The Beautiful, the Bad, and the Bizarre

I know I’m dating myself here, but who remembers the old Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? I think we could make a movie about life here in Roatán called, The Beautiful, the Bad, and the Bizarre.

Last week was just a gorgeous week. I needed to go to Utila to take care of a few chores, but Peter was away for a few days on vacation. So, since Sunday was still beautiful and the forecast was for more of the same in the early part of this week, I packed on Sunday, left the house Monday morning about 6:00 and drove up to Dixon Cove to board the Galaxy Wave on my way to Utila. As I left the house, I noticed fairly brisk winds out of the west, which is often a sign that the weather is about to become less than ideal. But I went ahead, because I’d put this off for too long. It turns out that I made it OK, but it certainly could have been nicer.

The ride to the coast on the Galaxy Wave was fairly pleasant, but I could tell it would be a rough ride over to Utila from La Ceiba on the much smaller Princess II. I was right! As we got closer to Utila, the island sheltered us from the biggest waves, but the first two thirds of that last leg were pretty exciting.

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Once I got to Utila, Lance Bodden set me up, as usual, with an ATV which I first used to get to the hotel and check in. Then I ate lunch and I went to work. The place where we have been staying on Utila, by the way, is quite a pleasant place. It’s called the Utila Lighthouse and is run by O’Neil and Thelma Bodden. Since it’s built on big wooden posts over the water, it does sway in the wind a little at night, but it’s pleasant once you get used to it. Here’s a link that gives some pictures of the place. Pay no attention to the prices. Those are not what they charge me, praise the Lord. About Utila

Now we come to the reason for this title. The flower below is a sample of the ones surrounding our AM transmitter site, which is in the midst of a cow pasture. The view from that location is just beautiful, but I don’t get to see much of it when I’m inside the transmitter shack.

The bad picture is pretty self explanatory. Vandals got in past the chain link fence and barbed wire and snipped off practically all the wires on our backup generator. Our friend Lance discovered the break-in a couple weeks ago. I guess he really shook the bushes over there to try to find out who did it and to get the authorities to investigate. But this is Honduras – they don’t investigate here. Lance was just about sick over the whole thing and was blaming himself. Of course, it was not his fault, but that gives you an idea just how much he cares about Radio HRGS. I’m pretty sure I discovered how they got in (a small gap under the fence, covered with barbed wire that they spread and slithered through), and I’m thinking about a way to address it.

The bizarre picture is a scene that made me do a double-take, and then a triple-take. I walked ’round and ’round that fence post at first, trying to figure out if that was really a mouse fatally trapped in a hole on top of the post or a part of a mouse lying in just the right position to make it look that way. Nope! It was just what it looked like. What a way to go!

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As for the work I went to do, that was largely successful. Normally, we send our signal fromRoatán to Utila via microwave and feed that to the AM transmitter. But that receiver had quit on us and we were forced to use a special FM receiver that Frederick Henderson had found and installed. It was doing a pretty good job, but we have plans for changes that will require an operational microwave link to Utila.  Toward that end, I took a replacement microwave receiver with me and it is connected now and working wonderfully.

As for the injured shoulder that I was telling about last week, it’s doing much better, but still hurts if I do the wrong thing. I had another appointment yesterday with the orthopedic doctor. He was going to give me another shot. But he didn’t show and that visit has now been rescheduled for this coming Monday.

Two final quick comments as I get ready to wrap this up. Today I took what I’ve been told is the last of the documents we need for our resident visa (aka permanent residency) application to the airport to have them sent off to our lawyers in Tegucigalpa. Please pray that this is finally the last demand from immigration. The other thing I wanted to mention is my apology for not having an audio update this week. There just was not time, with travel, shoulder rehab, and all the other things going on. Hopefully, we can be back on schedule next week.

So long for now, and thanks for praying.