The Mighty Trees of Roatan

Island communities centered their lives around trees for generations. Sometimes villages bordered forests, built homes in the shade of mango trees and planted coconuts to stabilize soil and earn income. The islanders’ relationship with trees was complex and ever evolving. “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in,” goes the anonymous Greek proverb.
As they grew, children played games in the shade of these trees. Some island teachers conducted classes under large trees in their communities. When a community didn’t have the resources to build a school building, classes would be held under the canopies of old, impressive mangoes, ceibas, guanacastes, or rain trees. Island folks would also have parties, hold meetings, and conduct church services in the shade of the trees.

The trees marked important and mundane events. “You would never take that tree down, because it was the center of the community,” said Helen Murphy, an island expat horticulturist. The trees would also be a shelter from the sun and the rain.
Some islanders would bury the placenta of their children underneath a tree in their garden. That connected them both to the earth under their feet and trees above their heads. People’s memories intertwined with the memory of the trees as live, present participants in their lives.
Roatan has many places on the island named after trees. There is Oak Ridge, Mango Creek, Calabash Bight and Mangrove Bight. There is the Oak Hill area where in 1878 the cemetery was created in French Harbour. The entire area was covered by oak trees, but now only the name remains. Trees have shaped the island since before Paya Indians set foot on the ground here about 1,000 years ago.

Norfolk Island Pines Leaning West

While there are a couple of pine species growing on the island, the Norfolk Island pine is not one of them; it is a species of conifer. “It’s not a true pine tree, because it doesn’t produce a cone or even pine,” said Bill Brady, a U.S. expat who has lived on the island since the 1970s. “The Norfolk Island pine would be a bit too flexible to be used as a mast.”

The row of 23 Norfolk Island pines (Araucaria heterophylla) is impressive by many standards. They have grown to an impressive height, lining the road in French Cay, right across from the children’s playground in French Cay. Julie Guerra’s husband planted those trees in 1980. He was José Amilcar Guerra, and he was the island’s emigration officer for decades.

He came to work at Coxen Hole’s immigration office from Tegucigalpa and stayed on the island and had a family. The pines are now 45 years old. A handful of them didn’t make it, but the ones that did are tall, strong and majestic. The tallest trees are about 25 meters tall and leaning to the west. The steady eastern trade winds marked them in such a way.

Memories intertwined with the memory of the trees.

The pines were shipped from La Ceiba, and great care was given to not only plant them, but to keep them alive and growing in the harsh sun and salty air. They had to bring water in 55-gallon drums to water them. “Early every morning,” remembers Julie Guerra, recalling the years of watering the northern Pines. “We lost one or two, but he did replace them.”

Chester Guerra, Julie and José Guerra’s son, had an idea: he decided to come back from the US to his island and start a business, “La Hacienda del Cielo”. In early 2025, he built a petting farm, a marketplace, an aviary and a tropical tree garden. Chester then returned to his native island. “It came from an idea of building a small parrot cage for his two children,” said Guerra.

ESBIR’s Guanacaste

The four Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum) trees at Coxen Hole’s ESBIR school entrance have been there for four decades. They were there before the Coxen Hole school was built. They are 120 feet tall and provide great shade for the parking lot at the school.

The Guanacaste trees were planted by Sheryl Galindo, the school’s owner, in the early 1990s. One of ESBIR’s Guanacastes was struck by lightning, and its fallen trunk was made into furniture. One of those furniture pieces is a stunning meeting table used by the ESBIR teachers in the school.

ESBIR’s Guanacaste was struck by lightning.

Guanacaste and Ceiba trees are the biggest island trees by volume of trunk and size of their canopy. Their canopies span 30 meters across, and they, if circumstances allow, grow as tall as 30 meters. “Guanacaste has got all that great seedpod that drops to the ground entirely so the birds are not carrying that around,” says Murphy.

Almond Trees

In the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s in Sandy Bay, everyone would gather on Friday to watch a cow being slaughtered and its meat being cut and prepared for sale. This was done just east of AKR, on Mr. Dyke Grant’s property.

A giant almond tree (Terminalia catappa) served that purpose. The butcher would hoist the carcass of the cow up by one of the almond tree’s limbs. This was a regular, weekly Sandy Bay spectacle and a chance for locals to meet, laugh and gossip. In the mid-2000s, the almond tree was cut down to make room for a house.

Sea Grape Survivors

Sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera) trees are valuable resources and contribute to the longevity of the island’s natural ecosystem. Sea grapes are the most personable trees on the island, with specimens hundreds of years old. Their roots stabilize beach sand, preventing erosion.

These incredible survivors can be taken down by storms and hurricanes but manage to hold on to life. They turn their downward branches into roots and their upward branches into trunks, continuing to live and produce fruit.

The fruits of the sea grape, as they turn from green to purple, are harvested and fermented to make island wine. Their sweet-tasting grapes are sometimes used to make jams and jellies.

Some builders ensure they preserve as many trees as they can. The Watercolors development project in West Bay features sea grapes that are large, old, and full of character. “What also has surprised me is how much visitors and tourists like and appreciate the fact that I am preserving the trees and incorporating them into my project,” said Murphy, who worked on the landscaping of that West Bay project. “My advice to all developers is you will attract a lot more buyers by preserving your trees. Make sure you protect them carefully during your construction.”

Giant Coconut King

The tallest coconut on the island was the king coconut that towered above all others on the beach at Palmetto Bay. It was visible from the water from 200 meters away. In 2023, this coconut giant died and the beach lost its old landmark.

The coconut was more than 80 feet tall, it survived Hurricane Mitch and was likely around 100 years old when it withered and died. It was perhaps the tallest coconut on the island. “I came to the island in 1996; it was already very tall,” said Gary Chamer, a resident of Palmetto Bay Plantation since 1998.

