The next morning all three of us slept through Colby's watch alarm and we were awakened by a Rasta named Byron. We had met him the previous night and he had been told to wake us up in the event of oversleeping. Byron was up every morning by four A.M to go out lobster hunting in his boat carved from a small tree trunk. I sat in his boat the evening before and could barely stay upright. The dude was a true islander.

After eating a hearty breakfast of Rob’s pancakes, it was time to go for it. Rob decided to go with us...we had convinced him that we wouldn’t let him die. As we rounded the other side of Lime Caye, lined up the bearing, and began to paddle, the sun crested the horizon.

We were now in the open seas of the Bay of Honduras, which is known for its relentless conditions by the locals. The swells continued to get bigger as we paddled out. We kept a smooth rhythm knowing we would have to keep it up for the next seven hours. The troughs of the swells were about fifteen feet from the crest and we laughed when we would pop up and occasionally see each other. It was completely silent at the bottom of the trough, and slightly windy at the top. We took a water break about every hour. Four hours out we turned around and felt that eerie vibe when you suddenly can’t see land in any direction, and know you are at the mercy of the conditions present. Colby eventually spotted an oil tanker in the distance, which gave us some relief to know we were not out there alone. About an hour later land was spotted in the distance, we had been paddling on the same bearing the whole way and eventually could make out Puerto Cortes. It was still over three hours before we would get there, but we were relieved to see it. As our upper bodies were screaming with pain we rounded the finger of land which protects the port. We gave a few yells at our accomplishment, while we slowly paddled past all the huge freighters and marveled at their size. Our bows hit the shore of a local fishing outlet, which was just a ramp and a large piece of wood where the fishermen would clean their fish. Sea Gulls were flying overhead in hopes of getting some scraps. Colby started hiking to the Immigration office with our Passports. Rob and I stayed with the boats, while I sat and explained our journey in broken Spanish to all of the locals now surrounding our kayaks and us. Women and children gave looks of amazement while the story of the crossing was told. They couldn’t believe we came from Belize.

It took about an hour for Colby to return. He explained that the immigration did not believe we had paddled from Belize without going through Guatemala. He had to spend some time convincing the officials about our kayaks and ability. We all spent the night in a hotel while we licked our wounds...our muscles were tired and we needed that next day to rest. We headed out for the Bay Islands the following morning.

It was not easy paddling along the Coast of Honduras. Rob was freaked out by the 6-foot breaking surf landings. Colby and I had to coax him in with threats of him not ever landing, and just paddling until there was an opening. We assured him there were no openings and he would be paddling all night. As the days went by on the coast, Rob became more and more confident in his ability to land in huge breaking waves.

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