G&G's Clearwater Paradise

Our Front Yard, Spring 2010

2010-02-24T16:31:00.001-06:00

Our trees and flowers out-did themselves this year.
All the plants were just small cuttings 1 year ago.
You can almost watch as things grow during the rainy season in the tropics!

The double and single hibiscus, bougainvilla, desert rose
and other flowering shrubs and trees are magnificent,
and the orchid has put up its shoots, preparing to bloom in March.

Saint Frances watches over the iquanas, wish willies, monkey lala's,
and other lizards, along with the bats and hummingbirds.

And as George returns from taking the workers home,
Sadie, our cat, Coxman and Lucas, our dogs, and
Scooter, our coatimundi are all there to greet him and
extend an invitation to you to come see us!

(don't forget to click on the pics to enlarge)

Contact us at: clearwaterparadise@gmail.com

What Folks are Saying About Us

2010-01-17T08:40:00.002-06:00

Here is our latest review on Trip Advisor:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g292018-d1513781-r51588975-G_G_s_Clearwater_Paradise-Guanaja_Bay_Islands.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT

We always appreciate comments from our clients! Thank you!!!

Contact Us

2009-12-26T11:06:00.004-06:00

So, this looks great! How do I contact George and Ginger for reservations!?!

You may call us at: 011-504-3-303-7444 (George) or 011-504-3-286-5656 (Ginger) and, of course you may always email us at: clearwaterparadise@gmail.com.

What's in a Name ?. . . "Fall" - Fall!?!

2009-11-18T22:28:00.002-06:00

The changes in the seasons are subtle but definitely here.
As we await the beginning of rainy season and the first "norther,"
we ended summer by having friends over to celebrate Ginger's birthday.
George pulled out the big wok and whipped up a wonderful stir fry on the dining deck,
which was shared by friends from the south side of the island.
They arrived at noon and left by 5:00 - no driving the boats after dark for most folks.

The local friends from Mangrove Bight came over and partied into the night.

It was a great day of celebration spent with great friends.

We had return guests to the nursery like our puffer fish, 2 star fish, high hat fish, and electric bulls eye ray.

We had a continuing array of very interesting moths and butterflies, and our kitchen geckos shed their skin and continued to catch dinner.

Our resident toad family continued to hang out for cheap entertainment - you know - catch the June bug, toss it in the toad's vicinity, and watch him snag it.

We also had a few visitors like the baby iguana we had for a few days before he became Houdini, slipped his harness, and took off, and the beautiful stallion that stayed for several weeks before his owner found him and returned him to the other side of island, and the frog on our glass sliding door that posed for "inside" and "outside" photos.

We unpacked the dart board to discover the backing holding the corks had pulled loose while in storage, so, Ginger removed all the corks and, along with George's help, re-glued every champagne, Patron tequila, and wine cork to the board.

We're sure all our friends who partied in the game room at the Shady Hollow house in Austin will appreciate the fact that the fabulous dart board is back up and running!

George visited Brian at End of the World resort, who was leaving for an extended stay in the States. Turns out Brian had a pisote, a/k/a coatimundi, a/k/a Brazilian anteater, a/k/a snookem bear, that he was leaving for his watchie to, hopefully, feed, soooo . . .

George called Ginger, told her to meet him at the dock to help carry up the 15 pounds of cat food Brian had given him along with some other things, and . . .

Surprise!!! We now are the proud owners of Scooter, who is very sweet, cuddly, and lovable when asleep! Otherwise, he is like 2-year-0ld triplets on a sugar high.

We are enjoying him. He is very social and never boring! And, yes, that is a pack of George's pipe tobacco from Pipe World, Scooter has decided should be his. He finally, very reluctantly, traded it for a banana.

What's in a Name . . . "Fall" - Fall!?!

2009-11-18T18:56:00.002-06:00

The Mangrove Bight Committee for Carnivale '10
asked us to assist with a Halloween fundraiser,
so we lent them all our decorations and some costumes for their
First Annual Mangrove Bight Haunted House and Halloween Celebration.
We also baked Halloween cookies for the bake sale.
George did a fine job selling them!