Diseases like White Fly and Lethal Yellowing decimated the coconut groves all over the island. Thousands of coconuts died in the 1990s. “Their name was Jamaican tall; they grew 200 feet tall and would sway side to side. They had hundreds of them in West Bay,” says Brady.

Their roots stabilize beach sand.

A few of the king coconuts survived on Roatan here and there. Some of them were lucky, and some had better genetics and were more resistant to Lethal Yellowing. According to Murphy, maybe 5% of the Jamaican Talls coconuts made it unscathed. They were tall, handsome, and all-around good-for-everything providers. The King coconut is a great all-around tree. “They are good for everything. They are good for water, for milk, for making oil, for all of it,” says Murphy.

This wasn’t the first time the disease pillaged across the region. Lethal Yellowing was already noted in Grand Cayman in 1834 and in Jamaica in 1884. Lethal Yellowing symptoms include premature nut fall, yellowing of the leaves, and defoliation. It affects not only the coconut palms but many palm species.

To remedy the decimation of coconuts in Honduras, in the early 2000s, Standard Fruit and Tela Railroad Company started to bring in coconuts from many different places. They imported a couple of containers of coconuts from Costa Rica — Malaysian Shorts and Pacific Talls. The Malaysian produces a yellow, elongated coconut fruit, and the Pacific Talls is stunningly tall and elongated.

Cemetery Acacias

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) Trees compete for resources: water, good soil, sun and air. They angle themselves at precarious angles to take in the sun, even if this means growing at 45 degrees and away from taller trees above them.

The Royal Poinciana acacia, when it blooms with its red flowers, is arguably the most attractive tree on the island. Its red flowers are a beacon of beauty that appears in places all around the island. A couple of them grow by the French Harbour cemetery.

Rubber Fig Tree of AKR

The Anthony’s Key Resort fig (Ficus elastica) is a tree to behold. Four grown men would need to wrap their hands around it. This particular tree was planted by Julio Galindo, AKR’s owner, in 1973 or 1974.

The fig tree is full of surprises. “It’s a rubber tree. Some of the old people would call it the ‘walking tree’ because it spreads so big,” says Galindo. This tree is native to South Asia, can grow to be 150 feet tall, and its trunk maxes out at seven feet in diameter. The tree is getting bigger and grows right next to a bathroom building at the resort. “It busts everything apart — the concrete, the wood,” says Galindo. “We constantly have to expand that every couple of years.”

To live near this type of fig is a challenge, and not everyone likes these giants. “There is nothing good about them,” says Murphy. “They are super messy. The roots are invasive. It is not a pleasure to trim them or cut them.” Indeed, their roots are opportunistic at locating any moisture in the ground. They travel 30 to 40 meters, and their brown, hard roots find their way into the smallest cracks of piping.

Long-Living Oak Trees

There is an impressive, old oak tree (Quercus oleoides) behind the plant nursery in Carniagro in French Harbour. Oaks are a tree species that is more abundant on the southern slopes of Roatan. They thrive in dry forests and pasturelands from Mexico to Costa Rica and reach 50 feet in height.

Their pale gray leaves are evergreen.
Live oaks stay green all the time. They are not deciduous; they don’t drop their leaves all at the same time like other types of oak trees sometimes do. As a consequence, their leaves are very acidic, and this acid prevents grass from growing underneath them. “You can’t really grow a lawn underneath an oak tree,” says Murphy.

The availability of oak made Roatan attractive to pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries. They needed hardwood for ship repairs, and they had plenty in Port Royal. “Hard to work with, but strong,” Murphy said about this lumber.

These oaks are some of the oldest trees we see on the island. They are easily 120 to 150, even 200 years old. Some of the older ones were here when the first Cayman Islander settlers came to the island in the 1830s. “I used to see entire rows of 200-year-old oak trees,” says Mr. Brady. “They used them for masts. It was a strong wood.”

Oak made Roatan attractive to pirates.

Oak lumber was a valuable resource for boat builders in Oak Ridge and French Cay who appreciated the hardness of the lumber that came from oak. “Ceibas, oaks, sea grape, figs and Santa Marias that used to be abundant were used by the boat builders,” said Julio Galindo.

Crawfish Rock Mangos

The mango trees [Mangifera indica] of Crawfish Rock are the center of the community. This is a place to pick up a snack, play football, chat with a neighbor or have a community meeting. You always found people talking in the shade of a mango. “Mango trees were sacred,” said Murphy. “They loved their mango so much.”

The Creole mangoes are abundant and abundantly fruitful. Haden mango is the second most popular mango tree on Roatan. There is even a mango festival in West End organized by Susie Ebanks. “My dad Keiffer Ebanks planted eight papaya mango trees in the mid-1970s,” said Ebanks who remembers making mango jam with her mother. “For many, many years; we were the only ones who had them in West End.”

Old Mangrove of Coxen Hole

White mangrove trees (Avicennia marina) were a part of Coxen Hole since the 1830s, when Cayman Islanders came here to settle. As Coxen Hole becomes more and more urban, the island’s biggest settlement is running high on cement and low on trees. “Anyone who had a private home, they always had plants and trees,” Murphy remembers of Coxen Hole in the 1980s. “Everybody had a lime tree.”

While the white mangrove tree across from the old municipal building in Coxen Hole is probably not the biggest mangrove on the island, it has plenty of character and plenty of size. It has been giving shade to cars parked underneath its branches. The parking fee is Lps. 20 an hour.

The site of the old tree is just a stone’s throw from the old municipal dock, just three or four feet above sea level. It is right in front of the Cooper Building and not far from the old Roatan Municipality. It looks like a tired, venerable giant. One of its giant branches fell to the ground and lifted itself up again — like a resting colossus.

This particular white mangrove looks like it has been in that spot well over 100 years. It looks like a fallen soldier in battle. It is 20 meters tall, and it has a beautiful and weathered trunk: a faded black color.

