Allan finished high school in Orlando, Florida first and studied engineering from Caterpillar in Tampa. The young Allan returned home to Roatan to work with his dad in his growing business. They built a bigger boat in 1958 and named her M/V Judy. The boat was built to run coconuts from the Bay Islands to the USA.

Allan’s uncle, Hersel Elwin, also had a boat, which he later turned control over to Allan to operate. Allan named this boat the Altear and put it to work running coconuts to Miami. On one of his trips picking up coconuts in Bonacca, he saw a beautiful girl named Yvette Kirkconnell. He decided it was time for him to get a wife – not long thereafter, couple were married.

At that time, the first shrimp boats had arrived from the USA and were operating out of Bonacca. Allan saw this as a new business opportunity, and in June 1963 he brought the first Roatan shrimp boat named Lady E to French Harbour.

Two years later, the three Hyde brothers purchased a second boat named Mr. B. The three brothers purchased a few more shrimp boats, and Allan decided it was time to build their seafood packing plant. They broke ground in 1968, and the building was due to open for operations in September 1969.

His strength was not only physical but was from within.

Unfortunately, a few days before the scheduled opening, Hurricane Francelia hit the Bay Islands on September 1, 1969, and destroyed the nearly- ready packing plant. The day after the hurricane, I accompanied Allan as he walked around and assessed the wreckage that was left. With tears in his eyes, he said to me: “Truman, the only thing I can do is to start all over again and rebuild.” As I looked at him, I realized that his strength was not only physical but was from within, the strength of determination and resilience. The seafood packing plant was rebuilt, and a year later, in 1970, it opened. At the height of the seafood industry in Roatan, he employed about three hundred people.

Allan Hyde was the pioneer who started the seafood business in Roatan. The industry was our largest employer for many years.

Allan’s accomplishments spanned a broad range. The Hyde family brought the first refrigerated ship to the Bay Islands to transport frozen seafood to the USA. This was the beginning of what is now Hybur and Hyde Shipping. Today, the companies operate a fleet of container ships that sail from Florida to four countries in the Western Caribbean.

Allan brought the first well drilling equipment to Roatan to drill deep wells, enabling the island to have a more reliable water supply. Before that, the population relied on rainwater cisterns, shallow wells, and gullies for their water supply. After drilling some personal wells, he asked for donations to install windmills to operate the wells around the island. At the time, the road to Flowers Bay was so bad that he had to walk barefoot in knee-deep mud to get to the area where the well was to be drilled.

Allan donated free electricity for many years to operate the well for the town of French Harbour. He also owned a small bulldozer and maintained the road to French Harbour whenever it got washed out from heavy rains, ensuring that it always remained drivable.

For many years, he was instrumental in providing 24-hour electricity to the town of French Harbour. Later on, during the presidential term of Rafael Leonardo Callejas, he was instrumental in getting island-wide 24-hour electricity generated with the installation of RECO.

He went on to become mayor of Roatan, and a congressman for the Bay Islands. While serving in these roles, he tried hard to get many projects approved that would modernize the islands. This was key in bringing in the first cruise ships to Roatan. To accomplish this, he took several Honduran politicians to Cozumel, Mexico, and Grand Cayman at his own expense, aiming to impress upon them the need to develop the islands for tourism. He told me that if you asked a politician something, you might get it, but if you demonstrated it to them, you stood a better chance of getting it accomplished.

Allan was the driving force of the National Party in the Bay Islands, where he met all of the incoming presidents. It started with General Oswaldo López, and he continued lifelong relations with many of these men. These relationships had lead directly to getting a modern airport and cruise ship dock built in Roatan during the presidency of Leonardo Rafael Callejas.

One of Allan’s employees, Sammy Gayle, started calling Allan ‘The Colonel’ back in 1963. I asked Sammy why he called him that. Sammy replied that whatever Allan set out to do, he accomplished. I, along with many of his friends, continued to call Allan ‘The Colonel’ throughout his life.

Allan Hyde passed away in December 2023, and during his lifetime he was truly a patriot of Roatan. He accomplished many things that we enjoy and take for granted. He left some big shoes to fill, and I hope that in the future we will have many more Roatan patriots like him – men of vision and determination who work to make their lives and our communities a better place to live.

Another hotel chain is preparing to enter Roatan tourism market. All inclusive Margaritaville and Karisma Hotels announced they will begin construction on a 164 room resort expected to be completed in late 2025. The project site is on the island’s north shore, located west of Corozal and bordering Jerry Hynds coconut plantation and the sea. The announcement specifies that the hotel group will partner with Island Shipping to develop the project, whose CEO is also Jerry Hynd. Margaritaville manages over 20 lodging locations and has over 20 additional hotel projects under development.

