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That Island To the East Words By Mathew Harper Photographs by Thomas Tomczyk

Often overlooked and ignored, Saint Helene's history and people go back centuries

How many times have uninitiated visitors to Roatan asked, "What's up on the East End of the island?" How many people on their first trip to the island have ventured "up the shore"? Not many. Most are just content to stick closer to the West End. Frankly, a trip east to Oakridge, Port Royal and onto Helene, Morat and Barbareta, although much easier than before, is quite an adventure for the uninitiated. This relative inaccessibility, for some, like the expat wanting to retire into obscurity or the Bay Islander wishing to preserve his culture, has been a blessing in disguise.
Another question that often intrigues visitors and newcomers is how the island was prior to the development boom that began in the early 1990's. For an answer, visitors can explore the little-known jewels of the islands, Helene and Santa Elena.

Houses in the Bight of Saint Helene.

Helene, as it is known to its inhabitants, is a two mile by one mile island separated from Roatan by two miles of mangroves and a 20-foot wide natural canal. The island is 194 feet high at its highest point. Populated on the north and south shores by 1,200 of the most welcoming Creole, English-speaking islanders, Helene boasts some of the most unspoiled island countryside. In a rapidly changing archipelago, visitors can still discover the perfectly preserved island culture and "old Caribbean" charm in Helene. With place names like Rocky Point, Bentley Bay, Co-Co Plum Cay and Bob Bay, and with signs saying "no Spanish spoken," Helene is more like the West Indies than Central America.
An island steeped in history, Helene is dotted with caves, one from which the fabled British archeologist Arthur Mitchell Hedges took one of his crystal skulls. Hedges believed that the Bay Islands were once part of the lost city of Atlantis and that proof of this existed on Helene.
New caves are still being discovered from time to time. Each Payan artifacts found inside the caves lends to the premise that the peaceful Indians used the caves as refuge from marauding Spaniards and Buccaneers. One cave in particular, discovered in 1989, follows a 100-foot deep tunnel that goes well below sea level at the end of which lies a large cavern containing a freshwater pool. Off to the side branch two vents that continue on for at least 100 feet.
The Bay Islands scuba diving legend Constantino 'Tino' Monterrosso explored the cave with scuba gear in 1988. In the bottom of the "water cave," Monterrosso discovered bones belonging to deer and wild hog which are no longer indigenous to the islands. Halfway up the cave, a large clay vase was found containing hundreds of jade and amber ceremonial beads. In the entrance to yet another cave, a skeleton of a Paya "casique" was found surrounded on both sides by clay jars full of impressive jade beads.
The Indians were not the only ones to favor Helene for one reason or another. Many clay pipes can still be found at various spots around the island, pipes of the type commonly used by British mariners, woodcutters and pirates in the 17 and 18 centuries. Actually on Helene Cay, also known as Ross Cay, clay pipe finds are common. This could lead us to believe that due to its flat nature, Ross Cay was used by pirates to careen--the practice of running a vessel on shore at high tide to scrub its undersides.
Fresh water is plentiful, as are many types of fruits such as mango, mame apple (sapote), soursop (guanabana), bobwood, muginicap (monkey cap). At one time wild hogs were as plentiful as the watusas (island rabbits) still are. The waters around the island are teeming with fish, lobster and conch. Natural hard woods abound in the forests; in particular Lignin Vitae, used at one time for boat stems. Helene and Barbareta are the only known places that this wood can be found on the Bay Islands.
Little documented evidence exists for who inhabitants were and where exactly they lived on Helene prior to 1851. According to Mitchell Hedges, the Indians lived on and off of Helene for about a 100 years between the 1480's through to 1582. The watershed year was 1516, 13 years after Columbus passed through Guanaja. In that year, humiliated by the constant need to hide from the white men to avoid a beating or subjection to slavery, most of the Indians left when given the "option" of going to the mainland or of working the gold mines of Hispaniola and the Spanish Main.
By 1564 the British had arrived and finished making life miserable for the last few die-hard Paya who had stayed behind. British woodcutters and Buccaneers used Helene intermittently for the aforementioned reasons until 1782. That year several battles and skirmishes took place about three miles west of Helene in Port Royal between the Spanish Armada, the English Royal Navy and the pirates (Lowe, Avery, Teach, Morgan to name a few).
Between 1650 and 1742 a successful British settlement, Augusta, had been founded in Port Royal with a smaller one in Helene, This might be where Helene got its name--after the wife of the owner of the vessel who settled two families on these shores to cut wood. This settlement, it would seem, was plundered by marauding pirates around 1780. After the plunderings, Helene, like most of the islands at that time, remained largely uninhabited. Paya settlements and burials sites became overgrown and the woodcutters camps were destroyed.
Today just the clay pipes and the odd cannonball that didn't rot away remind us of those times. It stayed like this until 1855 when the ancestors of Helene's present inhabitants first arrived courtesy of the British government who were then outright, albeit it short-lived, owners of the Bay islands.
After the emancipation of slavery, the British government was faced with what to do with the freemen, ex slaves and ex slave bosses of the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. Jamaica was big enough that the freemen could remain and cultivate on patches of granted land. But the Caymans were relatively overpopulated with flat land offering little for farmers.

