Happy Easter!

Well a lot has happened since our last entry.

Rob & Sheralee were given a baptism of fire to cruising. As we headed south to San Pedro Belize, the winds were gusting 43kts and the seas were 8 to 10 feet. Unfortunately, neither of them had their sea legs, nor had they ever sailed in rough weather, nor had they ever done an overnight passage.

Sheralee fared a little better than Rob, and the two of them spent most of the trip firmly ensconced in the cockpit, unable to go down below to sleep. As you can see from the photo the seas were rather high. It was a hard passage for them both, but they braved it out without any fuss.

Matters were made worse by the fact that the weather was too rough to attempt to enter the gap through the reef and go into San Pedro, so it meant sailing south the English Channel, a night landfall and anchoring at Water Cay.

This was a first for me as we had never anchored in the dark before, still it was good practice. The CQR anchor could get a good hold, so we switched to the Danforth, which took first time.

The winds were still strong as we settled down for a good nights sleep, but funnily enough it didn’t bother anyone!!!!

We had been unable to get hold of a Belizian courtesy flag, so I made one!!! As I only had tiny tubes of acrylic paint I had to water it down to make it go further, so our flag looks well used and faded.

The next day we headed in to Belize City to clear in. We anchored off The Radisson hotel, but it was too rough to get the dinghy down, so we upped anchor and headed for Gallows Point as it was closer to Belize City.

On the second attempt we got a firm holding. It was a lovely protected anchorage and that evening we were treated to a lovely sunset and the sounds of Manatees surfacing around us.

Up early the next morning we headed back to Belize City to clear in. It was still rough out of the protection of the anchorage, but we had to clear in before Good Friday, or we wouldn’t be able to clear in until the following Tuesday, which would mean we were stuck there until then.

It turned out to be a good move, because it was so rough, the Customs, Immigration, Health and Quarantine officers decided not to come out to the boat, but instead did the business in the coast guards office.

Finally cleared in, we headed back to the anchorage.

The next day, Rob, who after 7 days had not been in the water (I believe this is unheard of for him) decided he had to go in. So we lowered the dinghy and went exploring the mangroves.

As we set sail for Coulsons Cay the next day we were treated to several sightings of a Manatee. It is the first one any of us had seen in the wild.

Coulsons Cay was yet another little island, with no beaches. But it did have some interesting snorkelling. At first we were all a bit disappointed as it appeared to be only Turtle grass on the bottom and no coral, but then on closer inspection there were lots of new corals growing, dozens of lovely cushion star fish, conch, and it was a veritable nursery for juvenile fish, many of which we had never seen before.

Sheralee and I went back to the boat, as, despite spf 50, we were burning but the boys went off exploring.

We had read that there was a blue hole somewhere around the area and the boys came back very excited having found not one but 3.

After a quick snorkel round the blue holes the next morning, we upped anchor and made way for Garbutts Cay.

Upon first seeing the little island, I got quite excited as it had beaches!!!!! You have to remember that 3 of the crew hadn’t set foot on dry land for 10 days!!!

So, once we had anchored, we dropped the dinghy and went exploring. The book had said there was good snorkelling, but we didn’t find it.

The beaches on the island were made up of dead coral and rubbish which was very disappointing.

But the shallows were interesting with lots of cushion starfish and sea biscuits.

We were heading back to the boat when we decided to see if we could get into the lagoon. We had the Lookee Bucket on board (a bucket with a clear bottom) and it was while we looking to see if the bottom was ok to go over that we found a spectacular coral garden and wall.

The boys had their gear (as we girls were too sunburnt) and so they went snorkelling while we went back to the boat. But we had a surprise when we got back.

There, right next to the boat was a dolphin and her baby. Unfortunately the boys had the cameras so we didn’t get a photo.

We had a splendid dinner that night, the sky was clear and full of stars, so we took a bottle of bubbly and laid on deck all night enjoying the stars, the weather and good company.

At 8.30 the next morning we had a visitor, Mayor Harry in his dugout canoe.

He is the mayor of his little island, where he lives with his dog. We gave him our old ensign as he collects them. Indeed he has decided to call his island Unitednations Island and promoted himself to secretary general. He went beachcombing and brought us some seashells and then went and picked us some Noni fruit to make Noni juice, which is good for you.

He paddled off, wishing us a safe journey and we headed for Dangriga. This had not been our intention, but I was getting worried about the lack of fresh fruit and veg on board. You see when I was victualling in Playa del Carmen, I had read that San Pedro was good shopping, so thought I would get it all there and thus only bought enough to get us down there. Well, as we didn’t get in there, I didn’t get any more veg and fruit. So we have been eating tinned veg. I know it’s not a big deal, but I am trying to keep those for emergencies when we can’t get any fresh.

Plus we had 2 big sacks of rubbish on the after deck that was beginning to attract unwanted attention. Roger reluctantly agreed due to navigational issues and took us over to the mainland which was an hour away from Garbutts. The wind was up again, so Sheralee & I got wetter than we would have liked. But we went to the market, got some good vegetables and met Charlie, the local ‘guide’. Charlie has been guiding ‘Gringos’ for 17 years.

He took us to Val’s café and there we managed to get hold of some lovely freshly baked banana bread, courtesy of Yvette.

A message came in over the radio from Roger, could we get some beer (supplies were critically low). Charlie went and bought us a dozen bottles and we headed back to the creek to be picked up by Roger.

After a tricky departure we set sail again but this time for Twin Cays. Apparently there are lots of manatee there, so I hope to get some good photos.