In the Summer 2024 issue of Paya Magazine, a piece titled “Island Planting Grounds” begins with the following: “Early on a windless Saturday morning in the 1980s, with the sea so calm that it is flat at the reef line, it occurs to you to feed the fish that collect around the gazebo at Fantasy Island. Many of you know the place.”

“Many of you know the place.” That sentence is equally applicable to all of Fantasy Island, particularly in the minds of Bay Islanders who have known the place since July 1989, where Sunday afternoons were spent on the Fantasy Island beach with a shrimp boil in full force beneath the coconut trees, and Saturday nights were spent beneath the giant circular palapa listening to live music. Now it is gone. At the same time, it somehow remains.

Fantasy Island was built by Albert Jackson, a native of French Harbour and a prominent Roatan businessman. Jackson also owned Mariscos Agua Azul, a seafood processing company. D.V. Woods, also of French Harbour, was charged with overseeing construction. Woods later became one of the island’s many avid participants in the annual fishing tournament now known as the Roatan International Fishing Tournament, a well-regarded and popular event that began at Fantasy Island. It was originally called the Roatan Fishing Tournament, and for the first 11 years, it was sponsored by the Fantasy Island Dive Resort and Marina and Texaco.

The resort hosted Roger Moore of James Bond.

The main structure of the original Fantasy Island Dive Resort and Marina was an L-shaped building. The lobby, reception and restaurant were located at the right angle of the L. The resort was initially geared toward visitors from the United States, and bookings were all-inclusive. Breakfast and lunch were buffet-style, with dinners served à la carte. The lunch buffets were served in the circular palapa instead of the restaurant, since patrons would usually have just come in from scuba diving. The lunch buffet options included standard fare and island staples, including fried fish, barbecued chicken, and beans and rice.

The resort’s first workers were locals, including kitchen staff. Many members of the original staff had relevant experience in the service industry, especially on cruise ships.

The resort opened to the public on Sundays. Folks came from around Roatan to enjoy the day on the beach and at the beach bars. These days centered around a boil of either shrimp, Spanish lobster caught in Honduran waters, or blue crabs caught in the Roatan bush. Thursday and Saturday nights featured special events under the palapa. A local band called Joseph and the Boys played live music. The favored music was country and western, calypso, reggae and soca. The lobby bar hosted weekly karaoke nights.

In the early years, most visitors to the resort were scuba divers from the United States. Over time, a steady clientele from mainland Honduras also developed. The Fantasy Island dive shop and marina were built along the west end of the key, with the dive shop originally run by Ben, a Garifuna from Punta Gorda.

The resort’s success led to later construction that added a marina and new rooms. During this time, the resort hosted Roger Moore, of James Bond fame, and Julio Iglesias. Those were the golden days of Fantasy Island for many of us.

Smiling at the Future and Thinking about the Past

Cergia González García was born on February 2, 1939 in Punta Gorda. She was the third of five children born to Ebencio González, a farmer, and Everista García. She was raised by her grandmother, Guillerma. “I remember plenty of things,” says Mrs. Cergia about her youth. “I remember waking up at 5 a.m. to pick up cohune [nuts].” She was five, and already working to help the family make ends meet. A boat from French Harbour comes to pick up the nuts every 15 days.

Helping the family came at a cost.

Helping the family came at a cost. As a child, Mrs. Cergia never had a chance to go to school. Only when Mrs. Cergia was in her thirties did she had a chance to go to school. She learned how to read and write in an educational program for adults that is given at a school in Punta Gorda. For 19 years, she worked as a domestic worker in Jonesville. She had three children, then married, and had another eight.

Since she turned 65, Mrs. Cergia began selling small food items from a small wooden table on the side of the street in Punta Gorda. Her son manages a bar right behind her stand.

She has a confident gaze, and an air of comfort about her. “I don’t regret nothing (sic!),” says Mrs. Cergia. She feels right at home in the middle of Punta Gorda’s street.

Dennis was born in 1973 in Tela, and he moved with his mother Tomasa to Mango Creek, Independence in Belize when he was one year old. She worked at a banana farm and mango farm in what was then a British Colony. Dennis’ mother is a Garifuna from Triunfo de la Cruz and his father Gell is from La Mosquitia.

