Exploring the Sapodilla Cays, Part 4, Lime Cay
21 March 2015 | Lime Cay, Belize
Beth / beautiful days in low 30's
Lime Cay, lying just a half-mile south west of Hunting Cay, is another privately owned one. We beached the dinghy on the gorgeous expanse of white sand curving out to the west as a boatload of visitors motored off.
After a stroll on the hot sand, we ventured up to a stand of trees where we spotted hammocks full of drowsy young people. As I started questioning the nearest of them, she pointed to another hammock off to the side and said, “There’s the owner.” And so started another of the easy, informative conversations we have enjoyed in these islands.
Sandra Williams owns the cay and welcomes visitors to stay for a day or a week in her sweet cabins nestled under trees and looking out across sand and sea. In the years since her husband Lester passed on, she has built it from a home into a small scale resort. Well – resort is not really the right word. Because this is not the kind of big scale, high end place we associate with resort. This is: a kitchen with picnic tables for dining and conversation, and hammocks for nappers and readers strung from trees and roof beams. This is: cabins for 2 or 4 or 20 – not fancy but with showers and electricity. This is: an open-air living room with a breeze sifting through the trees and where it is always cool. This is: a quiet woman who tells of the way she poured her pennies into making Lime Cay a happy place where people like to visit. This is: her son, Dennis Garbutt, who runs fishing and diving tours from Punta Gorda. (garbuttsfishinglodge.org) This is: a group of students from University of Massachusetts who just finished a research project in the jungle and are getting a taste of the cays and reef before returning to the snowy north.
It was a gentle afternoon, topped off by a leisurely swim, and a return to Madcap for rum punches as we watched the sun go down.