Return to Caye Caulker

Due to the weather it looks like we'll have to stay in this area until Wednesday, it's too rough to get out of the cut by San Pedro. So the guys decided they'd rather go back down to anchor by Caye Caulker, where it's cheaper and more laid back. So we invited Dave & Rhonda to join us for the day to sail South, from where they could take the ferry back to Caye Ambergris.
We all enjoyed the relaxing, slow sail and sunshine. Everybody hopped in to swim as soon as we were anchored.
All five us crowded in the dinghy to town where we decided to try Greg's pizza. Of course then we had to take them to see the Lazy Lizard before catching their ferry.



The next few days we spent hanging around the island, getting Internet to check the weather, and waiting for conditions to improve to move on. We found a spa where we all got pedicures, and the guys went back the next day for waxing and massage. I enjoyed more swimming and island food, including curry shrimp and fry jacks. It's a very safe, friendly, laid back island and nice place to spend a few days. There are no cars, only bicycles and golf carts.







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Caye Ambergris

We headed North in the morning for the hour and a half sail to San Pedro, on Caye Ambergris, Belize. I visited this island a few years ago on a girls'trip, but I don't remember the town being so busy. We had stayed at a resort outside of town. Upon our arrival, we set the anchor, but it was rough and we didn't seem to be holding. Renan and I snorkeled out to the anchor and finally saw it set. I enjoyed swimming for a while longer, getting some really good exercise against the strong current.





We took the dinghy ashore and strolled through the town looking to meet up with my friends, Dave & Rhonda. They had spent two weeks diving with me and getting their advanced certification. We brought them back to check out the catamaran and caught up over beers while taking turns in my new hammock chair. Dave & Rhonda have been vacationing here several times recently, so they new of a great little El Salvadoran restaurant. We tried the papusas cooked on a grill and filled with cheese & various meats, they were tasty and inexpensive.







Back at Dave & Rhonda's hotel for some drinks



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Enjoying the day on Caye Caulker

Many huge tarpon at the little blue hole of Caye Caulker




After sleeping off our late night of dancing on their boat, Pam and Selene came over to pick up Mike and I for snorkeling and a bit of a tour. They first took us to the hole which goes into a cave system that supposedly some divers are exploring. This is not the big Blue Hole further out but a small one. We could see it drop out but mostly we were entertained by all the huge tarpon swimming around. There had to be at least 50 and they came right up encircling the dinghy.



After a couple minutes we headed through" the split" which is a break in the island caused by a hurricane several years back. It's now a major swimming area with a strong current running through. The Lazy is Lizard is a big beach bar right there on the point, and always seemed to be packed with a spring break type crowd. As we went out toward the reef, we passed wind surfers and kite surfers enjoying the wind & waves. The sun was blazing, so we lathered on the sunscreen.




A marine park patrol met us as we approached the reef, there's a $5 daily fee which goes toward protecting the area, which we gladly paid. Renan met us in the dinghy shortly after we arrived, so we all donned our snorkel gear and hopped into the refreshing water. It was a very shallow area and visibility was good. It was pretty and we spotted a baby ray, an octopus den, many blue striped grunts and a couple lion fish. The corals and fish life were not as varied or abundant as what I'm used to seeing in Roatan, but then I know I've been spoiled there the last couple years. It is part of the same barrier reef however, the second largest in the world.
After well over an hour exploring the water, we headed in for some lunch at the Lazy Lizard. The guys enjoyed the cheap buckets of beer, and looking at the drink prices I understood why the place is always packed with young people and locals.



We went for a stroll to explore more of the island by day, thinking that this would be our only day here. We hit a few shops and then decided we'd all make dinner together on Pam's boat. We got some fresh snapper, hogfish, and conch from the local fishermen at the dock. I made coconut rice, a big bowl of pico de gallo with nachos, stuffed the fish with garlic butter and rubbed it with spices to be grilled. Pam fried up some conch fritters, and we all enjoyed partaking of the delicious seafood dinner.




