In the 1990s and 2000s, the quality evolved still and became more about clean air, clean water, and a nice reef. Starting in the 2010s and 20s, the economy and island population has exploded. There are hundreds of well-stocked stores, strangers, and foreign languages all around. All in all, however, life on the island is still fun, healthy, and exciting. There are several things that contribute to a quality of life on Roatan, and I list them below:

The Basics

Good, year-round climate is the reason why many foreigners come to move to or retire on Roatan. They escape the cold, wet winters of Maine, Minnesota, and Manitoba.

Roatan is blessed with good, clean air, far away from polluted urban centers. Island residents should feel blessed, as there are billions of people living in places filled with dirty, obscure, and toxic air. Except for a few weeks of Central American June grass burning season, the island’s air is clean.

The island’s water comes from a subterranean aquifer that while diminishing, still provides us with quality H2O. The drinking water companies like Sun Water and Ramirez pump the water and purify it through reverse osmosis filters. To the benefit of us all, they do not add fluoride or chlorine.

Culinary Delights

Honduras is also a serious quality food exporter, and this good food is quite affordable on Roatan. The supermarket shelves are filled with great Honduran, shade-grown coffee of various kinds – Honduran beans, seafood, and meats. Eldon’s Supermarket is the best-stocked supermarket in Honduras, if not Central America.

Over the last 20 years, the island exploded with quality and diverse restaurants. For example, in 2003, Atlantic Chinese restaurant in Los Fuertes was the only place on the island to serve oriental cuisine. When Atlantic closed its doors, there was nothing for several years. Now, there are three Chinese restaurants, four to five places that serve sushi, a Thai restaurant, and even an Indian restaurant.

Education

Private primary education on the island began in the 19th century with Royal Readers textbooks being taught to children in private homes. Private secondary education started with ESBIR in 1983, and continued with Roatan Alternative School in Sandy Bay in 2003. Now there are seven private schools: ESBIR, several Christian schools, and a Montessori. There are even two universities, and one of them, UTH, is finishing a campus in French Cay.

Island is still fun, healthy and exciting.

Fast Internet

In 2003, many customers still used telephone dial up for their internet needs. The island connectivity – along with the rest of the planet – has come a long way since then. There are now several companies competing for internet customers, and a fiber optic internet cable connected the island to the mainland and beyond in 2020. Internet speeds, reliability, and costs are now matching what is available in the USA or Canada.

Government Offices

In 1980, there were just a few government agencies on Roatan: customs officer, a port captain, and a police chief. Even in 2000s, if you needed something, you had to go to Tegucigalpa, or at least to La Ceiba to have it done. There is the immigration office and a tax office. In the 2020s, Roatan is booming, and a central government helping you to hand over your money.

Small Community, For Now

Life in cities or big towns can be hectic, stressful, and unsafe. The Greeks said life in a city of over 100,000 becomes unlivable and filled with crime.

Island life keeps one more connected to people that you see over and over again. People are friendly here. Your neighbors are ready to help in an emergency, and those emergencies do keep coming. Life in a big city, on the other hand, gives you a certain level of anonymity and insulation from people you don’t want to see. In a big enough city, you can cut someone off on the road, show him the finger, and expect to never to see them again. These type of actions have consequences on Roatan, so you see them rarely.

If you offend someone on the island, you are likely to see them the next day at a store, or stuck in traffic in Coxen Hole. You cannot count on anonymity on an island that is only 54 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide. Actions have consequences here, and that is a chief reason that Roatanians behave nicely to each other still.

Nature Above and Below Water

Today, the island is still green and relatively undeveloped. Out of 20,000 acres of Roatan’s surface, about 75% is still undeveloped forest or grassland. That number, however, was 90% just 25 years ago, and it is no doubt the island’s urban centers and gated communities that are growing in leaps and bounds.

As a warning to those who care, there are examples of many other Caribbean islands which were once just as beautiful as Roatan. These islands have overdeveloped, their resources were exploited, their trees were cut down, and their landscape became a jungle of concrete. Roatan is not that way yet, and hopefully never will.

Energy of Ideas

Roatan attracts energetic, entrepreneurial people with ideas. Some individuals arrive with novel ideas like charter cities and Bitcoin. Others come here with classical ideas that have been around for millennia, but need to be periodically rediscovered. Those people are about hard work, healthy food, dependability, and appreciation for small, tight communities that support one another.

Roatan has plenty of the free stuff.

Healthcare

Foreign expats retired on Roatan in their 60s, and as their health gets worse, a few years or decades later and in their 70 and 80s, they move back to the USA. They are typically in need of specialized health care and ease of care. These days they are on their way out, and a few people are even talking of an assisted living home being built on the island.
There are now small and large private health clinics all over the island that make life for the elderly much easier. There are dozens of medical specialists living on the island, and their services cost a fraction of what they would in USA or Canada.

