Belize!!
02 February 2018 | Belize City, Belize
We finally arrived in Belize after checking out of Mexico in Puerto Aventuras many days ago. The weather has been very unsettled with winds NE ranging from 15 to 25 and seas in the Caribbean 6 to 8 feet with larger swells from the E.
We waited and waited, maybe too long, because the trip from Espirito Santos to the main ship channel in Belize was mostly a motor sail. Big swells, lots of rolling and despite boat speeds of 7+ knots through the water at times we were only making 3 over the ground,SOG. So we would jibe west to get back closer to the 60 foot line where the current was much less and once in a while favorable. I saw 7.5 SOG a couple of times. Anyhow, the 128 mile overnight trip took us just over 24 hours, a pretty slow passage.
Chris Parker was forecasting another frontal passage Monday into Tuesday with N to NE winds gusting to 30, so that was my motivation to get out of dodge, Espirito Santos. Thinking we would be seeing very strong winds in Belize, I decided with my mates concurrence to find a safe anchorage close to Belize City. We skipped San Pedro where we might have checked in having passed by it in the dark. The main Belize ship channel, cruise ships and large commercial vessels, became my target to exit the Caribbean and enter behind the barrier reefs.
We arrived just after sun up, oops no sun just squalls and heavy rain. It's amazing. Just as we passed the Mexico/Belize boarder the rain started and here it is Tuesday morning and it's still raining. The squalls weren't bad, gusts to 23 knots but the rain was awesome. Torrential!! washing off all our collected salt.
I'm thinking we'll stay put in this very safe anchorage and wait and see if winds pick up to 25 - 30 this evening. Tomorrow things look much better.
So here we are, Q flag flying, and yup I just saw a stronger wind gust, so maybe Chris and the GRIB files were right, we'll see.
BTW, no wine, no rum and getting low on supplies and no $US or $B, only about $400 Pesos, so we desperately need an ATM or some way to obtain cash.