It has openings and crevices in its weathered trunk. A local builder has abandoned some construction wood next to it, and eight cars can park under its shade easily.

This old mangrove is flanked by almond trees and sea grape trees, not quite as old as the mangrove. The soil is sandy and compact. It has a lot of character. Some of its branches have been sawn off.

Ceibon of La Colonia Higuerito

La ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) is a giant tree that gave its name to Roatan’s maritime gateway on the Honduran mainland. There are a few ceibas on the island, but a particularly impressive specimen grows right across the street from Colonia’s Ramírez Supermarket in Sandy Bay.

When the Sandy Bay colonia canal was dredged out, some tree lovers worried whether the tree would survive. “I was worried they were going to damage the roots of that tree,” said Helen Murphy. “But it seems to be a survivor.”

Heavy construction and disruption of the soil have not helped the tree, which has become a reference point for locals and a bit of a landmark with its giant size. “It is hanging between life and death. Sometimes you see it with leaves,” says Mr. Bill Brady.

The ceiba is now 25 meters tall, and its canopy is over 30 meters across, but that is not the end. “They [ceibas] are medium-fast growers,” says Murphy. “It is 70 to 80, maybe 100 years old, so it’s worth saving.” While some of the Roatan ceibas are big and old, the biggest specimens can be found right across the water in La Ceiba, named after the tree. One of the largest specimens is in the Higuerito neighborhood. “It would take four people to surround it and touch hands,” says Murphy.

Most Challenging BI Road Project to Date

This task came at a price. “The risk of employees working in such big cuts and in confined areas, and with cars transiting [practically] on top of them throughout the day were some of the biggest challenges,” said Devin McNab, General Manager of Elite, a company that is constructing the project. The French Harbour-based construction company, founded in 2007 and employing 350 workers, has become the island’s most experienced concrete road building firm.

The Coxen Hole project broke ground in June 2024, and McNab expects the work to conclude in June 2025. “The project seems that is going slow, but there are more than $2 million of underground [black water] infrastructure,” said McNab of the Coxen Hole black water system.

“ZOLITUR has been visionary and it’s the only institution that has looked after the [black water] problem.”

The paving of the PO-35 across Roatan’s biggest city is estimated at 59.9 million [$2.4 million] and is the most expensive per kilometer road Roatan has seen. “These 1.5 kilometers cost more than the 11 kilometers that were paved from the garbage dump to West End,” says McNab. “We are working nights. We are pouring [concrete] late nights instead of the day to alleviate the traffic.”

The project was originally designed to have bridges, but the Municipality of Roatan noticed there was an opportunity to save money by eliminating the bridges and expanding the culvert boxes in several different locations of the urban road project. There are three sections with culvert boxes, one by Serrano Hardware, another by the triángulo section, and a third by the ESBIR school street entrance. “You need to make it [Coxen Hole] more of a city than a town,” said Ing. Castillo, infrastructure chief of the Roatan Municipality.

The road crossing in Coxen Hole will consist of two 3.5 meter lanes, two bicycle lanes, and two sidewalks. “We are not cutting corners,” says McNab. The idea is for this portion – the busiest and most urban of the PO-35 road – to last 30-40 years. The PO-35 originates in West Bay and goes for 54 kilometers to Camp Bay Village.

The most expensive per kilometer road

The entire island of Roatan has been getting a vehicular road heart surgery since 2018. In 2024, the construction company Celaque has paved a concrete road from the Punta Gorda entrance east to Diamond Rock, but has not finished the portion that was supposed to reach Camp Bay village. Palmetto to Crawfish road is waiting for construction to begin this year.

The José Santos Guardiola portion of the PO-35 road is being rebuilt as well. The entire length in the contract is 7.2 kilometers. The municipality of Jose Santos Guardiola has awarded Elite a contract to construct 3 km of the road. ZOLITUR has funds for another 1.2 kilometers of the concrete road, and the central government has finally awarded Elite the three-kilometer contract from their budget.

His first memory as a child was a church celebration. As Methodist’ Church in Coxen Hole celebrated its harvest festival, children were carrying gifts. “I had my offering, and when they came to get it, I didn’t want to give it. They said: ‘He’s going to be a mean fellow,’” said Mr. Sam.

When his mother begun working at Vincente D’Antoni Hospital in La Ceiba, the young Sam followed her there in 1947. “All the doctors came from the States, so they couldn’t speak Spanish. They would hire young ladies from the islands who could speak English,” remembers Mr. Sam. While on Roatan, he received tutoring classes. He had four years of schooling at Methodist School in La Ceiba.

In 1952, he went out to sea as an OS (Ordinary Sailor) and graduated to AB (Able Sailor). Then he went to work in the pump room. In 1955, he had saved enough money to enroll in a technical course in diesel, at a technical school in Chicago. “I always was yearning to further my education,” remembers Mr. Sam.

He saved for three years to afford a course that offered opportunities for advancement. He went to a school in Chicago that offered six months intensive courses in “diesel” technology.

After the course, Mr. Sam came back to Roatan and began working at Casa Warren, Coxen Hole’s biggest supermarket. In 1961, he met his wife, Myrel Anderson from Sandy Bay through work. “I had been running for a long time,” says Mr. Sam. The couple tied the knot and began their long life together.

He was a personable, intelligent young man, and some people were surprised to see him living on a small island. A casual acquaintance – an American doctor visiting from Oklahoma – helped Mr. Sam secure a work visa in the United States. “That is why it’s good to have a little diploma,” remembers Mr. Sam.

When he arrived in the US, he immediately applied for a job at Ford Motor Company in New Jersey. Before long, he was working in Manhattan. Mr. Sam sent for his wife to join him, and before long he was enjoying what was one of the greatest boom decades in US history – 1961-1964 – in New York City.

Eventually, island life called, and Mr. Sam came back to Roatan. “I promised him I would come back,” said Mr. Sam. He worked at Casa Warren in Coxen Hole, the island’s biggest grocery store.