Ease of Travel

Maritime travel to and from the island has gotten easier, quicker, and more affordable. You can head off the island on a fast catamaran five times a day. A weekend gateway to Utila or Guanaja is super easy to arrange. Dream Ferries has done a run connecting Roatan with Puerto Cortés via Utila.

That ease of travel wasn’t always the case. Back in the 1970s and 80s, the only way to travel to Roatan was via a dory, or a rickety airplane from La Ceiba. Things have changed greatly, and the island is not only accessible, it is also a hub for hopping to nearby Utila and Guanaja. There are regular flights to El Salvador, Belize, Cayman Islands, and Guatemala. Once a second airport terminal opens, that should get better still.

That is the great advantage of living 20 minutes from an international airport, which Roatan has. The island is separated by two flights from thousands of places around the globe. Islanders are just one flight away from Miami, Dallas, or Houston, and after a change of terminals, you could be on your way to Timbuktu.

Music Scene

Roatan has been alive with the sounds of music since the Garifuna arrived here in 1797. Today, there are a couple dozen bands and musicians that play and perform all around the island. The island musical scale ranges from Garifuna dancers to Country and Western music, with Bobbie Rieman, Muddy, The Happy Boys, and Londoners, to name a few.

Value

In the end, it all comes down to the bang for the buck. In 2025, things on Roatan are still affordable, and land and many homes can be purchased for a reasonable price. While you might have to fork over a hefty $9 million for a three bedroom villa in Saint Barts, you can own a mansion for 5% of that, or $400,000, on Roatan’s east end.

As many of us tend to forget: the best things in life are free, and Roatan has plenty of the free stuff. So let us
appreciate and enjoy the things we have.

By Truman Jones

Captain Scott navigated numerous ports across the Caribbean, such as Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Isles of Pines, Roatan, Havana, Key West, Tampa, Mobile, Cozumel, and Belize.

During his frequent visits to French Harbour, he crossed paths with Mary McNab, a descendant of one of the pioneering families in the area. Captain Scott gained recognition as one of the foremost schooner captains in the Caribbean during this era.

In 1903, Captain Scott and Mary McNab joined in matrimony. Then, on October 15, 1904, they welcomed their first child, a lovely, blonde-haired girl named Selma Hellen Scott, who would later become my mother. Captain Scott made a pivotal decision to establish French Harbour as his primary home port.

Within French Harbour, he undertook the construction of a three-story residence complete with a dock adjacent to the Harbour. The first floor served as storage for the cedar lumber he had transported all the way from Mobile, Alabama. Captain Scott, alongside Captain William C. Borden, earned recognition for their significant contributions in supplying the lumber that went into building many of the homes throughout the Bay Islands.

Tragedy struck the schooner Maggie G Williams.

In 1907, another girl was born, Leila May Scott. William C. Jones, a businessman in French Harbour, owned a store and a schooner. He offered Captain Scott a job on the schooner. By 1910, yet another girl was born, Edna P. Scott. It was at this point that Captain Scott decided to inform William to seek another captain, as he desired to stay closer to his family. Captain Scott, in collaboration with his cousin, acquired a schooner of their own in Mobile, Alabama.

Captain Scott assumed command of the newly acquired schooner in July 1911. Earlier, in February 1911, he had handed over the reins of the schooner Maggie G Williams to its new captain. However, due to illness from Malaria, the designated captain couldn’t embark on the voyage. The owner then sought out Captain Scott and requested him to undertake the favor of sailing the schooner on one final journey. Captain Scott accepted the task.

All went well in the beginning, but in May, tragedy struck the schooner Maggie G Williams. Departing from Key West with Captain Scott and ten other sailors aboard, they vanished without a trace. Captain Scott was just a few months shy of his 30th birthday.

In my opinion, as a captain myself, the weather in Florida during May contributed to the tragic incident. In May, these waters can be prone to sudden, monstrous storms that pop up out of nowhere. These storms can produce water spouts and tornadoes, and create winds upwards of 70 mph. I firmly believe it was a storm that claimed the lives of Maggie G. Williams, Captain Scott, and the ten sailors, consigning them to a sailor’s watery grave.

As I stood on the porch of my home in Brick Bay, I watched the ship carrying my grandfather’s headstone enter the French Harbour channel. The sun was shining her rays onto the ship from just above the horizon. I thought to myself: “Captain Scott, you finally made it back to your home port, on the other side of the sea that you sailed across so many times in 112 years.”