He is a self-taught artist. “I drew everything that is around me,” says Luma about his painting days as a young boy growing up in a Belizean seaside village. When he had no money for paints, he would make paints out of plant seeds and discarded items he would find on the street.

Luma remembers being a boy who always found a way to paint. “I was driven to do it… It was something natural in me,” remembers Luma. A Mexican couple, who were visiting tourists saw little Dennis painting and decided to pay for his education at Miguel De Cervantes art school in Quintana Roo.

After a few years he found his way to Roatan. It was 1991 and the island was just starting to register on horizons of travelers and divers. Luma struggled at first, but eventually found a way to support himself as an artist. In 1990s the island was very much off the beaten path. It was like a rich, green canvas waiting to be embraced by artists. “It was beautiful: trees and white sand beaches,” Luma remembers Roatan from that time. “Art is Life. Life is Art. Everywhere you turn around you see some beauty.” He had seen Roatan grow and develop from a sleepy island to a booming tourist destination.

Luma’s art has been echoing that beauty that is quickly disappearing and being replaced. He paints large scale murals, sometime underwater seascapes filled with color, life and sea creatures: octopi, sharks, dolphins. His murals can be seen all over Punta Gorda. “I want the people to know about the Garifuna Culture and be inspired by it,” says Luma. He recently illustrated a book about Garifuna culture.

Luma’s art has been echoing that beauty that is quickly disappearing and being replaced.

Now Roatan is booming and Luma has found his stride focusing on art that resonates with his Garifuna roots. He illustrated the book of Garifuna history. “I am creating emotion that is positive,” says Luma while he stands in the back of a nondescript apartment in West End. His studio is an inspiring backdrop as it faces a wall of green plants and trees.

Luma can’t sit still; he is always up looking for places that could become the canvass of his work. “I do acrylic, I do oil, I do synthetic, I even paint on cars,” says Luma. “It is really hard for me to stop on one thing. The world is really diverse.”

Right now, the most important things in Luma’s life are being recognized by a younger generation and creating awe. “I am proud when a youngster stops by and admires it… That fills me up with joy,” says Luma.

He works with children to create murals. One of his projects is painting a 10 foot by 20-foot mural in front of Sunrise Church in Sandy Bay. Some of his legacy is working with island youth on large murals. “I can be painting all my life, but without a legacy I am not leaving anything,” says Luma.

President Carías headed Honduras in 1924, and then again from 1933 to 1949. Mr. Basilio risked his life by staying in Olancho and in 1924 he preferred to start his life anew on the then very remote island of Roatan. Even here he decided to settle in an area that was remote and visited by few people. His Olanchano friend and fellow political activist Matilde Santos followed him and eventually Encarnación Sevilla joined them as well.

Juticalpa was home to Santos Moradel who had three daughters: Viviana, Pasquala and Ingimia. Soon Basilio married Pasquala, his friend Matilde Santos married Viviana and Encarnación married Ingimia.

While US and Europe were going through the Great Depression, Honduras went through the crisis much less affected. Thousands of Hondurans lost work as US consumers demand for bananas fell. In 1935 Black Sigatoka epidemic damaged many banana plantations. Extensive banana areas around Trujillo were abandoned.

In 1935 Black Sigatoka epidemic damaged many banana plantations.

In 1937 the Triburcio Carías Andino unleashed another wave of political repression imprisoning left leaning political activists. Communists were gaining influence all over Latin America. While Carías declared the Communist Party (PCH) of Honduras illegal, the Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH) was active for a few more years.

When Filomena was nine years old, in 1937, her father decided the political climate in Honduras made it no longer safe to live on the island. With the two other Olanchanos of Juticalpa he decided to leave for Belize. They sailed from Punta Gorda on a cayuco with a small sail. They sent some letters to their wives and family. They even sent some money through Jim Gaugh in Oak Ridge. They were afraid to return and died in exile in Belize.

Mrs. Filomena had received only two years of public school in Oak Ridge, and remembers her two colleagues drowning when their cayuco flipped as they paddled to school in Oak Ridge Cay.