My first taste of hogfish

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Getting to Caye Caulker

It was another really early morning, but the weather was very agreeable and we made good time doing over 7 knots most of the way. Once we got under way we took turns napping and there was plenty of time to relax. While I got some sun at the bow, Mike wandered up and a minute later pointed out a dolphin right in front of me. Beautiful creature, it was in surprisingly shallow water as we were passing by Port O'Stuck.






Upon our arrival into Caye Corker, AKA Caye Caulker, we were met by Mike's friends on their catamaran. They sailed out to meet us and we followed them into the anchorage. After we were set, Pam & Selene (who Mike had always known as Michael but mentioned he was a cross dresser, and wore a woman's one piece swimsuit, toe rings, lots of jewelry, and red nails) swam over and we all enjoyed a Dark & Stormy, Mike's favorite cocktail-rum & ginger beer.
After a beautiful sunset, we rode to shore in our dingy and had a quick tour of the little town before dinner at Rose's. It was fresh seafood you pick out as you walk in, then they grill it and serve it. It was excellent, I had snapper fillet with stone crab, and curried plantains on the side. After a drink at another beach bar, we went back to check out Pam's catamaran, Esprit de Vent (spirit of the Wind).

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Off to see the cays of Belize

Thursday, March 21

We finally took off from Placencia on Wednesday about midday. Tom gave us the go ahead to keep going with one engine, since our mechanic didn't show up. So we went to the grocery for food & supplies for a few more days and got our last few minutes of Internet.
We set out in hopes of making it to a waypoint near the Tobacco Cays. Our speed was not what we'd hoped due to the wind and improper shape of the sails. Apparently our main sail is old and a bit stretched out, like many other things on this boat. However that's partially why we are taking it to Tampa to be sold; the owner is too old to keep up with it.
I made us some pizza for lunch and read in the hammock, my new favorite spot. We decided to turn in a bit earlier to anchor in an area called Blue Grounds. There are lots of little islands here, surrounded by mangroves, most with one or two thatched huts out over the water. How I'd love to call one of them my own! Mike thought he spotted a manatee but I missed it. Still hoping to see some while here in Belize, and we'd be ever so lucky to spot a whale shark...



The water here is much clearer and we could see the bottom, it goes from 30 ft to 2ft very suddenly, and we had to be careful not to hit reef as we tried to find a spot to anchor. It looks like it would be an awesome snorkel spot, and I can see several spots nearby marked on the cruising guide as good dive spots. I wish we had more time to just explore all these little sites, and I am unfortunately the one rushing us. We left a few days later than planned and then spent 3 extra days in Placencia, so now I am wondering if we'll make it to Tampa by the first of April. I had to choose a date and book a flight out of there though, and I have several friends waiting on me to embark on a couple other trips. So we have to keep this one moving.









As soon as we anchored by a little cay here, a lancha with four guys approached the boat. I'm sure the locals don't get too much action out here and like to meet the visitors and try to sell them something, however I was a little nervous. Of course they just wanted to know if we would buy any conch or wanted them to catch us some fresh fish, then they asked if we had any smokes. Renan later said this is very typical, they want cigarettes and not much more. We said we'd buy some snapper from them but it was nearly dark already and when they found out we'd be leaving first thing in the morning they took off and didn't return. We all agreed to be vigilant throughput the night and keep checking out every hour or so; the guys were only slightly concerned that if the forecast was wrong and the wind shifted the boat would swing over toward the shallow reef. I however, was more concerned that the four men in the little boat would return for our valuables or me. Oh how I've gotten more paranoid in my 30s, I'm sure I have my mother to thank for that. I keep thinking that I'm glad she won't know about some of these adventures until they are in the past and I'm still safe. I of course have to edit this blog knowing that she, and who knows who else, will read it. I'm thinking I should have separate version for myself to reread someday with more details about the Caribbean adventures I'm experiencing but can't quite share.