And, appropriately enough, our local bats discovered the hummingbird feeders.
We now have to bring in the feeders when we close up each night,
or the bats drain both 32 oz. feeders!

We also took some time to do what we came here for . . .
Prop up the feet, have a relaxing morning coffee, enjoy the animals,
try new recipes, like cheddar corn souffle,
and marvel at the scenery that never gets boring, like our rainbows.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy!

2009-08-03T15:27:00.001-05:00

From sunrise

to sunset

we enjoy every day we are here and feel so fortunate to have this opportunity to see our dream come alive! (Even if it is taking much longer than hoped.)

Mi casa es su casa!

2009-08-03T15:22:00.001-05:00

G & G's Clearwater Paradise - we love it!

Party on, Garth!

2009-08-03T15:01:00.001-05:00

We also attended Carnivale, which is a week-long party in a different area each day.

We went to the Mangrove Bight party, 'cuz that's our 'hood. These guys are Romel, our dive master, Brian, our boat captain, and Joe, our builder.

The wonders of Mother Nature!

2009-08-03T14:50:00.001-05:00

We watched some great storms pass by. This one at sunset was really awesome!

We also added to our photo moth collection with some interesting guys in the kitchen.

2009-08-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

Brian, our boat captain, came by to show off his new baby boy, and

we spent July 4th with fellow expats from all over the world.

The dog (and cat) days of summer!

2009-08-03T14:23:00.001-05:00

Sadie has found all the "cool" places to hang out, and Lucas and Coxman have become best buds,

but they all three hate getting bathed and dipped!

Georgy porgy picked a passle of peppers

2009-08-03T00:52:00.000-05:00

George kept the 180 mutton pepper plants picked and

bagged and bottled peppers for selling

"Wild" life

2009-08-03T00:39:00.001-05:00

Ginger kept tabs on the local wildlife such as the land crabs climbing all over the place,

the bone fish, the growing anemone under the dock, the little yellow damsels, and, if you look really closely, the juvenile drum fish living among the lava rocks by the dock.

(don't forget to click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Cheap entertainment & more progress

2009-08-03T00:23:00.001-05:00

Ginger set up two feeding stations

for the hummingbirds in the outdoor dining area

George and the crew laid even MORE tile and

readied the laundry room for installation of the wonderful washer & dryer

A Riot of Color

2009-08-02T23:54:00.001-05:00

We saw the various flowers we planted this winter , some of which are the hibiscus, pink and red ginger,

bougainvilla, dahlias, and pink and yellow gladioli, bloom and produce glorious color in the front yard

Yes! We have no bananas . . . (not!)

2009-08-02T23:32:00.002-05:00

We watched as the first 2 racks of plantain grew in our banana orchard

We have plantain, chatas, finger bananas, apple bananas, and of course, regular bananas

Summertime at G & G's Clearwater Paradise

2009-08-02T23:07:00.002-05:00

We watched our lime trees bloom and produce their summer crop

and we watched our "big" papaya trees we planted in winter produce as well as the wild "small" papaya tree that came up in the front yard.

Recent Comments

2009-07-10T17:48:00.003-05:00

Recent visitors to our little paradise were Jim and Dawn, who live in La Ceiba, Honduras and do charity work with orphans there. Dawn has a fabulous blog: Henderbalz.wordpress.com. They made a trip to Guanaja in March, and afterward, wrote of their travels on their blog. Below are comments made about George and Ginger and Clearwater Paradise. (To the cooks out there, the "sardines" Dawn mentions were really anchovies. (; we do not put sardines in our ceasar salad!) Thanks for the kind words, Jim and Dawn . . .