Kissinger Dead at 100

The lifetime actor and insider’s insider, Heinz Alfred Kissinger, died at 100. This German born son of a Rabbi was a Rockefeller protégé and enjoyed a meteoric rise to influence and power in the US. Kissinger became Council on Foreign Relations member in 1956, attended numerous Cremation of Care rituals at Bohemian Grove, took part in Bilderberg Group meetings, World Economic Forum and Club of Rome sessions and was trustee at Trilateral Commission. At 46 he became a National Security Advisor and handler of President Nixon and later Ford. As such he fallowed the policy that wars and assassinations, also in Honduras, have to be waged in order to prevent other wars. Shuffling between US, China, Soviet Union, and later Russia Kissinger became the ultimate insider and messenger for the controllers.

Tragic Boat Accident

On December 8, a passenger boat capsized between Guanaja and Santa Helena. The boat left El Pichete in Guanaja with eight people on board, but capsized in rough weather. Four people died, three were rescued, and one body was not yet found. Two of deceased were US citizens.

More than Miss Universe

San Salvador hosted first Central American Miss Universe for the first time in history on November 18 and its winner was Miss Nicaragua, another first for a Central American country. The win has become a cause of consternation to Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega as the winner, Sheynnis Palacios has participated in 2018 anti government protests. Palacios has become a symbol of hope for opponents of the Nicaraguan regime and has not returned to Nicaragua as of yet. The drama continues as Karen Celebertti, Miss Nicaragua pageant director for 23 years, has been pressured to retire. On November 22, Celebertti was refused entry to her native Nicaragua and her husband and son were arrested by the Nicaraguan regime. She and her family were charged with treason, conspiracy and organized crime.

In US anti-Zionism is now Anti-Semitism

On December 6 the US House of Representatives passed resolution 894 that states “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” Three-hundred-and-eleven US congressmen voted for the resolution and 14 voted against, with 92 voting “present out” of fear of retribution of their political funders. “If you would know who controls you see who you may not criticize,” wrote 2,000 years ago Roman senator and historian Tacitus. Now criticism of Israel will be punishable by law and US First Amendment protections have been made irrelevant.

New Hybur Ship

Hybur has purchased a fifth ship to keep up with the demand for cargo shipping in the Caribbean. Caribe Voyager is the Company’s new 100 meter, 3999 tone vessel built in 1995 is capable of sailing at 15 knots. Caribe Voyager sails between Florida and Grand Cayman and can carry 509 containers.

The idea for the Dolphin Program at AKR came to Julio Galindo, the resort’s owner, via an idea made by a couple of the guests in 1987. “We made a trip to a facility in Gulfport to look at their dolphins,” says Julio Galindo. Galindo began the program with two other partners, but by 1993 he bought them out. “Its [dolphin program] been good for business,” says Galindo.

The Honduran government permits needed to capture the wild dolphins was not easy to obtain. “It took a while to get permission to do this. The government wanted to know what we were up to,” says Eldon Bolton, Director of Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences. In 1989 Eldon was hired by AKR to locate, catch, and move the bottlenose dolphins to their Sandy Bay facility.

Eldon worked for Marine Animal Productions, a company that amongst other clients supplied the US Navy with bottlenose dolphins for their military program. In early 1980s until 1987 the Mississippi based company was providing dolphins for US clients.

At first it was not even known if the team would be successful at catching bottlenose dolphins. Bottlenose dolphins can be found on three Oceans in the world: Indian, Pacific and Atlantic. They are only absent from the Arctic Ocean. They are plentiful and feel right at home in warm waters off the Honduras’ Caribbean coast.

The key step in catching dolphins in Honduran waters was finding the right location to capture a group of bottlenose dolphins large enough to make it viable in a pen off Roatan. “It took some scouting. We took several boats and stayed several weeks at a time,” says Eldon about locating Honduran coast for the bottlenose dolphins.

The dolphin search focused in areas both east and west of the Trujillo peninsula. Once the team would spot the dolphin pod they would feed the dolphins and using a 1000 foot long net the capture team would encircle the dolphin pod.

The dolphin scouts determined the best location and the way to capture the aquatic mammals. “We would circle a group of animals and try to find a right group. Maybe half a dozen or fewer,” says Eldon. They would run a net forming a big circle or compass around the pod.

Their gear was designed to work in less than 20 feet of water.
The team consisted of 18 dolphin “trappers” that would start in as deep as 40 feet of water and stealthily move the net around the dolphin pod. They would keep the net intact and slowly wring in the whole thing on shore, shallow enough where the crew could stand up and safely manage the dolphins. The entire process would take half-a-day’s time.

