Life is Good

We are nearing the end of another great vacation aboard Mañana , and our plans changed almost daily depending on where the wind was blowing and what we saw that we liked.  Our planned passage for late spring to Mexico and the US never materialized as we lingered in Belize longer than expected.  When we had to make a decision to go north to FL or back to the Rio Andrea and I both opted for another summer in the river so we could return Belize next year.  “Planning” like this is part of the reason it has now taken us 6 years to move the boat from CA to Guatemala, a trip that could be accomplished easily, albeit quickly, in a single year.

 

After leaving Placencia we moved north toward Cay Caulker and San Pedro, Ambergris in a series of day sails from one small cay to another.  Wippari was great snorkeling, Sapodilla was a social stop, St George’s was a spectacularly beautiful anchorage, and Colson Cay was a reminder that not all is perfect in paradise. While seeking protection from some mild east winds we anchored in the lee of Colson Cay. Beautiful. But at 10 PM the winds kicked up from the west, and we were completely exposed to wind and fetch. When the “breeze” hit 35 knots our anchor moved but did not reset. We were dragging fast. We picked up the anchor, moved forward, and dropped again… and again… and again. The third try hooked us, but the rest of the night was a sleepless anchor watch just waiting to move again.  I have often said that the only differences between RV’ing and cruising is that boats stop in much nicer places, but at least the RV stays where you put it. Colson was not our only bad night on this trip.  A few weeks later we anchored again in Placencia Harbor and got hit with wind gusts to 48 knots, but there the thick muddy bottom held our anchor securely and except for our personal anxiety the boat was perfectly happy.

 

 

Cay Caulker!! This island town is a Belizean treat not to be missed if you visit this country.  It is one of the larger cays and is located right on the outer reef making it a popular stop for young tourists looking for beaches, sun, surf, diving and snorkeling. The entire town is comprised of sand streets with nothing larger than a golf cart for transportation. Funky bars and restaurants with sand floors and rustic furniture line the main street which parallels the beach.  Pick a spot and enjoy cool ocean breezes underneath thatched roofs, a nice cold drink, fresh conch ceviche and spectacular water views. Our favorite bars were Pat and Stell’s run by a local couple and the Barrier Reef Sports Bar, but the Lazy Lizard was the spot to watch the European sun bathers. One afternoon the Sports Bar featured a “jam session” for local and visiting musicians and we were treated to one of the most memorable singing performances I can remember (Willie included).  A young fellow entertained us with vocals of several blues, reggae and rock songs before bringing the house down with a fantastic performance of “Oh, Darling” made popular by the Beatles. Turns out he was one of the owners of the bar and had performed with several participants in the jam session which accounted for music and vocals meshing so well. We found several restaurants in Cay Caulker that would be popular anywhere in the world given the food, the price and the ambience, but then again “the ambience” is the Cay. Fry jacks for breakfast, tacos and ceviche for lunch, fresh fish for dinner… ah-h-h the good life.

 

While in Cay Caulker we did take a day long snorkel adventure to the reef and into the Hol Chan Park reserve (Hol Chan means “little channel” and refers to the narrow channel that passes through the reef at that point). Though we have our own boat and the means to explore the snorkeling reefs by ourselves we have often found that the tour guides do know the best spots for both coral and sea life. Cay Caulker was no exception. We got a six person tour that included swimming with many nurse sharks, rays, giant turtles, huge schools of large Amberjacks, and at the end, a manatee. Our first stop was a conch cleaning site on the reef where the fishermen bring their conch catch for cleaning, disposing of “spare parts” overboard. I jumped into the water to find the bottom littered with thousands of conch shells, and the first attention getting sight of sea life that I had was four giant rays with 4 to 5 foot wing spans swimming directly at me.  They were followed by sea turtles with heads larger than mine, and both the rays and turtles were feeding on the conch parts being thrown overboard by the fishermen. If I had been on my own I might have decided that I was swimming somewhere that I shouldn’t be, but because the guide had brought us here I felt a lot more confident. Our second stop was in the park reserve where the guide coaxed a moray eel out of his cave.  The eel extended 3 feet out of the rocks before retreating from all of the attention. Another stop involved swimming with 20 to 30 nurse sharks and multiple rays in the ominously named ‘Shark Ray Alley’.  The guide attracted both sharks and rays by throwing sardines into the water, and while sharks and rays were feeding on one side of the boat we jumped in on the other. I managed to get a hand out(and back) touching several rays, turtles and even the sharks. The final stop was to find a manatee. These shy sea elephants only surface occasionally submerging for 20 to 30 minutes at a time to dine on sea grasses. We found our manatee, but after a quick underwater encounter with the 700 pound creature, he/she moved away from our boat. French Angel Tours is our recommendation if you get to Cay Caulker (they also showed us tiny seahorses,schools of tarpon, beautiful coral reefs, and many, many other schools of fish) .

