Thanks for the replies amigos!
As I recall it, Gov White left the colony bound for England as they were already desperate for supplies (food especially) and no English ships had arrived for quite some time. He had an understanding that if anything happened that might cause the colonists to be forced to leave the island to seek refuge with neighboring friendly Amerindians, they would leave some kind of message behind. Gov White was delayed in England due to the war with Spain and the slight problem of the Spanish Armada so he was delayed oh heck I am going to cheat and do a little "cut and paste" from Wiki:
<begin lazy cut-n-paste job>
Crossing the Atlantic as late in the year as White did was a considerable risk, as evidenced by the claim of pilot Simón Fernández that their vessel barely made it back to England. Plans for a relief fleet were initially delayed by the captains' refusal to sail back during the winter. Then, the coming of the Spanish Armada led to every able ship in England being commandeered to fight, which left White with no seaworthy vessels with which to return to Roanoke. He did manage, however, to hire two smaller vessels deemed unnecessary for the Armada defense and set out for Roanoke in the spring of 1588. This time, White's attempt to return to Roanoke was foiled by human nature and circumstance; the two vessels were small, and their captains greedy. They attempted to capture several vessels on the outward-bound voyage to improve the profitability of their venture, until they were captured themselves and their cargo taken. With nothing left to deliver to the colonists, the ships returned to England.
The discovery of "Croatoan" Because of the continuing war with Spain, White was not able to raise another resupply attempt for two more years. He finally gained passage on a privateering expedition that agreed to stop off at Roanoke on the way back from the Caribbean. White landed on August 18, 1590, on his granddaughter's third birthday, but found the settlement deserted. He organized a search, but his men could not find any trace of the colonists. Some ninety men, seventeen women, and eleven children had disappeared; there was no sign of a struggle or battle of any kind. The only clue was the word "Croatoan" carved into a post of the fort and "Cro" carved into a nearby tree. In addition, there were two skeletons buried. All the houses and fortifications were dismantled. Before the colony disappeared, White established that if anything happened to them they would carve a maltese cross on a tree near their location indicating that their disappearance could have been forced. <End cut-n-paste job>
My apologies for such laziness on my part, but I didn't want to rely on memory alone and I cannot get at my own books just yet. Anyway the period of time in which Gov White was absent was nearly three YEARS. A lot can happen in three years time, and we know that the Spanish and French fought for possession of Florida, where French Huguenots had established a colony and fort named Fort Caroline before the Spanish but were wiped out by Spanish surprise attack in the 1560's (as well as the French colony at Fort Charles in South Carolina) so it is one possibility that the Spanish found the English colony and attacked them. The problems with this scenario are that there is no record of any such Spanish attack (remember the Spanish were pretty good at keeping records) and that Gov White found no Maltese cross when he finally did return to the colony.
The fact that there was no Maltese cross should be a clue that the colonists departure was NOT forced (either by hostile Amerindians or Spanish or other foreign forces) and that the fortifications and houses had all been dismantled shows that the colonists had time to do this in making their departure. As there were NO other English colonies or outposts they could travel to, the obvious and logical explanation would be that they simply "moved in" with the friendly Croatoan tribe.
Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony (and famous for his encounter with Pocahontas) did get information on some English people living within fifty miles of Jamestown, but we don't know if Cpt Smith managed to locate any of these persons. As this was some twenty years after the last contact with the colonists, it is not unbelievable that some survivors could still be alive in his time.
The lost colony of Roanoke is only one of the lost early colonies, though we know what happened in most other cases (like the French colonies mentioned earlier) the vanished people of Roanoke leave us guessing. Thank you for your indulgence.
Oroblanco
You know what they say, - "sick minds think alike"!!! 
8)