The island was small, but growing, and opportunities were all around. The airline industry was connecting major locations around Honduras, and Roatan was one of them. When an airline came calling to open a regular connection with Roatan, Mr. Sam was there.

The first airline that came to the island with a connection to La Ceiba, in 1947, was Transportes Aéreos Nacionales. Soon after, LANSA came in with their service between Roatan and the coast, and Mr. Sam became its Roatan agent.

Mr. Sam remembers Bill Earle, the owner of LANSA who knew a man named Robert Webster, a licensed pilot from Guanaja, and the two went into business together. “They buckled up together and became partners,” said Mr. Grant.

He saved for three years to afford a course.

The airline needed at least one passenger to stay profitable on the Roatan route, and Mr. Sam made sure there was always someone wanting to visit la Ceiba. He worked out of his desk at Casa Warren selling the Roatan-La Ceiba tickets for 12 Lempiras (82 cents). “Within six months, we had five planes,” remembers Mr. Grant.

Mr. Sam recalls the original landing strip located on the side of the road just east of Coxen Hole. “On one side, there were coconuts, on the other, there was a road. (…) The cows, the cats, and the dogs were all running,” remembers Mr. Grant. Eventually, the nearby “Church hill” – part of the Methodist Mission – and graveyard were both leveled in order to enlarge the landing strip. “The terminal was out of thatched roof,” remembers Mr. Sam.

There were some setbacks with the airlines as well. There was an accident with a 10-seater plane coming from Cayman Islands, stopping over on Roatan on its way to Tegucigalpa. It dropped to the sea in Dixon Cove. “They just ran out of fuel. It was an error by the pilots,” remembers Mr. Sam. Two pilots and two passengers died in the crash.

Mr. Grant knew three Americans that saw Roatan’s potential and invested their money in land and projects that benefited the island. “The government didn’t start tourism here, the foreigners did,” remembers Mr. Sam. In 1960 there were three Americans that were pioneers. There was Mr. Roy Anderson on the east side of Roatan, Paul Adams on the west end of the island, and John Henley, from Birmingham, Alabama, who focused his efforts on the middle of Roatan. “He went into leasing instead of buying, and the government changed the law and foreigners couldn’t [invest any longer],” remembers Mr. Grant.

The first tourist hotels appeared on the island soon thereafter – Spyglass Hill in Punta Gorda was the first, AKR the second, and CocoView the third. As the island grew, it also found itself in the path of three powerful Hurricanes in less than a decade: Francelia in 1969, Fifi in 1974, and Greta in 1978.

The terminal was out of the thatched roof.

In 1990 Mr. Sam began working at the Roatan Municipality with Mayor Allan Hyde as his “number two man, [that] now it is called vice-alcalde… or ‘official mayor’,” remembers Mr. Sam. “I would work for him under one condition: I would work under one boss – Allan Hyde,” said Mr. Sam. “I didn’t take ‘mordida,’ I didn’t want any handout.”

The Roatan municipal budget was small, but sufficient to finance some badly needed construction projects. Mr. Sam helped to build a Coxen Hole municipal market and new City hall building. “The last one didn’t even have a good bathroom, no conference table,” said Mr. Sam.

The Roatan municipal budget was small, but sufficient to finance some badly needed construction projects. Mr. Sam helped to build a Coxen Hole municipal market and new City hall building. “The last one didn’t even have a good bathroom, no conference table,” said Mr. Sam.

He continued to preach on the island and look after his five children. Looking back, Mr. Sam sees that the biggest difference he made was that of following the true and narrow path of life. “’Let the people remember you for good, not walls, not statues,’ this is what my mother told me, and now I understand it,” says Mr. Grant.

At the Forefront of Casa Warren’s Legacy

Ivy’s siblings were Timothy, Cheryl, Kirby, and Esther. Mrs. Ivy’s first memory is drinking from an oat meal glass on the kitchen table that usually contained peppers, mutton peppers and onions. The glass had only had vinegar, and the young Ivy, maybe three years old, drunk the vinegar form the glass.

She did her ABCs to sixth grade using Royal Readers English textbooks. “As small children, we had to do both Spanish [public] school and English school,” remembers Mrs. Ivy. At eight, she begun taking music lessons from her aunt, married to Paul Ebanks.

The 15th of September was a very important date in Roatan’s calendar. School children from all over Roatan would gather in the island’s capital to march and celebrate Honduras’ Independence Day. “Our teacher taught us: ‘Honduras es mi patria,’” remembers Mrs. Ivy. At seven o’clock in the morning the children would await a boat send by the municipality.

In order to go to a store or attend church service Mrs. Ivy walked from West End to Coxen Hole. “That was a little, narrow road, that you buckled your ankles if you didn’t watch it,” remembers Mrs. Ivy, The foot and horse path that runs between West End across the hills to Flowers Bay. “We had ticks, uuuuu, loads of ticks,” remembers Mrs. Ivy. The walk to Coxen Hole would take two hours and some rode horses to save time, but Mrs. Ivy was afraid of horses.

The last day of the week was a special time for the entire family. “We went to West Bay almost every Sunday afternoon. We ate a lot of coco plums and grapes, they were wild. Jim Díaz, Foster Díaz’s grandfather, used to live in a little house in West Bay.” These were bucolic days for Roatan and for many children that grew up on the island. “There were a lot of crabs. They were clean,” remembers Mrs. Ivy. “We would pick them by the sack, take them home and boil them. We still love the crabs.”

In 1952 the Warren family moved from West End to La Ceiba so children could receive more formal education. The family was there for four years to take advantage the city’s schools and colleges.

In 1950s there was only one municipality on the island, and Coxen Hole was its capital. It was a busy town and it had thriving general store. Mr. Warren had an opportunity to buy a building that became Casa Warren, Warren’s Supermarket and now is Eldon’s Supermarket in Coxen Hole.