      

After the laid back attitude of Cay Caulker, San Pedro on Ambergris Cay seemed like a chaotic, big town even though you could amble down the middle of the street occasionally dodging the many golf carts and small cars. I guess it was the paved road that gave it the big town feel.  Still, San Pedro is another fun filled Caribbean town catering to the water oriented tourist. We left the boat in Cay Caulker while we took the day long trip via fast ferry to San Pedro where we sampled the restaurants, explored waterfront bars, and walked the long, long beach at Ambergris Cay. One “character” we met was a restaurant owner who had moved to Ambergris almost 30 years ago when he arrived with a rock band and never left.  On the walls of the bar pictures of the band attested to a much younger, healthier, but hardly happier man, and he entertained us for quite some time with his stories about Ambergris in the old days.

   

    

As I write this installment for our blog, we are once again in the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. We will leave tomorrow for a bus ride to San Pedro Sula, Honduras and then a multi-stop flight home.  Did I mention that San Pedro Sula is the murder capital of Latin America? Well, Andrea wanted a little more adventure, and since we hadn’t seen any pirates on this trip…  This is our second visit to the Rio, and we will leave our boat here until late fall.  This area of the Caribbean suffers from way too much heat in the summers as well as the threat of hurricanes so we are very happy to spend the warm months back in CA. Today, for example, the morning temperature was 84 degrees with 96% humidity at 7AM.  That’s not nice and much too hot for a couple of displaced Californians. 

   

Best to all,

 

Tom and Andrea

UnBelizeable

We returned to Roatan in late March, and I thank all of you at home who are making our retirement easier by getting your taxes done earlier each year. The boat is again in great shape and seems to get better each year so some of the repair work we do must be paying off. We were aboard only two days at the tiny Brooksy Point marina (10 boats) before we were ready to set sail for Belize.

We planned on provisioning at the local market in Honduras because we had been warned about the high prices for good food and bad beer in Belize so we hiked the two miles to the store stopping along the way for breakfast at a car wash (go figure). As we entered the “casual” restaurant the waitress popped up from a nap in a nearby hammock, took our breakfast request to the kitchen, and promptly returned to the hammock. She moved again to deliver food to the table, but it appeared that the hammock was her duty station in this café. Yes, Honduras is “laid back”.

The supermarket did yield one treasure. We found a bottle of gin (actually several bottles of gin as it turns out) for only $3.00. “London Dry Gin” said the label in big letters along with some smaller letters indicating that “London” may actually be in Kentucky and is “not” where the queen lives. Still, a bargain is a bargain and not to be sneezed at, and yes, my eyesight doesn’t seem to have suffered even a week later.

Waiting for favorable winds for the 100 mile passage to Belize we headed to West End, Roatan to again enjoy the ambience of this small, popular dive town (that’s scuba dive) at the end of the island. We anchored off the long sand beach for 4 days enjoying snorkeling on the reefs by day and strolling the town in the evenings. We were joined here by our friends George and Pixie on Silver Sea (Panama acquaintances) and Lenny and Sue on Wind Dancer. All in all a perfect place to wait for a good east wind.

We fairly floated out of West End with little wind for the first two hours and then we picked up a nice easterly for our west bound trip. In fact the wind was so nice that we changed destinations mid stream (so to speak) and instead of heading directly to Placentia, Belize to check into the country we angled north to reach one of the three coral atolls off the Belize coast. These atolls are three of the only four atolls in the world that are not located in the Pacific and they are a treat. Complete circles of coral reef surround shallow lagoons that are as much as 30 miles long. Sea depths on the outside of the reefs climb from 1500 feet to as little as 3 feet on the reef almost instantly, and inside the reef calm seas prevail, ideal for anchoring, diving, relaxing, having a beer, etc.