At 17 Mrs. Filomena married Domingo Ramos, an accordion player. Her husband was in demand to play music at Saturday evening dances in Oak Ridge and Milton Bight. He could play the accordion, banjo and cimbalom. Being a musician didn’t create enough income and Mr. Domingo worked in the fields, looked after cattle and worked as a security guard.

Mrs. Filomena stayed at home looking after the couple’s eight children. Back in the 1940s there were four houses in First Bight. “We were poor, but we gave our childrens love”, says Mrs. Filomena. “That is something I am most proud off.”

We were poor, but we gave our childrens Love.

Mrs. Filomena is catholic and in 1940s and 50s she attended Catholic Masses and services whenever she had a chance to. There would be a priest visiting the Punta Gorda Garifuna community every so often and celebrating mass at the church there. There was also a small chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows in a Catholic home in Brick Bay.

Mrs. Filomena is nimble, and moves around her blue painted cement home with agility and purpose. While Alzheimer’s has made her forget many things from recent past, her memory from her youth remains vivid.

Today, one of Mrs. Filomena’s most prized possessions as a photo of her, her husband and her oldest daughter Aida in front of their home in First Bight. It was taken in 1948 by Luis Chirinos, a photographer based in Oak Ridge that for 50 cents would take and print a photograph for local people.

Roatan’s East Side Looks Towards Brighter Future

Santos Guardiola, is the largest in area of the four municipalities on the Bay Islands. It did not always exist in the obscurity it finds itself now, but was once a thriving fishing community with more fishing vessels than any other municipality in Honduras.

“I remember Oak Ridge harbor being busy with fishing and cargo boats in and out all day long,” said Joonel Solórzano, whose stepfather owned the popular Blue Bayou restaurant overlooking Oak Ridge Harbor.

Established in 1960 and named for one of Honduras former president, S.G. boasted a dry dock that kept local fishing fleet in top shape and a seafood factory that exported its goods to the US and employed hundreds of workers from all over the island.

Santos Guardiola has lived in the shadow of its little sister.

Decades ago, Santos Guardiola was also the center of entertainment. “Back then, we were able to party for days with no problem and there were no crimes to worry about,” said Zelda Nixon, a resident of Pandy Town. Santos Guardiola was also home to several popular bars and restaurant including the famous and now defunct, Casa Grande in Pandy Town. There was also Happy Landing on Oak Ridge Point and Blue Bay restaurant on Lawrence Hill, Oak Ridge.

Compared to its sister municipality on the west, Santos Guardiola has been struggling when it comes to growth, development and finding its own identity. Santos Guardiola has lived in the shadow of its little sister to the west for years, however, S.G is slowly moving out of obscurity and back into its own light.

Created in 1960, the youngest municipality in the Bay Islands has seen a resurgence of old businesses and the upsurge of new ones. Super Economico, a supermarket in Oak Ridge, near the bus stop, opened its doors in January of 2017. “My father liked the area because of the land and sea proximity,” said Claudia Ramirez who helps run her family business.

With steady growth and construction taking place on the Roatan’s east, the building supply and hardware chain, Madeyso, inaugurated a store in Pandy Town, in June of 2017. The store employs 10 workers from the area. “We opened a store in Santos Guardiola because we had more clients on the east of Roatan than anywhere else,” said Jolanie Romero, a sales adviser working with the company since 2013. “It was difficult to cover all the [eastern] communities requesting material such as Diamond Rock, Pandy Town, and Camp Bay, in one day.”

In 2015 the petroleum company Texaco opened its first gas station in S.G. at the entrance of Oak Ridge. In summer of 2019 BIP (Bay Islands Petroleum) and Circle K convenient store opened facilities in Jonesville.

In the last five years the municipality has been paving and improving roads all over the area, as small businesses continue to hit the economic trail on the east. “I was motivated to open my restaurant because of the changes taking place”, said Kislen Dilbert, owner of Island flavor restaurant in Politilly Bight. “The roads are better, which allow people to come to the east without wrecking their cars,” pointed out the former Justice of Peace for the municipality of Santos Guardiola. Happy Landing bar, on Oak Ridge Point and Henry’s Cove Resort and restaurant, in Punta Gorda, both re-penned after years of hibernation.

