settlers appealed to the Superintendent of British Honduras (Belize), Col. Alexander McDonald.

Bay Islands were a center for agriculture in the western Caribbean.

Claiming harassment by the Spaniards, McDonald, a fervent patriot itching for a chance to mix it up with the Spaniards, preceded to Roatan, where at Port Royal, he landed and proceeded to lower the Central American flag and raise the Union Jack. No sooner had he sailed away than the Spanish Commandant, Juan Bautista Loustrelet, lowered the Union Flag and hoisted the Central American flag again. This act so infuriated McDonald that he returned, clapped the Spaniards in irons and sailed them to Trujillo, where he abandoned them on the beach and warned them never to return.

The English settlers enjoyed this protection and were helped in part by the fact that the newly independent Honduras had its own problems of nation-building on the mainland. The islands flourished and even had their own local government set up by the English authorities from Belize. Settlements were formed coastwise around the islands in Utila and Guanaja and on Roatan in Flowers Bay, West End and Jobs Bight, with the main center of population gradually becoming Coxen’s Hole, while Port Royal became less popular and eventually abandoned until the 1960s with the arrival of the first group of expatriate Americans and English.

In 1852, the Bay Islands were recognized as a Crown Colony, and the population under British protection thrived with communities popping up everywhere. By 1858, their numbers reached nearly 2,000. The Bay Islands were a center for agriculture in the western Caribbean and the mainland; boat building began as a Bay Island industry. Sadly, or tragically if you ask a modern-day Bay Islander, pressure was mounting from the U.S. Congress, who claimed that Britain’s incorporation of the Bay Islands as a Crown Colony was in direct infringement of the Monroe Doctrine and by default the Clayton-Bulwer non-colonization treaty.

Britain was forced to cede the Bay Islands back to the Republic of Honduras, an island whose languages and culture were English and Garifuna, not Spanish. Although disappointing, this didn’t really impact the Bay Islanders, who kept flourishing with little interference from an indifferent, incapable central Honduran government.

The island economy diversified from agriculture to shipbuilding and commercial fishing. Growing up around the sea, islanders were excellent seafarers, and beginning in the 1930s, many “shipped out,” taking well-paying jobs on merchant ships, later oil field supply vessels and river-going tugs around the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Some of these adventurous seamen stayed off on the Gulf Coast and learned about shrimping and came back in the 1960s to start up what was to be the largest fishing fleet in the Caribbean. This initiative and tenacity eventually led to the beginning of the dive industry in the Bay Islands.

This later led to the construction of the first cruise ship terminals, which became the catalyst for the development boom in the late 1990s, bringing with it newfound opportunities, industries and prosperity. Many of the descendants of those English and Scottish immigrants or freed slaves with names like McNab, Elwin or Bodden are building your houses or checking you in for your flight back; maybe a smiling young Garifuna lady is taking your order at a seafood restaurant. This is where they have come from.

And what of the old nemesis, the mainland Spaniard, once the foe of the English? They are now here to stay, completely integrated into our melting pot of a community.

With the beginning of development in the 1990s and demand for skilled labor, mainlanders came to the islands in droves and planted roots, much like the 1830s settlers. They thrived, and the second generation of these settlers are now born islanders who speak English and make up around 60 percent of the population.

A Sailboat Hits the Reef, Sinks

Bad Weather, exhaustion, miscommunication and tricky entrance to Brick Bay made for a disastrous end to the American sailboat ‘Scarlett’ on January 22. The 40 foot Canada Sailcraft built in 1987 was captained by Skipper Ricardo Druillet with his hand Robert Ader of Miami. After departing Colon, Panama two days earlier and heading for Jamaica, the sailors battled tough weather and 10 foot seas and decided to reroute their journey for Roatan.
The sailors booked a slot at the Barefoot Cay marina, but Adler wrote that they were advised to “anchor outside the channel,” as the boat arrived at 2am. “We offer guidance through the channel entrance 8am to 4pm every day,” wrote Gary Lewis, the General Manager at Barefoot Cay, the largest Roatan marina that hosted over 100 boats in 2017.

My depth finder indicated 30 foot depth and we dropped the anchor,” said Druillet. “Then we got swung around onto the reef.” ‘Scarlett’ ended up on top of the reef just west of Brick Bay channel entrance, in knee high water.

“My depth finder indicated 30 foot depth and we dropped the anchor,” said Druillet. “Then we got swung around onto the reef.” ‘Scarlett’ ended up on top of the reef just west of Brick Bay channel entrance, in knee high water. “There was deeper water inside the boat than out,” said Ader about the couple abandoning the boat at night.

“This is the worse marked entrance [to a harbor] I’ve seen,” said Druillet about the entrance to Brick Bay harbor. Druillet visited dozens of harbors in Mexico and Central America on his “dream trip” which he begun with his wife and son in San Francisco and which took him south to Panama and eventually to Roatan.

According to Nic Bach of Roatan Marine Park [RMP] however, “new channel markers with solar beacons in Brick Bay” were installed about a year ago at a cost of $1,800 provided by Island Shipping. Bach wrote that over the years RMP has placed 90 channel and demarcation markers around Roatan and ZOLITUR is planning to fund another 70 to mark every channel around the island.

While Shawn Hyde negotiated with the San Diego insurance company about the salvaging cost of ‘Scarlett,’ someone boarded the distressed vessel and took much of its equipment. “They took the solar panels, they took everything. Absolutely everything,” said Ader.

Druillet said he purchased the boat for $54,000 and spent additional $40,000 improving it. “Now it’s a total loss and its insured for $65,000,” the skipper said. Druillet, originally from Uruguay, says he has been sailing since the age of 11 and that his grandfather was a founder of “El Yacht Club Uruguayo.”

Salvage master Eulalio ‘Lalo’ Suazo attempted to salvage ‘Scarlett’ on January 25 and 26, but the boat, took on water and sunk in 500 feet of water about 300 meters from the channel.

Brick Bay has claimed its share of unlucky boats over the years. “We did three salvage operations in the last four years in Brick Bay,” said Hyde. “In 2015 a boat was on the way to Barefoot Cay, and complained that its electronic charts were off by 30 feet and it ended up on the reef.”