The atoll we chose first was only 25 miles off the coast of Belize and a pleasant all night sail found us within 15 miles of the atoll at 6 AM when the wind shifted. Our easterly became 20 to 25 knots of northerly (on the nose) and the last 15 miles, in rough, bouncy seas took us 8 very uncomfortable hours. When we got in we were wet (very), happy (relatively) and exhausted (completely). Andrea and I both fell asleep by 5 PM and slept through to the next AM. Our reward however was to awake to one of the most beautiful vistas we have experienced in all of our travels. Bright turquoise waters with foamy waves breaking on the reef while we sat in absolutely flat water with sunshine and a brisk breeze. We took a couple of days to recover from the passage and then headed to a second atoll (Turneffe) before heading to Belize proper.

Belize was formerly British Honduras and the language here is English. This is actually the first English speaking country we have visited on Mañana, and it does make it much easier to get around. Coastal Belize is protected from the Caribbean Ocean by a long barrier reef which provides great diving and snorkeling opportunities as well as a wealth of fish. Inside the reef are hundreds of islands, some just mangrove patches and others with coconut palms and sand beaches. Navigation is tricky and we move around mostly at midday when the sun is high (and hot) and the coral patches and reefs are visible. There is a broad, deep channel between the mainland and the outer cays and this has provided some of the best sailing we’ve ever had. Winds blow regularly from the east and the deep channel runs north to south, a perfect point of sail. We have had several sails moving 6 to 7 knots through beautiful turquoise waters while the ocean breezes kept temperatures manageable. We have seen no rain on this entire trip and we are salty.

We sailed into Placencia, our first town in Belize and anchored in a pleasant, colorful harbor with about 20 other boats. Our detours had turned the 100 mile trip form Roatan into a 240 mile sail. Placencia is a very pretty little tourist mecca with one paved street, one long paved sidewalk through town, and a maze of short, sand streets running everywhere. We sampled the local beer only briefly. Beliken may be the worst beer I have ever tasted although the alternative Lighthouse beer is passable. We are learning to drink dark rum and OJ (well not actually “learning”) and consuming our supply of Honduran beer when afloat. We have also found good food here at places like the Barefoot Bar, Yolis, Purple Space Monkey, the Shak and the ubiquitous Crow’s Nest. Friday night we spent the evening at Yolis for a BBQ and live music. The band members (very entertaining) appeared to all be about the same age as the Rolling Stones so last call was about 8:30 PM. The crowd included boaters, tourists and a large number of ex-patriots who now call Belize home for at least part of the year. Saturday we treated ourselves to fresh fish at La Dolce VIta. This small Italian restaurant was as good as any we have in CA.

Today we are off again for another week of anchoring in the cays. We will miss this town. Everyone in Placentia has been very friendly, helpful and smiling and that makes us very happy to be in Belize. Unbelizeable!!.

 

Tom and Andrea

Hotel California

Getting out of the river "just before Christmas" turned out to be "just wishful thinking". We were ready, the boat was ready, even the weather was ready, but... the river was not ready (insert eerie sounds like a Stephen King movie here). Our plan was to head down river a few days before Christmas, check out of the country in Livingston on Christmas eve, and spend Christmas day sailing the sunny Caribbean. Good to go except... all of the immigration offices closed for the holidays (okay, we might have planned for that), and we were unable to get the necessary paperwork and stamps. We had checked out of the marina, but we couldn't check out of the country. Think Hotel California... "you can check out, but you can never leave".

 

 The not-too-hard-to-take downside is that we were forced to endure another week of celebrations and parties revolving around the Christmas holidays. Not all bad. Christmas with sailors from all over the world is interesting if only to find out what others consider the essentials of the holidays. Games on Christmas Eve, pot luck dinner on Christmas Day, and a super New Year's Eve were our penance for poor planning. New Year's Eve became particularly memorable when, after just a few cocktails, we decided to take a small motor boat out on the river at midnight to see the fireworks. Sitting on the water in the dark we watched as at least 15 different sites along the river fired off some spectacular fireworks from private homes, riverside restaurants, and even the 100' high bridge over the river. Spectacular, indeed! Throughout Latin America fireworks are an integral part of any celebration and Guatemala was no exception.

