The plan was for a downwind passage, from Roatan to Placencia Belize and it was!!! The surprise to us was we even got to sail most of our way, while during the night we watched an amazing lightning show off the coast of Honduras.
We arrived on a Friday afternoon at Placencia, a cute little village with small resorts, restaurants and the main street is really a sidewalk. We opted not to check in right away as we needed to move our boat over to a big shipping port call Big Creek, where they ship bananas to Great Britain. We went to shore to get the lay of the land and money on our Belize phone. We hung around the boat on Saturday and Sunday, and then moved Interlude to Big Creek to check in. Big Creek has a well marked shipping channel through the cays and shallows where you then meander up a mangrove river for ¾ of a mile to a large shipping port. After taking a taxi ride into town (25 Belize or 12 US) we checked into Immigration another (50 Belize or 25 US) this was a boarding fee although they did not board us???? Then back to the port to check in to customs and were we paid nothing. Then we needed to go to the agriculture and health office and pay another boarding fee of 50 Belize, again he didn’t board us. We were then told that we will need to pay a port authority fee when we leave of 10 Belize per day, (which we don’t know if that is per person or for the boat) but the toothless port authority guy said if come and find him he will give us a deal. Fun and Games.
Back in Placencia we had a mission to check out the restaurants so Cheryl could take Karen out for her birthday dinner as we missed doing it when we were in Roatan as we were both feeling a little under the weather. We found out it was lobster season and Placenia was having a lobster festival, Cheryl was ecstatic! We had a lovely birthday dinner, 4 courses all made with lobster at Rumfish y Vino plus a few bottles of wine. And Karen didn’t even break Cheryl budget.
We discovered the Gelato parlor that everyone told us about and boy were they were right … “It was worth the drive/sail to Placencia”. We had to try a different flavor of Gelato every time we went to shore, it is a rough life but some one has to do the tasting for future reference and quality control.
During the lobster festival tropical storm, soon to be hurricane, Alex was forming and we needed to move to a safe harbour, so along with another boat, Triumphant, we headed into Big Creek. We dropped anchor in the mangrove river and had a peaceful night while we listen to the weather reports and heard that the tropical storm hit just 60 miles north of us. The cruise ship tenders from Belize City and another boat joined us. After having a calm night Triumphant and Interlude left Big Creek to go back to Placenia a 3 mile passage. On our way back we spotted 2 dolphins, so we knew we were okay.
As we came into Placencia anchorage we saw that Litbe, a 40 odd foot ketch, had gone aground and some of the local fishing boats where on shore or had sunk and where being bailed out. We meet the guy on Litbe and offer our help to get him back afloat. The next day along with Triumphant and a Canadian couple (Jim and Caroline) tried to free Litbe. We put out an anchor attached the main halyard and tried to heel her over enough to get her off, but we were not successful. So the owner decided to call in Tug boat to get him out. The next day a tug arrived and within 30 minutes he was a float. It is interesting to note that the Fortress 23 (the anchor) was so deeply embedded that the tug had to use her engine to break the anchor’s hold! (We have the same anchor!)
We enjoyed many meals and drinks with Jim and Caroline, they were great company and we never ran short of words. We watched the FIFA world cup with a young couple (Tadd and Lindsey) who were running charters for Trade winds and picked there brains for waypoints and good anchorages around the cays.
As for the boat work stuff, of course our 9 month old flexible water tank leaked yet again, after Cheryl took the tank out Karen was on a mission to find the hole, she found a small hole along the seam and after a repair job we tried our luck again. Nope we sprang 2 more leaks…needless to say Cheryl had some rather colourful words to say. Repair number 2 in less then 2 days. You guessed it leaks still. Karen did some sewing of mosquitoes netting and some whipping of lines as Cheryl continued to fight with the leaky water tank. Just to add some fun to our life our 4 hp outboard decided to not work again so we tried our 3.5 hp. No luck there either, so we rowed. We ended up going to a repair shop and as they did not have the time to work on our engine we took it apart and clean the carburetor and added new gasket material and it seems to work again, all the while 4 of the mechanics looked on and where amused as 2 girls took apart an engine and appeared to know what they were doing. Fooled them.
We spied a great weather forecast, so we headed out to Ranguana Cay which is located about 15 miles from the mainland and is nestled beside the barrier reef. With the waypoints we had from Tadd and clear skies it was an easy passage. Except for the fact that the depth sounder kept showing .8 of a meter of water below the hull (we need 1.8 meters to float!) We don’t know if it was Felix (our remora) or seaweed, as it happened at the same places on the way back. After picked up a mooring ball in Ranguana Cay, and securing an extra line as the mooring line showed significant chafing we hopped into the water to explore the reef.
Ranguana Cay is privately owned, with a few cottages on it and a restaurant and bar. We snorkeled up to the bar and made arrangements for dinner, you guessed it, Lobster! Dinner was nice, but a little pricy. We shared our anchorage with 2 of local Belize fishing boats, the mother ship is about 24 feet long, where they store the fish and the provisions and somewhere in that boat 5-7 guys sleep at night. Along with the mother ship there are 5-7 little 8 foot boats that the guys go out in all day to catch the fish either by hand line or free diving for lobster or conch. Once the mother ship is full of fish they take the catch to Belize City to sell at the market.
Well we didn’t catch any fish but we did snorkeled each day for a couple of hours and on our last day just around our boat, a large turtle, southern ray and tarpon and the usual snappers, angles and parrotfish came to say “see you next time”.
Since it hurricane season we have been watching the weather and on Sunday morning the winds freshened from the west, so our little anchorage out in the cays was not the place to be. Nor would many of the other Cays be. So we headed back to Placencia, which is sheltered from the west and we have easy access to weather forecasts.
This Friday we will be checking out of Belize but hope to stop at a few cays or harbours along the way before we head into the Rio Dulce for Hurricane season. And maybe by then Cheryl will have the flexible water tank fixed or she will have tossed it over board.
