I’m backtracking a little here – back almost 2 weeks – to fill you in on our Belize experiences, and to get my notes in more readable form. The postings start grumpily, but they improve, I promise! Also the date in the heading doesn’t match, or I’d have the sequence all messed up. I’ll try to get the correct dates in the body of the post. This one is March 7/12.

Our time in San Pedro worked quite well really – even with the rolly anchorage just inside the reef and the high winds that created significant chop across the shallow water. The wind dropped on Sunday, March 4 and switched more to the North, so we grabbed the opportunity to make our way South. It had been our plan to go down the inside to Caye Calker, but we opted to go back out through the reef and down to the shipping channel into the huge bay off Belize City.

By 0800 Madcap’s bow was rising high in the air as we powered out through the cut into 8 ft rollers. Fortunately the cut is very clear – a yellow buoy marked the south side of the passage and the foaming white water to the North was easy to see as well – and it didn’t take long to be clear of it. With our mainsail up, we settled pretty well in the 6 – 8 ft swells that gradually dropped over the course of the day, and the yankee and motor worked together to take us south.

When we felt a lurch and then a vibration later in the morning, we wondered what we had hit but couldn’t see anything, and the motor still worked although there was a new vibration and the propulsion wasn’t as good. We kept going and really didn’t have too much of a problem until we turned in to the main channel through the reef between Goff’s Cay and English Cay. By then the wind had risen to 20 kts and there was still enough N in it to slow us down to a crawl.

The few short miles from there to the Drowned Cays took hours to cover. We were getting very little propulsion from the engine, the wind was pretty much on our nose and we tacked back and forth using the main and stay sail, making anywhere from 0.7 to 2 kt an hour for the longest time. Finally we were able to move off the wind enough to pick up some more speed and we arrived in the cut we had chosen based on Freya’s and Bruce’s recommendations. Yonder was already there along with a big catamaran, and we wearily dropped the anchor in 20 feet of water.

Jim immediately dove overboard to see what we might have on the prop and came up with the remnants of a woven nylon bag. Fortunately it was easy to cut off and had done no damage. Whew!

The wind blew hard for the next few days and it rained and cleared and rained and cleared, but we were snug in this very protected anchorage and at least had dolphins and friends to amuse us! Books, dominoes, “winter food” and little boat jobs filled the time. I made “Blackhearted Chili” (with blackbeans and pineapple) and cornbread, for dinner when Steve and Sandi came over, and gingered almonds to snack on as we played Mexican Train dominoes.

On a dinghy excursion, we explored in and out among the mangrove lined channels, spotting herons both big and small, a well built fishing camp and little else. Of course it rained again and again and we all got soaked, but it happened so often that we pretty much quit griping about it (well mostly!) If we had a water collection system, we’d have been able to fill our tanks many times over.

By Wednesday morning (March 7) we felt able to leave and head for another anchorage – in search of snorkeling, sand and palm trees. We nosed out of the channel and were faced with 4 cruise ships anchored off Belize City. What a sight! What a change from a green and watery little channel to brilliant sunshine, big bay and huge ships!