Thurdsay, March 8/12

More rain. More mangroves. More hiding out. At least it is a change of location.

On Wednesday(the 7th), we had a very nice sail down past the cruise ships, past Robinson Point Cays (because we thought we might go in there until Yonder did a reconnaissance mission and decided against it) past Grennels Cay and the rusted old cargo ship that sits forlornly all by itself – don’t know why – and across to the east again to Bluefield Range. We had sun; we had showers; we had wind. We used the waypoints Mark and Julie (Rachel) had given us, although Bruce (Twilight) and Freya (the Cruising Guide guru) gave good directions too, and worked our way into another anchorage perfectly protected from everywhere except North.

It poured rain and blew 22 kt as we arrived at 1pm and by 2:30 the sun was blazing down. We collected Steve and Sandi and went off to explore. They remembered a great bar on the spit of land here – Ricardo’s - but all that is left is a few posts sticking out of the water off a sandspit, and a tarp slung over some trees. It really brought the power of storms home to us once again. Nothing is for sure or forever here. Because the wind was too strong for us to venture out toward the reef, where we might be able to do some snorkeling and we got soaked yet again, we came back to Madcap to drown our sorrows in tequila and tonic – while the rain pattered down on the bimini.

Next day (Thursday) the clouds cleared away, the sun shone for more than 2 hours at a time and we decided to head back toward Belize City. Steve and Sandi departed for Placencia so we dinghied over to say goodbye for now.

We enjoyed a perfectly lovely sail for the first 3 hours with the East wind blowing us gently along. We needed to be near the City to pick up visitors on Sunday and thought we’d check out possible anchoring spots, but by 1 o’clock, it was clear we would not be anchoring anywhere comfortable. Jim called Cucumber Beach Marina at Old Belize where we had been planning to go on Friday, to see if they had space today and luckily they did.

There is a good breakwater angling in that is supposed to carry 6 ft – and does. We saw 0.1 below our 6 ft keel as we went in, but we kept going and had no trouble. Jim did a tight turn by the lift and executed a perfect docking in the first spot at the eastern end of the dock by the restaurant and gift shop. The marina had three people on the dock to catch lines and we fit very neatly into a spot no more than 20 ft longer than we are!

I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be here. We have no more worries about where we can anchor and how we will get our visitors and baggage to the boat without getting soaked. We can get laundry done and buy groceries and have showers (although we have no salt water on us because of all the rain!!) Yippee!

On a stroll around the marina, we met Georges and Lisette (Pako) from Montreal and benefited from Georges’ wealth of knowledge about cabs, land travel, and where to get what. The restaurant here is very good and we all enjoyed beautiful and tropical pina coladas and plattters of shrimp curry (big enough to share).

It rained during the night again, but it didn’t even matter.