Signs can say so much

Without a doubt, this is my favourite sign on Roatan:

Oh, happy day!

I not only love the fact that they felt this was a feature to advertise at the gates, but the enthusiasm of the message.  Someone is psyched about that functional elevator, I’m telling you.  I'm even willing to overlook the "enterance" issue.

Usually, however, we see a different sort of sign around here.

No guns, just shrimp

Not open to guns or knives

No bank-robbing aids allowed

On the other hand, cruisers like to warn you how tough they are.

I assume that question is rhetorical.

One finds these signs everywhere -the hardware store, the insurance agent, the shrimper - though they seem particularly popular near swimming pools, which makes me wonder what about wearing a bathing suit puts people in a violent frame of mind.

Normally, I’d dismiss this as paranoia, or a holdover from darker days.  Alas, more than one quiet evening aboard Papillon has been punctuated by the sound of gunshots from shore.  We are assured by our neighbour ashore that it is usually just the night watchman on the neighbouring property shooting at rats.  Usually.  Be that as it may, in the time we have been here, one of the dive masters Erik went out with has landed in the hospital on the mainland with gunshot wounds.  Erik chatted the other day with a man whose hand was badly injured by a machete.  So although we have found people kind and friendly here, these signs are not without their roots.

It is time, my friends, for us to move on from rat-shooting night watchmen.  We are off for Colombia in the next few days, via Guanaja, the Hobbies and Providencia.  This will be a big sail, so I have decided to live with the itchiness and use the scopolamine patch again.  I've forgiven you all for failing me on seasickness remedies, as we’ve discovered that scopolamine also comes in an oral version.  I look forward to having visitors mule my drugs from Canada to Colombia this fall.

So wish us well on our continued journey. I’ll write again when I can.