". . . we met George, the good old boy from Austin Texas and his red headed fireball of a wife, Ginger who are building an eight room resort near Mangrove Bight, Clearwater Paradise. . . . Before I tell you about their place, let me tell you about them. George is lovable in his rough around the edges good ole boy way. He is also a conundrum, who would know a Harley cut-off-sleeve-t-shirt wearing redneck-humored funny guy could cook so well? He not only can cook like a fiend, when he was talking about his soon to be open resort he mentioned wanting 800 thread count sheets. Damn, shebang, and the whole nine yards! We got to see Clearwater Paradise Resort and I have to say, this couple has taste. Loved loved loved the handmade stone floor showers and loved even more the handmade shell floor shower in their master suite. It will be an awesome place to stay, but unfortunately, way out of our budget traveler budget. Maybe they will need some help in the kitchen, which will be open to the dinning area so guests can sit around at a bar watching them cook and talk to them. Their philosophy is that at parties, everyone ends up in the kitchen and if that is where their guests will be most comfortable, they are welcome in their kitchen as well. Before I go on, I have to tell you about Ginger, a red headed freckled girl. I have to say girl…because freckles never age! She not only has a mean hand in the kitchen as well, but she has such great ideas for their garden, and I am not only talking about a flower bed here and there (although there will be plenty of those), I am talking about all kinds of vegetables and herbs, fruit even too. They already have tomatoes, peppers, and parsley. And also there are some papaya and banana trees coming up! Until the construction is all done on the resort, they are living in a thatched roof wood building at the end of the dock. They have this dream resort in mind, but to me living in a thatched roof building at the end of a dock on an island in the Caribbean Sea is a dream in itself. Their current living space will one day be the bar at Clearwater Paradise Resort. Man oh man, paradise is right! And we hope they like and remember Jim’s now signature drink to make as one of their own for their bar. Hey barkeep, I will another HenderBalz please!
We had a wonderful dinner of lobster and pasta with an awesome garlic, onion, spices, olive oil, rum and who knows what else sauce, and as a fun side dish, beer batter shark bites. Yes, fresh shark cut up into chunks dunked in a homemade batter and fried. Oh, Momma! And let me not forget the Caesar salad with homemade dressing. I had to laugh when Ginger told George, “We are down to our second to last tin of sardines.” Ha, like I have sardines sitting around just in case I was going to make some Caesar dressing from scratch! Yeah, right! Jim and I love to cook, and I do make dressing from scratch, but Caesar, no sirree! We had a wonderful time with lots of laughter. It was such a lovely surprise for this hard working resort building couple to go out of their way to make us such a nice dinner and to top it all off to share the last bit of Sharon’s (yes, the same Sharon I mentioned above) secret recipe of actually good tasting Guifity with us! And it did not end there, they had to give us a ride all the way back to the Key on the other side of the island, but I have to say it was a wonderful night out. Not a complete full moon but close, and the water was perfectly flat. A nice end to a perfect night. Thanks G&G!

Interesting Visitors

2009-05-26T13:52:00.003-05:00

Mr Greenjeans is a fairly young iguana that stayed with us for a few days. He was very laid back and calm. He is one of many different types of lizards we have on the property.
He hung out with us for about 3 days before he finally decided to leave. He was particularly beautiful due to his more than usual vibrant green color.

(Don't forget you can enlarge photos by clicking on them.)

Moths

2009-05-26T13:43:00.001-05:00

We have a wide variety of beautiful moths on the island. This guy is one we had not seen before.
George is moving his upper wing to reveal a lower set of wings. Most of the moths we have seen show the entire wing. This one is definitely different!

He reminds me of a stealth fighter plane.

Ginger was in the States for 5 long weeks. What was George and the crew up to while she was away in Oz?

2009-05-21T23:30:00.003-05:00

They finished the ceiling and installed fans

and lights in the indoor/outdoor dining area.

2009-05-21T23:25:00.003-05:00

We are making all the furnishings, cabinets, and bars on-site

The boards are cut, glued and clamped for drying and

planed and sanded by hand

2009-05-21T23:20:00.003-05:00

The handmade drawers for dressers

frames for closets and dressers and

bedside tables are ready for sanding and lacquering

2009-05-21T23:15:00.003-05:00

The sanded and lacquered bedside tables

built in closets/dressers and

sink cabinets and vanities are just the beginning of the furnishings being completed.

bathrooms

2009-05-21T23:04:00.003-05:00

They laid the fossile rojo tile in the bathrooms

installed the glass blocks in the showers and potty areas

and finished installing the louvered windows in the baths.