After a week of sailing, we made it to Belize! Mostly sailed, but at times the wind died down and we motored, doing 120 miles in 24 hours. We are anchored in Halfmoon Cay in 5.4' of water. I was on the bow watching for coral heads and said to Denny I wished we had a pilot boat to guide us. Sure enough, not but 15 minutes later here comes a ponga with 3 guys. We are in a park and the driver was the park warden. They welcomed us to Lighthouse Reef and told us to follow them and would show us where to anchor. This place is beautiful! We went to shore and found the park warden. The fee is $10/person/day US. We walked the island and went to the bird tower. Here you can see thousands of red-footed boobies and frigate birds. We learned the male frigate birds have a red pouch under their chin and it takes them 10 minutes to inflate this looking like a red balloon. This is to attract the females. The red-footed boobies are all white except red feet and they make a cooing sound. The red flowered ziricote trees are nesting grounds for thousands of boobies and frigates. These birds build their nests in November, lay in December, and hatch in January & February. Looking with binoculars we saw a huge iguana in a tree. We walked the other end of the island where we saw the area of endangered sea turtles nesting grounds and a lighthouse. The first lighthouse was built in 1820 and you can see the remains of it in the water. The new one has a frigate nest near the top which is huge. We also saw several hermit crabs scooting along the trail.

Back on the boat we had cocktails on a noodle. This water is so warm! Love it!

I have some great photos of what we saw on the island and will post them when we have internet.

Life is good on Kokomo!

Becky
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