Anyway, I was awake a lot throughout the night but besides my vivid dreams, it was uneventful. We had planned an early departure, as soon as the sun was up enough to see to navigate past the reef. We were on our way before 6:30 and Renan maneuvered us out of the cays again and onto our track. He put out the sails and the wind finally seems to be in our favor. We're moving at nearly 7.5 knots and hope to make it to Caye Caulker by around 4:00 this afternoon to meet up with some of Mike's friends who've been diving and waiting for us for several days. If all goes well we should be meeting up with them in time for happy hour. Mike is excited to share the ginger beer he found and claims is the best he's had.
Renan gave me another brief sailing lesson this morning; I am picking up bits here and there. I made breakfast and now the guys are taking turns napping and at the helm while I am enjoying the hammock. My plans for the next several hours until our arrival include getting some sun on the trampoline at the bow while reading and napping, making lunch, and taking a turn or two at the helm. Another tough day on the water in paradise.


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A few days in Placencia

After recovering from St. Patty's Day festivities, we went ashore to get Internet and contact Tom to focus on the boat repairs. Renan got the water maker running and it was a simple fix on the port engine.


Placencia is a charming little town with a great friendly vibe. It reminds me of Roatan in some ways. It's fairly small and inexpensive with several good restaurants, shops and bars. Theres a definite Caribbean Creole culture here. The town has one main road with a w side streets, then off the beach there's a walkway with other bars and restaurants. The beach is a nice long stretch of sand.




Renan and I rented tanks and tried to dive to find the anchor, but as I suspected, it was way too murky. There is a grey muddy sand at the bottom of this bay which makes visibility terrible. So unfortunately we could not get back the other anchor, but the other one we had is sturdier anyway. We also bought a swivel and new shackles to make sure this one won't snap.



Dingy dock
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St. Patty's Day

Sunday morning we went into town to get Internet at the Above Grounds Coffee House, which looked like a treehouse. We spent several hours here over the next few days while in Placencia.
We found the Purple Space Monkey in the afternoon with wifi, so we decided to pop in for a drink, a yummy green monitor with a lime cut to look like a grasshopper.
In the evening we went to the Paradise Resort where all the cruisers were meeting up for a traditional Irish dinner and green jello shots. They were playing lots of Oldies music and some silly dance competitions. Mike took second place in playing air violin?! We ended the evening dancing at the Barefoot Bar and then a night swim back at the boat. Good times!






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Arrival in Placencia

Saturday, March 16

Another early start from our secluded little cove, we got the anchor up and headed out again to finish the trip to Placencia. We have a cruising guide with information on all the little cays and areas to anchor from Guatemala up to Florida. It may be a bit outdated, but has a ton of interesting data and spots mapped out. According to it, Placencia used to be a small fishing town, but now due to the amount of money to be made, it is more of a tourist town.

We immediately notice lots of other boats and set our anchor in an appropriate spot. Our radio sparks to life and someone already knows we're here. It's a couple on a boat called Caberet, and they know the owner of our boat, Tom, and have also met Renan. Little did I know then that they would be the ones to introduce me to real "cruising". A lot of people stay a month or two at this port town and all get to know each other. They make announcements each morning and get together for potluck dinners and all kinds of events. Caberet's owners, Suzy & John, told us about a St. Patty's Day celebration on Sunday night. we decided on the spot to stay until Monday morning to enjoy the festivities.
Suzy gave us a lot of tips right off the bat, including that we really don't have to check into Belize unless we plan to stay quite a while, like a month. According to her we wouldn't be able to check in until Monday, and I'd rather save my $75, but the guys would like to get their Belize stamp. I find it quite interesting that you can spend a week or two in a country and not have to go though customs and immigration, but by boat apparently the rules are different.
Since we hadn't yet gotten the water maker running, we decided to pull up the anchor and go in to the dock to fill up. We decided to have a beer in celebration of arriving at our first port of call.
An hour later we pulled away and back out to anchor, and all hell broke loose. well, technically the anchor broke loose, and somehow at the same time the transmission went out on the starboard motor and the port motor wouldn't turn. So we were suddenly adrift, and Renan had to get on the radio and ask for help from nearby boaters with their dingys in the water. he jumped in our dingy to start to tow us, I took the helm, and pretty quickly a couple others were there to help tow us in to a dock. Suzy of course was the first one there, and the way she was yelling and ordering everyone around, you would have thought it was a life or death situation, which was really annoying all the men. Anyway we tied up to the dock, thanked everyone, and all was fine.
Renan decided to treat us to a shrimp and steak dinner and beer at the Paradise Resort, then we walked in to check out the town a bit.










