Paya Bay Story

Lurlene is one of the owners of the Paya Bay Resort. She sat with us a few nights ago and gave us some personal history. I think her story is fascinating so I’m going to tell it as best I can.

Lurlene and Mervin owned a grocery store for several years in Oak Ridge. It was the largest store in the town and doing very well. In 1995 someone started a fire in the building next door and before anyone realized what was happening, the store caught fire and was destroyed. Islander from 20 miles away knew something terrible had happened. The family was wiped out and had to start over.

Mervin owned some property on the other side of the island now know as alligator’s head. He quickly scraped together some money and started building a resort. It took a lot of time but the family stuck to it and finally had a very small place built and a few guests. The family actually slept on the beach using some mattresses salvaged from the fire. They were eaten alive every night but managed to keep building.

Hurricane Mitch came along and wiped out much of Roatan including some of the Paya Bay property. The road into the resort was totally blocked by mud and sand and the beach was gone. The entire island suffered greatly including some of the larger more established resorts. The power was out for a couple of months so any food they had stored was given away to local people. Everyone was surviving as best they could.

More of the resort had been completed by this time and much of it was okay but without food and power, live was rough and all guest cancelled of course. One night however Lurlene thought she heard someone called in the night “is anyone there”. She got up and looked outside but couldn’t see a thing. She heard the voice again “is anyone there”. She hollered back and someone approached. A lady traveling by herself had not heard about Mitch and had come to Roatan on vacation. The lady was scared and hungry. She had taken a taxi as far as it could go and the driver and her had walked with her luggage to the resort.

Lurlene explained the situation and prepared some simple food for the lady. They even found a place for her to sleep. In the morning Lurlene was refunding the lady’s money but the lady said she loved the place and warm reception and wanted to stay. She stayed the week helping out a bit and eating whatever food was available. She has occasionally written to Lurlene to thank her for the wonderful experience.

I certainly didn’t tell the story as well as Lurlene but I found it fascinating.