IMAGE : Half Moon Caye - Lighthouse Reef

LIGHTHOUSE REEF
Wednesday 26 April - LIGHTHOUSE REEF was our arrival point into Belize from Utila in Honduras. We enjoyed good wind for this overnight sail with windvane steering. The tasty chicken empanadas from the local street food ladies in Utila were a great light passage dinner.

On my 1st evening watch I got totally drowned in the cockpit from a huge wave caused by a passing cruise ship - the cockpit filled with water- thankfully we had all the hatches and windows shut!

By mid-morning a beautiful pod of bottlenose dolphins welcomed us to Belize - just wonderful!

Wow - the colour change in the water from deep blue to clear, clear aquamarine once we came through the reef entrance. We very slowly and carefully, with the keel up made our way to the anchorage area off HALF MOON CAYE - very special indeed.

We dropped anchor about 12noon. James had been up on watch most of the night after my drowning - so after he had a bit of a rest we headed ashore. A passing official launch came by - we have not yet checked-in Belize, but had our courtesy flag us - so felt OK. They were friendly and reminded us that we were in the Marina Park and needed to go ashore and check-in - i.e. pay the park fee!

Lighthouse Reef is THE dive destination for several liveaboard dive boats. We passed 2 on our entrance in, obviously doing their 1st dive of the day, then they came into the dock at Half Moon Caye for their lunch stop, before heading off north inside the reef to the famous Blue Hole for their 2nd dive of the day.
Lighthouse Reef - what a special place indeed - wow, what an arrival location.

Lighthouse Reef is a pacific-like atoll, bounded on all sides by a continuous, well defined rim of living coral. As the name implies Lighthouse Reef is marked by 2 lights -1 at the far northern edge and the one we could see from far off on Half Moon Caye. Lighthouse Reef is the smallest of Belize offshore atolls with an overall length of 25 miles and a width of 4.5 miles. There are 5 cayes within Lighthouse Reef and only 3 major breaks which lead into the enclosed lagoon.

Half Moon Caye was the 1st Natural Monument created in the Belize National Park System, and there is a small team of park wardens based here to maintain the island. Ornithologists from all over the world come here to visit its very special bird sanctuary /colony of red-footed boobies located here. This colony of adult boobies is unique because here most adult birds are white in contract to the more familiar dull brow red-footed boobies. We were keen to spot the boobies and headed off along the cleared trail close to the shore. In the sand we saw what at first looked like bicycle tracks - then we spotted the land Hermit Crabs wandering aimlessly at our feet - we needed to be very careful not to tread on them.

Above us were several gliding black frigate birds and a few of the white boobies, so we followed the trail inland under the dense canopy of trees to the observation tower. The red ziricote trees are the nesting grounds for 1000's of boobies and frigates.
April is nesting time! From the observation tower we could look directly at the same high to the nesting boobies, with a few fuzzy white young boobies all around us.... just fantastic. I took some great photos of both the adult red-footed boobies and their young - and could have stayed there for hours!

Half Moon Caye has it all!! - the red-footed boobies sanctuary, a sea turtle nesting ground, the beautiful palm fringed white sandy beaches and excellent snorkelling in the shallow water off the reef.

Thursday 27 April - we woke to a beautiful calm morning - you have to pinch yourself to really believe we are here in so much natural beauty - firstly in Belize, secondly anchored off Half Moon Caye in Lighthouse Reef! alone and beautiful.

The aqua-blue water off the Caye behind the fringing reef is in sharp contrast to the cobalt blue of the deep Caribbean Sea. With the forecast of strong winds on the way we decided if we wanted more time here in the outer reef we needed more shelter - so moved to LONG CAYE - still within Lighthouse Reef.

We slowly and carefully weaved our way through the exceptionally clear water adorned with numerous beads of jewel-like coral reefs. Once we were happy with our spot off the middle of Long Caye we put our 2 anchors to get through the solid bottom and turtle grass - better to be sure than sorry with the strong winds forecast to come. On a hot still day we swam and snorkelled the afternoon away - alone - splendid isolation.

We could see 1 large liveaboard dive boat and 1 other yacht off in the distance anchored at the north end of Long Caye. The only sound through the night was the roar from the surf off the nearby reef.

Friday 28, Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th . The forecast SE - E winds really kicked in. The wind howled day and night. We were tucked up in the lee of Long Caye and well protected. The nights were pitch black - but beautiful.


Monday 1 May - someone turned the fan off at about 3am!! We woke to calm, quiet morning.
Before heading on we needed to explore some of the reef by picking up some dive buoys.

We prepared all our dive gear, but snorkelled first to see if it was worth it. Watching the depth readings range from infinity to 5 meters and all the depths in-between whilst watching the colour of the water changing was a great experience. There was a massive deep wall right beside us and a shallow reef ahead - we chose not to dive, just snorkel - spotted some squid.

The 2nd mooring was pretty boring - but did spot some black coral.

Moving on within the outer Reef - west towards the Turneffe Islands.