Roatán's tourism is mainly focused on the western tip of the long, thin island and we hadn't travelled much further than the end of the beach - today we would do some island exploring. The island is 77km (48 miles) long and 8km (5 miles) wide so some wheels were required to get us around.

Captain Van's had the cheapest scooters for rent and probably because they weren't the prettiest to look at. Seems like they had been thrown or dropped on the ground quite a few times but the engine and the brakes were in good order. As with all vehicle rentals you need to complete a report of existing damage and with this scooter it would have been easier to put a ring round the whole thing. David nearly laughed out loud when the guy said there would be no charges for damage if there were any small scratches. There was hardly any untouched paintwork for a new scratch, it would need to go on top of an old scratch.

Our first port of call, so to speak, was French Harbour, which has a large fishing, shrimp and lobster fleet, but otherwise not much else to see.

Continuing on the single main road on the island, we turned inland and started climbing towards the highest point on the island and the dizzying heights of just under 400m. Short of the peak, we turned off back towards to coast and the Parrot Tree Resort. It was supposed to be a good beach but when we arrived it was like a ghost resort - there was one other person in amongst the hundreds of sun loungers. Perhaps it was because it was a bit overcast that no one was out but it seemed more like the resort had closed for the low season. It was quite eery walking round the deserted lagoon, nice as it was, and a relief to be heading out.

Back on the main road, we were soon at the view point although being an overcast day it wasn't giving us the best view. We carried on to Roatán's most eastern town, Oak Ridge. It's another ramshackle port town but with a busier feel to it due to the narrow paths snaking between the wooden houses.

We reached the end of the sealed and went down into Punta Gorda, a Garifuna (descendants of West African, Central African, Carib and Arawak people) village and former pirate stronghold. The village was definetley not a tourist attraction, just a village inhabited by people scratching a living day to day. We'd been warned that there had been reports of robberies further east on the unsealed road, apart from the road being utterly uncomfortable, we decided to start heading back west again.

We stopped in at Fantasy Island Resort, nobody seems to mind that you are not a paying guest, because we'd been told the snorkeling was good. As we drove in we saw an enormous peacock and a couple of large iguanas. We have been told that locals eat iguanas and in that case, these two would have made a bit of a feast. We parked up and wandered round their, very nice, man made beach lagoon and headed off to the open water through the trees. A gazebo had been built over the water with a ladder for water access. There were heaps of fish just milling around underneath so we jumped in and headed out towards the reef. There is a bit of boat traffic in the area and the visibility wasn't amazing but you could still see 15 metres or so. There was a surprising number and variety of fish in the area, as well as good coral - Maria even spotted a cuttlefish.

Lonely Planet had a couple of lines suggesting a visit to Tranquil Seas at Sandy Bay would be worthwhile. It certainly was...from the car park we went down some narrow walkways eventually coming to an amazing wooden bar/restaurant with views over the sea. The resort wasn't particularly busy so we managed to take the table with the best view out over the water. The view was stunning, the sun was dropping down to meet the small waves that were gently lapping over over the reef wall into millpond like lagoon. The food was fantastic too - Maria had a huge slab of Mahi Mahi with ginger whilst David opted for the Island Style Fried Fish. We're still unsure what the latter was but it was a whole fish, teeth and all, fried perfectly so the flesh could be sucked off the bones. If we were ever to come back to Honduras for just a holiday (and not as part of travelling) then this would surely be the place of choice.