Greetings from Placencia, Belize! We finally pulled into civilization after spending a nice chunk of time exploring the offshore islands and atolls. We weren't even ready to leave them but not only did we not have an internet connection (or remember the password for our blog so that someone else could update it for us), but the laundry has been piling up and we were getting very low on produce. In actuality, we've never been away that long, ever!
Placencia is full of cruising boats and promises to be a great place to hang out for a few days and get things done as well as meet other cruisers. A walk ashore this afternoon after our arrival was all our cruising guide promised it would be and so far I think I'm really going to like it here. The town sits at the end of a long peninsula that runs along the Southern coast of Belize and appears to be made of mainly sand. Amongst the many flowering trees and shrubs is the town's famous mile-long sidewalk that runs parallel to the water. Cute, brightly painted buildings line either side of the sidewalk and that is where everything is- internet cafe's, laundry, restaurants and shops. Each sandy yard is neatly raked and adorned with conch shells, periwinkles, bougeanvilla, alamanda- it's all very pretty. The harbor is large and pretty well protected, and it has what cruisers need, hence all the boats. Since Belize has a pretty small population, it's fairly remote and this is the last real town of any size until you get to Honduras. And there really haven't been very many towns at all. Meanwhile, there are many lonely, offshore cays along the barrier reef that have great diving and fishing, neat anchorages and plenty of solitude (except for other sailboats and a few local fishermen) and we want to get out to more of those places and see them. Placencia should be a good base for this. We have a little less than 60 days left to be in the country before our visa expires and we need to head on down to Honduras.
Once we left Cay Caulker, we headed out to 2 of the 3 atolls of Belize. The neat part about atolls is the fact that they're large stretches of relatively shallow crystal clear water, almost completely surrounded by a barrier reef that forms an oval or circle. You enter through one of a few little openings in the reef and then anchor inside but you can still see the waves breaking on the reef, feel the trade winds and hear the roar of the surf from your relatively protected anchorage. There are also little islands within the atoll where you can get even more shelter from the wind but you're still almost completely encircled with coral. It took us most of the day to sail to Turneffe atoll where we stayed overnight. That afternoon, we took a swim in the anchorage and just after we got out of the water, a small pod of dolphin came swimming right up to the boat. I jumped back in the water with my mask and got to see them swimming around me including a mom & baby. They look so friendly and happy in the water; curious, yet cautious. I had never swam with more than one and that was only once.
The next day we sailed to Lighthouse Reef- the atoll that Belize is famous for, and met up with our great friends Jan & Rich on Slip Away. We've been dying to get out to this reef for YEARS! About an hour after anchoring, we were in the water with them for our first scuba dive of the trip! The anchorage is fantastic for diving because a couple of hundred yards away from where you anchor, there is a line of moorings that sit right on the edge of the dropoff. You tie your dinghy to one and get in, descend, and then you glide right off the edge of the shelf into the deep blue! It was a beautiful wall dive and each day, the four of us dove a different spot along that wall.
Sometimes other cruisers joined us as well. At one point there were almost a dozen cruising boats in the anchorage and we had a few happy hour's together which is always fun. One evening, we celebrated my belated birthday with Jan & Rich complete with a homemade chocolate cake. I find birthdays and holidays to be downright painful while away from home, so this meant a lot to me.
We got into quite a routine of doing boat maintenance and radio net stuff in the morning, then doing a lunchtime scuba dive with Slip Away, followed by free diving for the rest of the afternoon.
This is when we would look for fish, lobster or conch and Jon would spear them up for dinner! By the time we finally got out of the water, our hands would be all wrinkled up but the water is so warm (mid 80's) and the reefs so beautiful that we don't want to get out! We think we got some pretty nice pictures of some of the sealife we saw and can't wait to post them.
The only real glitch in all of this was that after filling just 6 scuba tanks with our new Max Air dive compressor, the thing seized up! Turns out it's fairly common with this brand of compressor- it would have been good to know about this BEFORE purchasing it and embarking on a very difficult installation. We've since gotten the parts to fix it so we can be back in business, but this was another $300 and probably won't be the last parts we have to buy! Anyway, it all worked out while we were at Lighthouse in that Slip Away had a compressor on their boat and also, there are 3 liveaboard dive boats that are at the atoll each week with divers and they were happy to fill our tanks as many times as we wanted. We got to know the crew on one in particular- the Belize Aggressor III, and they were wonderful. If I wasn't here on my own sailboat, taking a dive vacation with them would be high on my list.
Jon suggested that I write a separate blog entry describing our visit to Half Moon Cay, which is a gorgeous cay just inside the atoll that has an Audubon bird sanctuary for the red footed booby and the magnificent frigate bird- both of which were nesting when we visited. We went there twice since it was so neat and the scuba dive adjacent to Half Moon was the best dive site we've ever done. We did that twice too and got a bunch of pictures.
We left Lighthouse Reef a few days ago and sailed back to the barrier reef, anchoring in a group of mangrove islands called Bluefield Range in order to ride out a cold front. During the day before the front arrived, we dinghyed out to tiny Rendevous Cay which is all of about 100 yards wide and has a few palm trees, plenty of sand, and 2 palapas (palm roofed cabanas) that are perfect for a picnic. We were the only ones there. Everything got cut short though as black clouds started rolling in and so began our evening and night of high winds and anchor watch routine to be sure that if we dragged anchor, we'd notice in enough time before running aground. We stayed put! But the following day we were pretty shot from being up all night and the wind was still blowing pretty hard. When it let up, we made our way to Belize City for just enough time to renew our visas and meet the dive compressor repair man, Ed Hoyt to get the parts, and then we were out of there for a better anchorage. Everyone has been so nice to us in Belize and Ed was no exception. Now, |Jon just needs to get the new parts in so we can make sure everything is fixed.
The following day was a picture perfect behind-the-barrier-reef sail all day to Tobacco Cay.
I remember Jon telling me that this is what sailing in Belize would be like- blasting along in nearly flat calm water but with the trade winds blowing; it just didn't mean much until now.
Tobacco Cay Range has a perfectly protected anchorage amongst a circle of mangroves but it isn't a long dinghy ride out to the barrier reef and cut. So yesterday we headed out there and ended up free diving for over 4 hours! But... we saw numerous eels, including 3 heads in one hole and I was so bummed out that when I dove down twice to photograph them, only 2 heads were peering out of the hole- I don't know where the 3rd one went but he wasn't cooperating! We saw lobster everywhere, an eagle ray came right up to us, a sea turtle lumbered by, a skate, flounder, many rays, another huge reef crab, several tritons, the list goes on and on. Great diving, and I know it will just get better as we head further South. We got a bunch of conch too and plan to make conch chowder in the next few days. We saw some big grouper and hogfish, but the water was too deep in the cut and the current too strong for Jon to spear them- and they knew it!
Well that about sums up what we've been doing I think, except for more on Half Moon. I'm guessing now that we know our password and our friend Glen says he'll post updates for us, we should be able to write more often, which is good, since this is really long! Hope all of our friends and family are doing fine; we're really looking forward to our summer visit home, and seeing many of you after all these months apart.