Warren Hotel with its seven rooms was the first hotel in the Bay Islands.

In January of 1955 the Warren family traveled on “Colonel Cruz” boat leaving La Ceiba banana company dock at midnight at arriving at the Coxen Hole municipal dock at 6am. “It was always a pretty rough ride.”

Mrs. Ivy’s father purchased a two story wooden building that also had a few rooms to rent and a space that could be used for a store. In fact Casa Warren Hotel with its seven rooms was the first hotel in the Bay Islands. “Judges and governors were the staying there, renting the month, and “lot’s of gringos,” said Mrs. Ivy. John C. Henley III from Alabama and his sister Edmunia Henley were guests and early investors on Roatan leasing land from locals.

At first it was Mrs. Ivy’s mother who runs the business as her father stayed behind in La Ceiba. “She run the kitchen, dining room area while the children run the store area,” says Mrs. Ivy. At 16 Mrs. Ivy was already working at the family store. Her parents lived upstairs and the children worked in the store downstairs. Her sister Janet helped out as well. The business depended on help from everyone. “My dad was off for two years and then he run the business with us,” says Mrs. Ivy.

There were just a few places on the island that one could call proper stores. “We had a store, McNabs had a store and Mr. Oswald had a store,” says Mrs. Ivy. While Roatan in 1950s and 60s had three large stores there were also many scattered through the island “Truchitas,” small stores selling sugar and a few high demand items.

Back then Roatan was a peaceful, quiet place, but the law always looked for some bad apples. “They would put you in jail for just about anything, especially stealing,” remembers Mrs. Ivy. There was not much crime on Roatan in 1950s. Most people left their doors open and there were few things a thief could steel. “In those days there was no much stealing going on. Not like today,” says Mrs. Ivy. “If you go onto someone’s plantation and steal their coconuts, they would walk you down the street with it on your back – shame you.”

Many people in jail ended up there because they would make their own moonshine. “People would make chicha; brew it down with corn. They would make strong alcohol,” said Mrs. Ivy. “They would take the cashew and make wine, they made berry wine, they make rice wine.”

Mrs. Ivy married at 18 to Walter Cooper. His father, Dr. Loyd Cooper, was the only dentist on Roatan for many years and young Walter helped his father at the clinic. The couple had two children and stayed married for 45 years. “You need to take care of yourself, eat right, lead a good clean life,” says Mrs. Ivy. As a Christian you learn how to do that.”

In 1970s her father decided to expand the store. The old wooden, two story building has outlived its usefulness and it was time for an upgrade. “I’m gonn’a make a supermarket,’ said my dad,” remembers Mrs. Ivy. “My dad was very visionary.” That is when Casa Warren went from being a wooden building to a cement building.

Casa Warren had a prime location in Roatan’s hub town. It was just a few meters west of the municipal dock and down the hill from Governor’s hill where the telegram office, a jail and a clock tower were. “Every 15 minutes it would sound off,” remembers the municipal clock Mrs. Ivy. “If you didn’t sleep well that keep you awake.” When sometime in 1980s Mr. Sam Welcome, the clock keeper died, no one took over the task of maintaining the clock. The clock Municipal clock stopped and people depended on their own time.

In 1984 Mrs. Ivy’s father died and the Casa Warren was left to Mrs. Ivy’s mother and children. “My dad was very strict. I had a good dad. He took care of us,” remembers her father with fondness Mrs. Ivy. “One thing our dad taught us is to share with one another. He taught us to take care of one another. We worked through differences, we worked through tough times.”

In 2010 Casa Warren was rented to Eldon Hyde, owner of Eldon’s Supermarket. In her 80s Mrs. Ivy lives on ground floor in a large cement home adjacent to old Casa Warren. She has the radio from morning until the early afternoon. Every Sunday she goes to the First Baptist Church where she plays the organ, or the piano. “That was my life: the store and the church,” says Mrs. Ivy. Now her life is mostly centered around the church and her family. Her two grandchildren live with her and look after her. “I had a good life,” she says.

A Lady with a Smile Reflects on the Past

Mrs. Catherine Delilah Dilbert Tatum was born on the Hill in Diamond Hill on May 26, 1926. She was the seventh and final child of her mother, Belkis Tatum, from Diamond Rock. Her father, Nicodimus Dilbert, a farmer, was born in the Cayman Islands in 1882 and sailed to Roatan with his parents when he was just three years old.

When her mother passed away from pneumonia in 1933, seven-year-old Mrs. Catherine, along with two other young siblings, had to go live with relatives. She moved to West End to live with her mother’s relatives.

A neighbor, a young boy named John Jay Wood, taught young Catherine the alphabet and how to read and write. Less than ten years later, Mr. John Jay would marry Mrs. Catherine. She received three years of primary education from Victor Stanley, who taught children at the Auntie Blanch Hill Schoolhouse.

Life was simple but filled with work and sadness for young Catherine, as she saw very little of her father and siblings. To earn her keep, she had to grate 50 coconuts a day, working alongside others. Once everyone else was in bed, she would unroll her plantain trash mattress and sleep in the corridor of the small house. These simple mattresses were used throughout the island and made from recycled burlap sacks filled with soft and dry plantain leaves.

In 1941, the family that took her in purchased a store in Coxen Hole, and young Catherine followed them to work there. However, her mind was already elsewhere. In 1943, at the age of seventeen, Mrs. Catherine eloped. She traveled on a night boat to La Ceiba and married her 24-year-old neighbor, Mr. John Jay Wood, who had just finished working at the United Fruit Company in La Lima, Cortés.

Mrs. Catherine offered her help whenever she could.