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And we're off to sea!

Up at 5:30, I am excited to begin our journey at sea!

We had a minor issue with the same engine, but again Renan has come through for us and he and Mike have fixed it. We set off down the river again toward Livingston. It is still cloudy and quite chilly. Again the birds and beauty along the river impress us, especially now with the fog rolling out of the mountains.

I made us some big yummy breakfast burritos with Papaya to get us a good start on the day. We cruise right past Livingston this time, and directly out to sea where we head North. The sea is fairly calm and we seem to be making good time. I am learning to drive the boat and take the helm for a while. We had been motoring but the guys put up the sails as I navigate and steer. After all was set we turned on the autopilot, which makes sailing seem like a breeze.

Highlight of the day: A little while later I looked to port and was excited to see a dolphin surface right beside the boat. I jumped up and ran to the bow and saw several others alongside us. Dolphins the first day has to be good luck! They were beautiful and stayed with us for about 5 minutes.

After the excitement died down I decided to go in to make lunch: a big veggie pasta salad. I am trying to keep up my reputation as a cook even in this little galley kitchen with no appliances, a lack of many ingredients, and only the very basics. So far I think the guys are quite pleased.

Unfortunately, just as I put the water on to boil and start cutting up the veggies, the wind and waves picked up. After cruising along so smoothly, seemingly out of nowhere the wind changed and we were taking some huge waves right on the bow. Now it's getting exciting! I was a little nervous however, wielding a knife to chop veggies and boiling water with the waves pounding the boat so hard.

After a couple hours of this, we are not far from Placencia, but we decide to turn into a cove just North of Monkey River to be sheltered for the night. We anchor in line with a few other sailboats and decide to dry out the boat. A huge wave had come over the boat and in through the hatches and soaked my clothes, bedding, and unfortunately both the guys' laptops. After hanging things to dry, we had nothing left to do but relax for a couple hours. I decide to hang in the hammock we purchased in Livingston. After a few minutes I realize I haven't felt so relaxed in a long time. I'm reading Jimmy Buffett's "A Pirate Looks at Fifty" which I feel is very fitting. He is on the eve of his 50th birthday and realizes the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" came out the year of his birth. He looks back on his life thus far and writes that he totally agrees with that line; and as I lay in the hammock, looking out over the gorgeous turquois water at the view of Great Monkey Cay and Little Monkey Cay, I also have to agree. A huge smile on my face, I am perfectly happy at this moment.









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We woke up on Wednesday morn and Renan said the owner, Tom, suggested we should leave today instead of Thursday. So we rushed around the town trying to get everything on our list of supplies and back to the boat. The town of Rio Dulce, at least as far as we ventured, is mainly a bunch of little shops along a main road littered with street vendors. It does not smell pleasant and is not a visually enticing place.
We grabbed as much of what we could find on our list, and stopped by Sundog, where we had dined the last 3 out of 4 nights. We said adios to Tom, the bar owner and infamous pizza maker. Renan is considered a regular at this expat spot on the water, and even has a pizza named after him.
After sending a last few emails and FB messages, the boat was ready and we set off for Texan Bay for the second time. We filled up on fuel on the way out and waved goodbye to Tom, whose boat we are delivering to Tampa. He's lived on this boat for about the last 8 years and is sentimental about seeing it go. He got throat cancer last year and now gets seasick easily, and after getting into some rough weather on a trip a couple months ago, he decided he wants to sell the 42' catamaran.
It was an easy trip down the river, especially since we had just done it two days before. I got comfortable in my new little kitchen, now to be called "galley", and made some tacos for lunch. We anchored and went ashore to get wifi and it began to rain. I was surprised how chilly it was after the sweltering heat we had a couple days before. We decided to warm up with some $2 a glass box wine and chat with the locals and other travelers in the evening.