The growth and development have reached as far as Saint Helena, a once forgotten Santos Guardiola outpost.
This sleepy island was recently the recipient of one of the largest educational centers on the east end, it acquired community wide electricity for the first time provided by RECO, and it’s now home to the first concrete built municipal community dock in Santos Guardiola.

With all the development taking place and plans to build the first cruise ship dock on the east, the municipality of Santos Guardiola seems to be coming into its own fifth year. “If we prepare ourselves, tourism could have a huge effect on our community,” says Alex Avila, councilman for tourism and owner of Mamery Garinagu Center in Punta Gorda. “There are negative aspects of tourism, but if we are creative, make use of our natural resources, it could make the tourism industry on this end sustainable, we should be Ok”

The closing of the municipalities’ only banking 2018, had some negative effect on businesses. “The closing of Banco Atlántida has affected our business, but we are still here thanks to the support of some loyal clients that appreciates our services. To provide even more convenience to them, we convinced Ficohsa bank to open a stall in our building,” said Claudia Ramirez.

Wendy Gale, president of the patronato of Camp Bay, believes that with the building of the new cruise ship dock, banks will return and so will other businesses.

Councilwomen, Genie Hernandez says that “tourism is going to be good for S.G., but it’s important to have control so it doesn’t get out of hand; with development comes responsibility.”

The municipal office has also benefited from the changes; it helped increase; its tax revenue. It increased from 32 million Lempiras yearly to 52 million Lempiras in 2017, which has allowed for more municipal funded projects to be completed. The latest of which is the renovation of the old lighthouse in Oak Ridge, a reminder of Santos Guardiola’s prosperous past.

With things looking up for the east end of Roatan, it seems that the municipality might be regaining its place in the economical realm of the Bay Islands and finally moving out of the shadow of its little sister, and back where it once was.

Dona Lucia with her healing plants.

Doña Lucia Leads a Quiet Life Surrounded by Family and Plants

Lucia Avila-Garcia was born in Rio Esteban in 1936. She has made her living like her parents did: cultivating the soil and raising plants and animals. Her mother Guadalupe was a farmer and her father Santos was a carpenter and cayuco maker on the north coast.

She remembers summary execution of Garifuna community men in 1930s and 40s. “The soldiers would come. They asked you to put on your best clothes for a photograph. Then they would shoot you.” This took place during the presidency of Tiburcio Carias Andino from 1933 to 1949. Hundreds of Garifuna were massacred in that time and many left the country to save their lives. “I still was frightened of loud noises when I moved to Roatan,” remembers Doña Lucia.

In 1966 Doña Lucia boarded a cayuco that sailed towards the biggest of the Bay Islands. She moved to Punta Gorda when there were only a couple hundred people living there. “If you had something you shared it. If you made cassava bread, everybody helped out,” Doña Lucia remembers.

The soldiers would come. They asked you to put on your best clothes for a photograph. Then they would shoot you

Doña Izidria Mejilla, of Balfate took Lucia under her wing and taught her all about plants and healing. Doña Lucia has no books, no notes, nothing has been written of her knowledge of the island plants, herbs and trees. It is all word of mouth, a collective memory passed from one person to the next. A valerian root is fermenting in a aluminum pot next to her house. “It’s good for diabetes, strength. I’ve been fermenting it for a week,” says Doña Lucia. Her knowledge about plants and healing also came during visions she would get in her dreams where one of her ancestors, or deceased friends would suggest a use of a particular plant. “This is what we believe.”

Her humble Punta Gorda home is painted with a fading blue paint and surrounded by dozens of trees and plants. Each plant has a special, happy place with just the adequate moisture from the nearby creek and needed sunlight or shade.“I don’t feel strong in my knees, but in my heart and in my mind I feel useful,” says Doña Lucia.

The Garifuna healer gave birth to 10 children and one was given to her sister to be raised. “This is how you did it in those days,” says Doña Lucia, who has 30 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

As she walks behind her home, she picks up a handful of coconut threads and drops them into dozens of crab holes that dot her seaside property. While in most places on the island the blue crabs are hunted for food and sport, Doña Lucia sees their value and helps these creatures.

“You don’t see things like they used to be,” says Doña Lucia. “There was respect, humility. People lost all of this. There was money, but there was also love.”