The couple returned to Coxen Hole and took on the responsibility of managing the Litrico Store. Mrs. Catherine’s young husband managed the store, and every few weeks, he embarked on a round-the-island three-to-four-day journey to buy coconuts and plantains from farmers, some as far as Saint Helene. Litrico owned boats named Melly, Blanquita, and Seven Sisters, which were used to transport the produce from Roatan to Tampa.

The young couple rented a house a few hundred meters west of the store in Goat Hill, Coxen Hole. They were blessed with three children: Mary Lynn, John Wilmer, and Dainie Marie.

The municipal clock tower served as a reminder of the passing time, chiming every quarter of an hour. Sam Webster, the clock keeper, diligently oiled and wound the clock every few days. However, due to his occasional indulgence in alcohol, the clock would sometimes be neglected and stop.

In 1961, the couple acquired the Litrico store located across from Juan Brooks school, and they expanded its offerings. At Catherine D General Store, one could purchase not only foodstuffs but also gasoline, building supplies, and more. Mrs. Catherine also offered a unique service, capturing people’s photographs with her Polaroid camera.

There were five Coxen Hole stores that carried food staples, but only one was a general store. In 1950, the streets of Coxen Hole boasted five stores: the Catherine D Store, Warren Grocery, Litrico Grocery, Pollard James Store, and Maud Wilmuth Store.

Mrs. Catherine offered her help whenever she could, expecting nothing in return. Sometimes, it was during a medical emergency when Doc Polo was off the island; other times, it was when someone passed away, and the family had little money for funeral arrangements. In the 1950s, a young boy named Jack “Seven” McField suffered extensive burns from an explosion on a boat. Mrs. Catherine cared for his burns, applying burned motor oil with a chicken feather, and remarkably, the wounds healed well.

After her husband passed away in 2000, Mrs. Catherine carried on with running the store until 2006. “For some reason, I am still here,” she reflects in her soft, quiet voice. Since 2006, she has resided with her daughter, Dainie, and her son-in-law, Bill, in a property next door to where she lived back in 1933.

Today, she sits on a porch, gazing at the bustling and busy streets of West End, just across from Sundowners Bar. Her connection with West End dates all the way back to 1933.

By George S. Crimmin

The occupants or residents of the homes being serenaded would typically open their windows to express their thanks and wish the carolers a Merry Christmas. Often, they would offer treats to the carolers.

Christmas is more than just a holiday; it’s a spirit, a feeling and a glorious state of mind. The significance, the beauty and the unique sparkle and glow of Christmas, is never more vividly represented than in its songs. There was joy in the air, and where there is joy, there is music.

I can’t imagine a Christmas without music any more than I can picture Santa Claus without whiskers. I feel something warm and reassuring when I listen to the wistful baritone of Jim Reeves, Dear Señor Santy Claus or when I hear Floyd Cramer play the beautifully sentimental, I’ll Be Home for Christmas. It makes me feel like a kid again, and it feels good.

After the pageant we would assemble at the home of Mrs. Laurel.

On Christmas Eve, there was always a Christmas pageant at the local West End church. Children and adults took part in the proceedings. There were songs, poetry, and dramatizations, and to top it off, good old Santa would show up with something for everyone.

After the pageant we would assemble at the home of Mrs. Laurel (Laurie) Tatum for our annual Secret Santa party, which consisted of games, food, drinks, and the exchanging of gifts. As kids we absolutely believed in Santa Claus, yet I never hung up a stocking, I always hung up a pillowcase.

Being an island little boy, Christmas was my favorite holiday. Today as an ex-little boy, that has not changed. I may have become cynical through the years about many things, but never about Christmas. Of course, we were always reminded of the real reason for the Christmas season: the virgin birth. Great artists and master musicians have all been inspired to honor the babe of Bethlehem and the annual observance of His birth.

The glad tidings have echoed and re-echoed for over twenty centuries to establish Christmas as a season of reverence to God, and good will to men. Christmas has always meant different things to different people. Some may pray for peace on earth while others pray for a wide-screen television. That sentiment has remained unchanged through the years.

During the 1950s and 1960s the population of the Bay Islands was relatively homogeneous, especially regarding language. It was a much simpler time and place. Today the Bay Islands are a tapestry of cultures and languages with its accompanying diverse customs and traditions, including the way that Christmas is viewed and celebrated.

During this holiday season I hope we can agree that Christmas celebrates connection – to God, ourselves, family, friends, community, church, beliefs, beauty, mystery, and love. May this Christmas bring you warmth and good cheer, and a new year filled with the best of health, happiness, and good fortune.

From a College Class to Colorful Caribbean Homes.

Arguably, French Harbour has remained one of the hidden jewels of Roatan and while the town is not a tourist destination yet, a pair of young entrepreneurs, inspired by a University course, want to change that. “We want color to become an important facet in everyday life in French Harbour,” says Ronald Pozzi, who has been coming to the island for 32 years.

Ronald and Aksinia Pozzi, are the project’s originators. The couple decided it’s too complicated to set up a NGO organization in Honduras, and focused on the goals they want to achieve. Ronald was in private banking and in fashion photography and Aksina is an entrepreneur from Russia. The Boston based couple hopes to create a tourist experience that is off the beaten path. “We wanted to create a community driven tourist experience,” says Ronald. “The Caribbean islands are all the same. You have nice beaches, nice water and what really makes the island different and unique from one another are the people, the culture.”

“French Harbour, you just avoid it going on the main ‘Carretera,”’ says Ronald Pozzi. Ronald says he didn’t want to compete to traditional tourist attractions on the island like West End or West Bay. “We want to see something unique: a city of color,” says Ronald.

Appreciation of beauty can change the world.

“Once it’s all cleaned up and looks beautiful a tourist will want to take a picture with it,” says Ronald, he wants to create French Harbour into an Instagram destination. The project combines old ideas of making things beautiful and new ideas of social media. “Appreciation of beauty can change the world,” says Ronald.