The Orphanage Scandal By Jenny Roberts with Thomas Tomczyk

Accusations of Abuse and Financial impropriety surround an American-run Orphanage in Sandy Bay

Roatan Municipality meeting about the Sandy Bay orphanage situation between community members, local and central gov

Bengoa's letter describes Warren behavior: "he spanked [children] with knives and on bare bottoms with wooden, or plastic spoons, … they would be made to sit in their rooms all day as punishment, sometimes for three or four days in a row." Also, Brian and Christi Norman of Tampa, Florida, parents of children who spent two-and-a-half years at the orphanage and were adopted by them, have made public a list of Warren's questionable and abusive behavior.
Over the last five years Warren created a successful fundraising and support network for the orphanage. He took on mentally disabled children, something even the other Roatan orphanage in Flowers Bay does not do. Even Bengoa acknowledges Warren's positive contributions: "they [Debbie and Brad Warren] have trained them to be polite, and well behaved. They have taken them off the streets and given them food, clothing and shelter. But they have a dark side."
Warren's goals and management style of the orphanage were clearly not compatible with a more consensus-driven way the two boards wanted to operate. Warren spent $100 of thousands of orphanage funds for a baseball field that for three rainy seasons covered nearby reef. The baseball field and masses of donated equipment have yet to be put to use.
While Warren's sometime abrasive, even confrontational personality has gotten him few supporters on the island, some CSI supporters remain to be convinced of Warren's abusive behavior. "I've never seen the kids fearful of Brad," said David Taylor, CSI supporter of five years. "They [orphanage's children] told me that they were never abused sexually." Taylor lives in California and for one week a year comes to the island to spend time with two orphanage children he sends $30 a month to.
CSI Board members began arriving on the island September 1 to meet with officials and stabilize the situation. 14 children returned to the orphanage premises under the supervision of volunteers Travis and Kelly Bevers. The Board is currently interviewing for permanent house parents. "We'll be asking for the kids' input on who we bring in permanently," says board member Dale Petersen. "This island needs that orphanage," says Nurse Peggy of Clinica Esperanza.

Family members cleaning up the site of the burned homes.

On September 3, with Hurricane Felix at Category 5 and 165 mile winds, Congressman Hynds called for evacuation of tourists and residents able to leave. Honduras Air Force shuttled a DC-10 between Roatan and La Ceiba. Free tickets for the poor were given out and foreign tourists were evacuated on a TACA chartered plane to Guatemala City paid by Ministry of Tourism.
Roatan Municipal paid for tickets of over 1,000 people to evacuate via Galaxy Wave catamaran to La Ceiba. Atlantic gave out three flights for cost of fuel.
While some residents boarded up homes and businesses to prevent major wind damage, others focused on storm surge and flooding. Barefoot Cay, a south shore resort, not only evacuated all their guests to the mainland and other hotels but also moved documents and valuables off the cay. "We can get an 18-foot surge here," said John Kennedy, owner of the resort.
Areas even more vulnerable to the hurricane were unprotected, such as bare, almost vertical cliffs which are susceptible to land slides and collapses.
On Roatan most businesses remained closed September 3 and 4. On September 4, as Felix impacted Mosquitia it slowed and weakened. Nicaraguan authorities reported 28 deaths related to Hurricane Felix.

Hurricane Felix wrote itself into history on September 2, when it recorded the second fastest 12-hour pressure fall on record, to 929 millibars. With its rapid move eastward of 21 miles per hour, the storm strengthened from a tropical depression to a Category 5 hurricane in just two days.
The residents of Roatan prepared for the worst as for three days the storm's track was projected to go directly through Guanaja and just north of Roatan. On September 3, Felix's projected path angled just slightly south to land on Mosquitia coast.

The Royal Dock

While Cruise Terminal in Coxen Hole bogs down in delays, the island is looking at a 10-fold cruise traffic increase over the next 6-10 years.

The existence of coral on the fill-in site caused a halt to the fill-in process. The only way to proceed was to make changes to Honduras' environmental laws. These changes are still in progress as the president had to approve them and congress had to pass and ratify the law before publishing it in La Gazeta. Finally SERNA has to OK it. "We are in a holding pattern," said Ernan Bartez, General Manager of the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Terminal, who believes that the good will on the side of the government will make things happen in the end.
The transplant of the 4,000 sq meters of coral will cost between $300 and $500 thousand. 4,300 metric tons of rock and coral is expected to be moved during the two-month work schedule. NOVA Southeastern University will supervise the replanting and monitoring of coral. Only then the work on the refilling of the cruise ship terminal's west side can begin.
Already the Coxen Hole cruise ship terminal project is facing a three-and-a-half month delay, with the project's Phase I termination date moved from March 2008 to June 2008. It is likely to be delayed much further.
The stakes are high. According to Bartez, Roatan should prepare for an increase of cruise ship passengers from what is today 800 passengers a day to 6,000 and eventually 10,000, in as few as six years.
Responsible for Coxen Hole terminal construction is Coastal Systems International (CSI), a general contractor based in the Dominican Republic with experience with similar projects in Florida, US Virgin Islands and Guatemala. Julio Bonnelly, CSI's Roatan Project Manager, has experience at both US Virgin Islands and Guatemala cruise ship terminal construction.
HTH Architects from USA are designing the Phase I of three buildings that will house stores and offices. Phase II will include four other buildings with restaurants, condominiums and more retail space.