 

We also delayed the departure enough so tht we were on the river for the legendary Denny's Beach Full Moon Party held on a small beach in Lago Isabela. Apparently there are only two full moons a year, but December was one of them. We had a good sail past the castle and into the lake. Over 20 boats managed to make the trip and the party was well worth the effort. New Year's Eve was also particularly memorable when, after just a few cocktails, we decided to take a small motor boat out on the river at midnight to see the fireworks. Sitting on the water in the dark we watched as at least 15 different sites along the river fired off some spectacular fireworks from private homes, riverside restaurants, and even the 100' high bridge over the river. Spectacular, indeed! Throughout Latin America fireworks are an integral part of any celebration and Guatemala was no exception.

  

Bright and early (well , about 2 PM) on New Year's Day we finally did get underway, stopping for the night at Texan Bay downriver, and then arriving in Livingston for our long awaited checkout on Jan 2. We easily navigated the shallow sand bar at the river mouth and headed toward Honduras. We were rewarded with a brisk afternoon sail across the bay to a well protected anchorage at Tres Puntas. The following morning we would begin the 30 hour sail to the island of Utila (where we would check- in to the country) and then on to Roatan.

The crossing turned out to be both boring and uncomfortable (see sailing isn't all sunny days and cocktails). We had little wind during the day and then got hit with some strong, unpredicted headwinds starting at midnight. Our bouncy, wet evening did not end until we reached Utila shortly after dawn, but we did arrive safely, checked into Honduras with immigration and the Port Captain, and then immediately headed to Roatan and the turquoise waters of French Harbor.

Because of the weather issues we were only the second boat to leave Mario's Marina this season. Winds were pretty constant from the east for much of December and January was going to be no different. Our first few days in French Harbor were marked with very high winds. We got off the boat during the days to swim, snorkel, explore, shop, etc., but evenings were spent aboard keeping an anchor watch. When we heard predictions of overnight winds of 40 knots we finally opted to move over to the docks at the Fantasy Island Resort. Again, not all bad. For less than $20 per night we got to use the entire resort facilities AND we were tied up safely... except for the monkeys.

Fantasy Island has some very cute monkeys who have a definite theft gene. Must be in their DNA because they will try to steal anything that isn't tied down. We had to clear the cockpit each time we left the boat. One evening we had a monkey drop from the trees into our Happy Hour. It was out of the trees, picked up a cocktail glass, and was back into the trees 20' overhead before anyone could move. Fortunately the glass was empty, though I did lose my favorite coffee cup a few days later.

   

Our lone guest for this trip arrived for a week long stay, and that got us moving again. We spent two more days at Fantasy Island, visited another resort on Little French Cay and dined at Frenchy's 44 restaurant before we set out on a sail to the West End of Roatan. This was a downwind sail and a beautiful day on the water. We anchored in a picturesque bay that fronts the dive town (that's scuba dive, not dive dive) of West End. Think sand street (one) and multiple restaurants, bars, scuba shops, and small hotels. One of the benefits of being on an island in the Caribbean is fresh fish, and in addition to trying several waterfront bars, we found some delicious Mahi and tuna at the Lighthouse restaurant. West End also has a protected reef that is part of their National Parks system. This is the dive capital of the world, but I will say that it ranks way up there in the snorkeling category also. This was probably the best reef we have seen in the Caribbean so far.

.

Three days later we got another great sail back to French Harbor in spectacular blue seas and sunny skies. The 6 hour sail was warm, smooth, picturesque and relaxing. Exactly the kind of day we were looking for when we set out on this trip almost six years ago. Good thing because the following day the skies opened, rains fell, and Noah would have felt at home. Six days of heavy rain left us scrambling to get the boat ready for our mid-winter trip home for work. The boat is safely tied to the pier at a very small marina in Roatan, and our new best friend Mike is keeping an eye on it until we can return in late March for another two months afloat... this time in Belize and Mexico!!!