Pineapples, bananas, flowers cover the exterior walls of the first two French Harbour painted houses. In three-and-half-days two houses were painted by a group of 12 volunteers and 12 paid workers. “Juanita and Melva were very, very open and gave us permission to do something crazy: paint their houses eclectic colors,” said Ronald Pozzi about the first two houses.

Ronald feels it is important to ask people not only for their permission, but for their vision. “We are painting it based on the colors these people love.”

Rachel White, 28, was one of the painting volunteers who hoped her own French Harbour house would be eventually painted. “Pink and white. I love soccer, so maybe with soccer balls,” she said. “This is my neighborhood. It’s nice to be a volunteer.”

Ronald got the idea for the project from his collage course professor, Doris Sommer, Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University. “She kept saying: ‘if you want to be a cultural agent, if you want to be an agent of change, especially in emerging communities you have to create projects from the ground up,’” said Ronald. He wanted to do something that was practical, manageable and low maintenance.

The main sponsor of the beatification project is The Buccaneer, a culture center and tourist destination at the French Harbour waterfront owned by Lizette Pozzi and Constantino Pozzi, Ronald’s parents.

In March 2020 the couple plans to return to Roatan to paint as many homes as they can. “Six to eight houses are already lined up. If we have five houses painted, we can have an impact on French Harbour,” said Ronald. “It’s ideally a project that never ends as we will be painting houses on top of houses, until all of French Harbour is painted.”

The Holistic Lifestyle of an Islander

His hang out is Cannibal Café in West End. Stass is dressed in colorful attire and he walks straight to Taco, the cafés parrot, who cries out in excitement: “Stass, Stass, Stass, Stass!”
“Wait a minute I need to do something about it,” says Stass. He strolls to his cage and speaks to the bird, gives it some corn and calms it down.

Stass was born 84 years ago in “French Men Harbor” as he calls it. Yet according to Stass his birth certificate places his birthplace as “Choloma” on the mainland. “They made so many mistakes I don’t even want to go there my dear,” he comments.

“In the end it took five days for my mother to give birth. The family was a bit worried it took so long and had to arrange a midwife. She figured out she had to bring my mother a bowl of mangos. After the third mango she sucked the juice out… I was delivered,” says Stass sipping on a mango smoothie. Stass’ love for mangos goes a long way back.

His father Fletcher Allan was an “alligator hunter” and his mother Emily was a school teacher. When Stass was about seven years old, he moved with his mother to New York. Stass says that his uncle Oscar was the Mayor of Roatan at the time. Many islanders were still ambiguous about their Honduran identity. When more mainlanders moved to the island, Stass’ mom decision was made: Brooklyn, New York became their new residence. “My mother taught me a healthy life, ‘health is wealth’ was her motto,” says Stass.

Stass went to University of California and met Miles Davis the American world-famous jazz musician. “The people you are with, make it possible”, he says. He travelled to Egypt and there he got the opportunity to make a tour with Miles Davis’ band on the Blue Nile. It was Stass’ “first awakening” and it made him question the origin of things around him. “We were brought in here by pirate Lafitte,” somewhat ambiguously said Stass.

It took five days for my mother to give birth.

Waking up when the sun is rising, he is aware of his entire being and understanding its components. In other words, Stass concentrates on the physical side, being physically healthy and strong. “God of the universe is the sun”, he says with befuddled look on his face.

Later on, Stass and his brother Alvin worked as deckhands on cargo ships. He still blames Alvin for not building a strong house for their father. “Well it was really well meant of my brother to build a house for him, but he built a ‘board house’ instead of building it out of clay from the outside, with bamboo in the inside,” says Stass. “A hurricane came along and blew the whole house away in the wee hours in the morning while my father was sleeping”. Stass thinks he was in his seventies when he passed.” Even today he is still dreaming about having an adobe machine to build his own house made from compressed soil blocks. Over the years Stass developed his own philosophy about different type of roofs. He dislikes the metal roofs as too dangerous and Hurricanes and tornados play with that and can chop people in two pieces. Stass says that roofs made by tiles and palm tree leaves “can take the winds.”

Sharing is not Stass’ thing. He has acquaintances, but no friends. ‘Why should I cater before them?’ When it comes to his family life, like children, grandchildren and wives Stass’ story becomes a bit vague. Stass claims he has five sons and six daughters. “I am telling you what I know,” he says with a smile pulling out an announcement card out of his bag. On the front there was a photo of his son and future wife. While Stass says his son was born on the island, there is not much contact and further information.

In fact, Stass says there have been three wives in his past life; Nadia from California, one from Roatan, a daughter of his dad’s fisherman co-worker and Cecilia from Texas. “Oh boy, she was something else,” comments Stass about Cecilia, but offers little more.

He likes to hang out around his house close to the beach and in front of the Cannibal Café in West End. Stass helped to build the roof of the café and that is where you can find him practically every day. There he contemplates life and food. Fish eggs with fish ‘heads’ is on his regular menu. According to Stass the head gives the soup the best flavor. No fillet fish for him. It is Stass’ secret recipe, one of many Stass’ secrets.

He had intercepted the French ship on its way to Martinique from the notorious slaving port of Whydah, in present day Nigeria. It was loaded with 516 slaves, twenty pounds of gold dust, and 40 cannons which had to be unloaded before the hull could be properly cleaned. This was not the last visit that Blackbeard would make to Roatan waters.

Thatch was born to a respectable family in Bristol, England, a coastal city located not far from Liverpool, England’s main slaving port and its second largest city. He served in the Royal Navy with honors, and only turned to piracy during his mid-30’s when a temporary ceasefire between England and Spain left Thatch and hundreds of able seamen without jobs and itching for income.

With Jamaica and Isla de Tortuga both firmly under the control of the English and French and Roatan abandoned, Thatch and his band chose New Providence Island in the Bahamas as their base. The island was close to American and Spanish shipping lanes and housed a modest English settlement. Fortunately for Thatch the government turned a blind eye to their illicit comings and goings, because of the pirates outnumbered the local population by three to one.