We got up to go to Livingston to officially check out ourselves and the boat from Guatemala, so Friday we can hopefully get going at dawn and go straight out to sea, weather permitting. We spent a couple hours shopping in Livingston, again reminding me of my trip here with the Habitat for Humanity crew a couple years ago. The panga boat ride was chilly, since it was a cloudy cool day on the river. I was in awe of the tranquil beauty of the river and the plethora of birds all along the way. We saw areas littered with cormorants and egrets, and pelicans bobbing and lining the boats and other structures along the river. Back at the boat we took a couple hours to relax and I found my favorite spot on the trampoline at the portside bow to read and nap in the sun.

Tonight we had to go ashore to try the Chi lacka dinner we'd been told about the night before. Supposedly the chilacka is a mixed breed of lobster and shrimp, it comes from the river and seems like a giant crawfish. It tasted just like a shrimp, was cooked in garlic butter and served with tasty sides.
The absolute stillness of the bay seems in contrast to what we will soon be getting into on the sea. There is not even a hint of a breeze nor a ripple in the water. It has been cloudy and quite chilly with lots of rain at night. This seems to be a cold front that is part of the Northerly storm we've been waiting out for calmer seas and wind.
The amazing beauty in this hideaway dotted with sailboats has attracted some interesting characters who convene every night at the bar/restaurant at Burnt Key Marina. It's an international hodgepodge of folks who've given up the modern day life of materialism for a laid back life at sea. Sandy, who must be in her mid-sixties and runs the place, is known for her cooking and coercing guests into doing shots of tequila for whatever reason one may find. I graciously refused, thankfully, since we're planning to be off at 6am. One gent, who had just smoked some herb from a can, kept telling us we can't leave on a Friday. "Every sailor knows it's bad luck to leave on Friday!" Well, I reminded everyone that we actually left to start our journey on Wednesday from Rio Dulce, so I think we'll be ok.








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Location:Back to Texan Bay & Burnt Key

Rio Dulce & test run to Texan Bay

After my arrival in Rio Dulce, the Captain, Renan Galindo, informed me that there were a few things to be done on the boat, and due to weather we wouldn't be leaving on Monday as he had hoped. I met the owner of the boat, Tom, and Mike Lehmkuhl, our crewmate for the journey to Tampa.
Sunday Tom drove us to Morales, the closest place with a larger grocery type store, they call the local Walmart. He purchased some basic supplies, pots, pans, food, etc that we would need for the journey.

On Sunday early afternoon we took the boat out for a test run to overnight in Texan Bay, about an hour & a 1/2 down the river. The local expats take their boats there for a Sunday BBQ & libations at a little place there called Burnt Key. Upon our arrival into the bay, someone, who wouldnt identify himself, was hollering to me from the dock & radioing that he'd been waiting for me. I played along but had no idea who it was until we took the dingy to shore to the restaurant. I was glad to see it was a good buddy of mine, Ken, who I'd known and been diving with in Roatan. He showed us the boat he's been living on for several months and is getting ready to sell. Never thought I run into someone I knew in that little piece of nowhere, but it's a small world in some ways as we learn the more we travel. We had some great food, listened to an Aussie chic playing guitar, and heard some interesting stories over a few beers.

Monday we got up and after fixing the boat engine, headed back down the river and out into Lake Izabal to calibrate the auto pilot. It was sticky, hot & sunny, so I finally asked the guys to let me hop in the water to cool off for a bit. The fresh water in the lake was warmer than I expected but also refreshing. We all hopped in for a bit and were surprised by the force of the current. I was pleased to get some exercise swimming just trying to stay next to the boat.

We docked and Renan knew the minor issues that needed to be fixed on the boat. Meanwhile Mike and I explored a bit more of Rio Dulce on Tuesday.








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