The Availability, Stability and Price of Internet is Shaping the Future of Roatan

The Bay Island’s internet dates back to the 1990s when Hondutel began providing its 256 bit dial up service. A few years later Trópico Telephone and Internet (TTI), a private company that began offering broadband, was forced out of business in 2008 by Honduran government cracking down on “illegal” ISP providers. Hondutel seized TTI’s property and ran the private, booming company out of business. The road to affordable internet in Honduras was certainly not easy.

Honduras gets its internet from two commercial fiber cables brining in internet from Florida to Omoa. One is Maya 1, owned by Telefónica, laid in 2000, and the other is Arcos, owned by Liberty Cable, laid in 2001. Both cables are coming to the end of their 25-year life cycle and there is another company eyeing the Honduran market. Before reaching Roatan, the cable runs on the ground for 180 kilometers to La Ceiba before it is connected to the cable for Roatan.

In August 2020 BITEL (Bay Islands Telecommunications) installed a 77 kilometer cable from La Ceiba to Roatan. An underwater fiber optic internet cable made operational in October 2020. BITEL is owned by six investors, two of them Roatanians: Kyle McNab and Ron McNab, current Mayor of Roatan Municipality.

Internet and especially fast internet on Roatan are still expensive for an average islander. “Even though you need 15 megabytes in your house you can only afford 5,” says Duane McNab, owner of MaxCom, Roatan’s biggest internet provider. Still, it is not easy to afford a service that cost $75 for 5g when an average salary in Honduras is just $423.

Max Communications went from a “Chiclet money business” for Duane McNab’s father in the off-fishing season to a communications company employing 75 people. The company traces its beginnings to the 1980s in Oak Ridge. “His main priority was to get live TV so he could watch Mike Tyson box,” Says Duane McNab remembering the early days. So, in the 1980s SatMc Cable Company was created. “I had a guy changing VHS content every day, so people had something to watch on TV,” said Duane McNab. Eventually a Galaxy 5 satellite was re-positioned to service Roatan and live transmission of 13 channels began in 1990.

In 2006 Duane McNab took over control of the company that his father launched. Since then, Max Cable has grown in leaps and bounds buying out smaller internet and cable providers that focused on smaller markets on the island: Island Cable, Global net’s Roatan operations and Televa Alma in 2011, and in 2012 Cable Color.

According to McNab, in 2013-14 The Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CONATEL), a Honduran government entity regulating communications, forced a decrease in internet prices on operators in the country. “It was so much per gigabyte, period,” said McNab. “With this set price we can budget. We know there is not going to be a change tomorrow or next month,” said McNab. “Even though we sell data to you at unlimited use, we pay per consumption.”

BITEL installed a 77 kilometer cable from La Ceiba to Roatan.

By 2012 Max Communications formed an alliance with Cable Color. “We purchased bandwidth together to have a discounted price,” says McNab. It purchased D&D Utila ISP company and in April 2020 they plan to lay down fiber in Utila.

Max Communications has been growing in leaps and bounds adding over 300 accounts in December 2019 and the first two months of 2020. “It’s a stable business, but not as lucrative business as many people would think,” says McNab. “You have to have a large amount of clients for it to be a lucrative business.”

MaxCom has been growing to become one of the biggest employers on the island, top ten. After Sun Corporation, Municipality, RECO and Galaxy. The company manages five offices, four towers and 10 repeaters. “I’m here every day at 7:30am,” says McNab. MaxCom has the biggest share of Roatan’s internet providers of the total 13,600 homes on Roatan. On Guanaja MaxCom partnered with Jackson’s cable a local company. There are 1,274 homes on Utila, 3,400 homes on Guanaja, and McNab has even investigated expanding its operations to the Cayman Islands.

But there are several companies staying in site of MaxCom. Especially competitive on the island market is Fibernet owned by the Dip family who also owns Sat Vision in La Ceiba. The other internet providers on Roatan are Claro, Tigo, Reytel, Netman and Mopleco Vision. The cost of entry to Roatan’s ISP’s market are quite small. “We have too many players,” said McNab. “We are the oldest and the only islander owned internet company on the island.”

Max Communications has been growing in leaps and bounds.

As availability of internet is spreading across Roatan, the speed of the connections are also increasing. “5G is about to hit the world market, it’s inevitable,” said McNab. “It’s going to use higher frequencies. We are not going to know how this affects the human body until the time passes,” said McNab.

5G is on the horizon on Roatan as well. “Obviously Tigo and Claro will bring it, it’s definitely coming, but it’s a very expensive technology so it will take a few years,” says Mitch Cummins who owns Paradise Computers. Paradise Computers, a technical services company, was first to bring high speed interned to the island in 2002. “The normal patterns is to be three to five years behind US,” says Cummins.

Cummins believes that the most exciting thing on the horizon is Elon Musk’s Star link, announced to be coming to Honduras in 2023. “That will be a game changer, especially in rural areas,” says Cummins.