Thatch joined the “The Flying Gang“, a group of outlaws whose members included: Josiah Burgess, Thomas Nichols, Charles Vane and Benjamin Hornigold. Along with them came Calico Jack Rackham so named on account of his preference for wearing women’s undergarments, which he found to be more comfortable attire in the tropics. Another man named Stede Bonnet, “the Gentleman Pirate”, was a wealthy plantation owner from Barbados. Stede turned to piracy as a business venture. Not one of these men would reach forty years of age, all were either hanged or went down with their ships. Vane was captured on a cay near Roatan. As a rule the Spanish treasure ships were too heavily defended to attack so The Flying Gang took to using fast, open sloops to intercept smaller trading ships and relieve them of their cargo to sell in America.

All were either hanged or went down with their ships.

Thatch’s first venture as a pirate was as first mate for Benjamin Hornigold on a successful excursion into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Yucatan peninsula and along the coast of Honduras in the summer of 1717. Their thirty-gun sloop, “Ranger”, intercepted Spanish flour merchants’ ships and Portuguese wine traders from Madeira. Later in the year, Thatch and Hornigold intercepted a boatload of Englishmen sailing to Roatan. Clad in black and wearing burning fuses twisted into his hair, Thatch looked truly ferocious surrounded by a cloud of smoke from the fuses. The English sailors were truly surprised when Thatch explained that he and his men had thrown their hats overboard during a drunken party the previous night, and that he had boarded their boats only to relieve them of their hats. Thatch was never known to have killed anyone until his final battle the following year. He simply preferred to look the part of the Devil incarnate and to intimidate his foes.

Later in 1717 Thatch and Hornigold parted ways and Thatch was given “The Revenge” as a reward for his work. As captain of “The Revenge” Blackbeard went on a rampage throughout the Caribbean that cemented his place in pirate lore and history.

His reputation made it impossible for Thatch to return to Providencial, so he sailed to Charleston, North Carolina. There he received a full pardon from the colony’s corrupt Governor, Charles Eden with whom he then conspired to rob ships leaving the port in order to sell the goods on the black market. Blackbeard was now considered to be such a menace on the Atlantic seaboard, that Governor Spotswood of Virginia, sent Lieutenant Robert Maynard with two sloops to hunt him down.

On November 22, 1718, Thatch was cornered in an inlet off the shore of North Carolina. With most of his men onshore and with his crew outnumbered by three to one, Thatch put up a desperate last stand after consuming some wine to fortify him. He was killed in hand-to-hand combat by Maynard on the deck. It was discovered that his body had five gunshot wounds as well as twenty cutlass slashes. As a deterrent to others he was decapitated, and his head hung on a pole at the mouth of the Hampton river. Blackbeard’s notorious, yet short lived, pirating career had come to an end.

On the list of pressing problems is migration, but, strictly speaking, migration from the mainland to Roatan cannot be controlled given that the Bay Islands are a department of Honduras and not a separate territory. What can be controlled is enforcement of minimum building standards and minimum habitation standards. The enforcement should come not from some central government agency, but from Roatan Municipality itself. That would practically halt the migration as the island would become too expensive for every mainlander and their cousin. The illegally built homes are a threat to the future of growth on the island.

The Roatan Municipal, as our representatives and the stewards of our taxes and our future, should inspect all structures being built, fine the owners if they have no permit, stop them if they are constructed with inadequate construction methods and tear them down if they are build on land that is not owned by the people building there. The hill west of Coxen Hole is quickly beginning to look like a Brazilian favela. Every week a few more trees are cut down and a new wooden structure goes up. They have no permits, no inspections, no water or electricity. They are just a shelter and a base for new migrants to Roatan.

Migration to Roatan cannot be controlled by central government.

Curiously, there is one part of the Roatan Municipality fine system that is working well: it is the enforcement and collection of fines for illegally parked vehicles on the main streets of Coxen Hole and West End. The municipal police officers are motivated, professional and the 8-5pm parking regimen is enforced. They quickly boot the wheel of offending cars and enforce the Lps. 500 fines that contribute towards their salaries and the municipal budget. This professionalism and commitment to enforcing municipal ordinances should be applied to other areas like: illegal construction, improper drainage and poor and dangerous driving.

The municipalities of Roatan and Santos Guardiola should step in where central government has never stepped in. All permitted taxis should be required to undergo mechanical inspection at a designated motor shop once a year for a fee to be paid by the taxi owner. Anyone driving a taxi should be required by the municipality to participate in eight hours of safe driving training each year to be paid by taxi drivers.

The main reason why Roatan’s roads are in such bad shape is due to the traffic of huge, overloaded vehicles and debris brought in from private roads. If activity or neglect of property adjacent to the municipal roads causes damage to the pavement, the municipality should fine the property owner for the entire cost of repair of the road or damaged infrastructure.

Vehicle inspections are standard procedure in developed countries and Roatan should be no different, regardless of the Honduran central government’s capacity or willingness to require and enforce such inspections.

The island municipalities should pick up the slack left by the central government and clean every culvert and drain on every island road weather it is national or municipal. If the road disintegrates it becomes Roatan’s problem, not Tegucigalpa’s. While volunteer efforts are great, the island’s municipalities should hire a full time mobile cleaning crew that would continuously pick up all the plastic, metals, wood trash and transfer them to recycling collection points or garbage dump.

The Municipality should also inspect all boats that are no longer afloat and fine the owners of the property where that boat has rested. All boats should be salvaged or transported away for scrap.

While these are just some basic, commonsense proposals, they would save lives, they would attract investment, and they would make the island safer and more attractive for residents and visitors. It’s time to stop looking at how the other 17 Honduran departments are managing their business and get to work. If Roatan wishes to look like a developed, secure place, it needs to act like it.