Dolphin scouts determined the best location and the way to capture the aquatic mammals.

Each time the animals were then placed on specially designed slings, lifted out of the water, but kept moist and cool. The transfer of the animals between Trujillo to Roatan took four to five hours.

Three different trips were conducted from October 1989 to November 1990. In three capture operations five, three and eventually seven dolphins were caught in this manner. Fifteen bottle nose dolphins were brought in to AKR altogether.

The Dolphins are quite territorial, so it is possible that the three dolphin catches all came from two or even just one pod.

Originally AKR had constructed a dolphin enclosure facility near its museum building. The pen blew down three to four times before it was dismantled and in 2003, replaced by new pens.

In order to help with the beginning of the dolphin facility in the Bay Islands, Marine Animal Productions would send some of their trainers from Mississippi to Roatan do start working with and training the dolphins. “We hired local people right off the bat,” says Eldon. “They began teaching local trainers essentially.”

The AKR dolphin program started with four trainers and five dolphins. The original pen enclosure offered, adjacent bleacher seating and “classic dolphin performance with a commentary.”

All the dolphins from the first 1980s capture died from old age. In 2017, Paya, the last of the original dolphins, who lived up to the venerable dolphin age of 34 died. He was around five when he was caught in 1989.

Out of the 17 dolphins that live in AKR facility in 2023, two females were caught wild. Only two wild caught dolphins remain at the AKR. Gracie was caught in 1998 and Elita was caught in 2003.

The actual number of dolphins has been up and down over the years. In 1998, 2002 and 2003 the AKR went to Bay of Trujillo and Honduran coast to replenish their dolphin stocks. In March 2023 AKR had 17 dolphins: eight males and nine females, including a one year old dolphin. One or two dolphins are born in AKR each year.

While AKR’s dolphin facility is unique in Central America, there are around a dozen dolphin aquariums in Mexico, half a dozen in Cancún alone. AKR has maxed at 32 dolphins. “From the management standpoint that is a nightmare,” says Eldon.

As the dolphins began to reproduce more steadily AKR had more than enough dolphins and even provided other sea mammals facilities with their dolphins. In 2003 AKR provided animals to the Curaçao Sea Aquarium and Ocean World in Dominican Republic. In 2013 they provided dolphins to Nassau Bahamas. AKR helped in designing and sometime staffing those facilities, the influence of AKR on the dolphins is quite considerable.

AKR dolphin facilities are unique because the dolphins are allowed to spend time in the bay. So the animals are familiar with the space outside the pen in case of bad weather and break down. “We don’t have any problems with animals trying to escape,” says Eldon. “If we took the nets down they would not leave the lagoon.”

One male, two mothers and two calves were lost during Hurricane Mitch. The pen holding them disintegrated in the water storm surge and dolphins escaped. “They made their way out of the channel and we never saw them again. We looked all over,” says Eldon. Three of these were wild caught and remembered how to provide for themselves. They most likely made their way to the coast.

According to Eldon the dolphins don’t escape, they are content in the enclosed, but not escape tight facility in Sandy Bay. “I prefer to think that we give them everything that they need, good food and each other” says Teri Bolton, Assistant Director at Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences Honduras. “They have a pod and they are more important to each other than we ever will be.”

The dolphins not only have their physical needs met, they are entertained, stimulated and have enough social interactions to keep them happy. “They have that family structure so there is no need for them to want to leave,” says Teri.

The dolphins have a variety of tasks and activities throughout the day to keep them occupied and entertained. “It’s more complicated than it looks. We are dealing with living, breathing, soulful animals that are much more important to each other than we are to them,” says Teri Bolton.

Every September and October AKR has been offering dolphin therapies for kids with disabilities. Groups of 20 disabled children travel to Roatan every September and October to have twice-a-day interaction sessions with the bottlenose Dolphins at AKR. “I only wish we could do more of that,” says Julio Galindo, about the 25 year old program.

AKR dolphin facility also gets involved in rescue operations from time to time. During Hurricane Mitch, the Bay Islands and especially Guanaja were pounded by ferocious winds causing enormous damage to the reef, and forests of the islands. Many dolphins died, or barely survived. In Guanaja a dolphin washed into a swampy area, unable to swim back to open water. It managed to survive for several days and was spotted by islanders who alerted AKR. Eldon brought the animal to AKR and tried to nurse the bottlenose female back to health for a week, but she was too worn down and wounded to survive. “Its skin was peeling off. It was a bad, bad situation,” says Eldon. “That was the only time we had to put an animal down.”

They have several enclosure pens that are used for housing and training during the day. “We tend to move them around to prevent boredom,” says Eldon. The enclosures range from zero depth at shoreline to 20 feet deep. The biggest dolphin pen is ¾ acre. There are several isolation holding pens that could be used as maternity areas. “Occasionally males are isolated from a newborn baby calf to assure safety of that calf,” says Eldon. “The males can get aggressive, like a lion would.”

AKR dolphin trainers take out their dolphins from their pens on a regular basis. “At the end of the day we draw all the gates down and let our animals run,” says Eldon. “We are very unique in the way we manage our heard.” Only facilities in Curaçao and Bahamas take their bottlenose dolphins out on regular basis. All-in-all the AKR dolphins have one acre of enclosed area to swim in.

Feeding the dolphins and keeping them healthy with good, consistent feed is a key task. The dolphins receive four feedings a day. While a small 12 month dolphin eats as little as two pounds of fish a day, a grown dolphin eats over 30 pounds per day.

As main source of food for the AKR’s bottlenose dolphins is Capelin fish from Newfoundland, Iceland and Norway. The staffs sometime buy juvenile herring from France and occasionally Atlantic herring from North America and Norway. “The prices went sky high in the last five years. 30-40 percent increase in price,” says Eldon. “We are buying feed worldwide.”

Each dolphin is assigned a place on board of how many and what type of fish food it is given during each of four daily feeding sessions. For every five pounds of feed a vitamin tablet is placed in the gills of the fish fed to the dolphins.

Every couple weeks each dolphin’s length and girth is measured to monitor their weight. “The idea is not to over feed them and not to underfeed them,” says Kenly McCoy, one of 12 dolphin caretakers who have been with AKR since 1996.

The AKR dolphins supplement their diet by catching fish and other sea creatures that stray into their pens. They feed on unsuspecting snappers and blue tang. “I have seen them eat lobsters,” says McCoy.

About every three months AKR dolphins have a shipment of food arriving from the US. A specialty supplier in US out of Newport, Rhode Island ships two 20 foot freezer containers via Naviera Hybur. Then the fish, up to 40,000 pounds, is stored in freezers at the AKR’s dolphin facility.

As the AKR facility uses 400 Lbs of fish a day getting local feed for the dolphins has proved difficult. “We tried for years to work with our shrimp fleet because they have a lot of by catch. They have a lot of dead fish that they bring in when they are shrimping,” says Eldon. To make an optimum feed for the dolphins, the entire fish has to be frozen quickly to eliminate the possibility of the intestines beginning to rot.

Dolphins cannot eat gutted fish as that food has not enough nutrients for the sea mammal. According to Eldon, the Roatan shrimp boats are not geared for processing and freezing which creates a health risk for the dolphins that would consume these fish. “They get parasite loads from food they take in,” explains Eldon.

Anthony’s Key Resort facility uses 400 Lbs of fish a day.

AKR runs a variety of educational programs with the dolphins. There is a volunteer program, a six week internship program and a scientist programs at the Dolphin center. “Bottlenose dolphins are the ones we know the most about because we have been exposed to them for the longest time,” says Teri. “It is a very exciting time for research on the dolphins.”

The number and variety of careers associated with dolphin research and keep has multiplied over the last three decades. “You can be in animal care, you can be a lab technician, an educator, a research scientist,” says Terri. “It is a very exciting time because technology has caught up with the dolphins.”

Teri Bolton oversees researchers who come to study dolphin behavior at AKR. There is a strong and ongoing connection of AKR’s dolphin program with several academic institutions. Dolphin observation study has been conducted by Rees Magnasco’s group Lab out of Columbia University and Rockefeller University. Most reputable facilities are also promoting conservation, education, providing opportunities for scientists.

It is a very exciting time for research on the dolphins.

AKR’s dolphin program is host to several scientists and doctoral candidates. One of them is PhD candidate Melissa Voisinet who studies dolphin cognition and communication at Hunter College and Rockefeller University. Voisinet spent many weeks observing the AKR dolphins.

Public display of the dolphins and activities with them provide major economic sources for the upkeep of the dolphins. The bottlenose dolphin is exposed to guests for three to three-and-a-half hour a day.

The twice-a-day dolphin programs at AKR has allowed others to sell island boat tour packages that include a stop-by-the AKR dolphin pens. In high season as many as 17 tourist boats make their way to AKR’s Bailey’s Key. “The noise and fumes are bad for the dolphins,” says Teri. “They need good water, good food and clean air just like we do,” says Eldon.