Cucmber Beach Marina
17 June 2008 | Belize
chuck brantley
Tues- Did not leave, just too tired and not ready. Now I am. Heading for Isla this am. looks good feels good time to go. See you all in a few days. OTG is watching out for me
Sunday 6th
Currentliy in San Pedro . Diane and I were going to head to Isla in the am. Instead Diane is heading home, her dad died. I will make for Isla and see what happens from there. Should arrive in a few days. Terry on OTG is keeping track of me.
Thursday
All is welll . we are in Cae Caulker
Friday , June 27
Back at Cucumber beach, Visited Rendezvous Cay and Tobacco Cay, Sailed back here 35 miles today. I will add details in a few days
Sunday
Diane arrived as scheduled. She has been relaxing and gettting into the cruising mode. The boat next to us here at the marina is Polaris Mar. This is the same boat that washed up onto the beach in San Pedro during TP Arthur. He showed me where is anchor snaped in too. It was a 65LB CQR and it snapped at the piviot. I would want my money back on that one. Polaris Mar left yesterday on a non stop to Tampa Bay. We are going to head out tommorro and head south to Rendevous reef and maybe Tobacco Cay. We will return here to pick up Karen and Jim. on the 28th. I think they will be here a week with us. Diane and I are looking forward to spending some Island time with them. Not sure were will will go with them but I will let D, J and K deceide. I will steer the boat and watch the weather. They might not be any contact untill we return to pick up K&J
WED.
Only 27 hours untill Diane arrives. I am having lunch at the Marina restraunt. This place is a little beach resort complete with a big water slide and Zip wire tower. I wuld guess there are a couple of hunded people about today. A cruise ship came in the early morning hours this am. I heard them calling the Belize port for a couple of hours around 3 am. Finally they got a anser around 5 am. The cruse ship is anchored bout 6 miles out. There are a lot of big tourist type cats docked here that service the cruise ships. I guess they run scuba and snorkel trips to some of the reefs and give rides into the city of Belize. I have arranged to pick up Diane tommorow with a taxi driver that chatted me up this am. Very smart, very large Rasta type of guy. He will take Guinness and stop at a grocery on the way back from the airport. He wanted thave a big sign made up to hold up at the airport for Diane. He showed me his official travel guide card from the Belize goverment. He assured me that you could not get one if you had a criminal record, good to know. Doing wash and trying to get the a guy has been living here smell out of the boat.
Monday
I thought about heading to the east side of Cay Caulker. The weather has changed to just light breezes and fewer clouds. I thought that the bugs might not be on the windward side. I talked to a couple who charter there big catamaran. They said they have tried it 3 times and only made it once. They only draw 3.5 feet so I decided against that. Then I decided to see if I could find that heap of Lobster traps and see if any Lobsters were home. The fisherman who where there on the first day of the season said that they were there early before others came. I took that to mean that it was just a spot , not a owned spot. So I cruised around standing up in the dingy looking for the heap. Since the wind had died down the water was very clear. A fisher boat or two went by and as usual I waved . I was not getting waved at in return. I lone fisher guy came by and definably gave me the mad Dog stare. Then he came back so I shut off my engine so I could here what he had to say. He asked what I was looking for " Lobster " I said. "Where" he asked " In the sea" I replied. He said he had many traps in the area. I told him I would not bother his traps but was looking for a pile of old traps in a heap. He said hat was his as well. "OK". I am not having fun here anymore so. I guess I have worn out my welcome ,so time to hit the road. I pulled anchor and headed for Cucumber Beach Marina. Part of the way was road already traveled so the snail trail on the GPS lead the way. The bigger Auto Pilot drive was working well. I cleaned and straightened while under way. . I left the snail trail and needed to pay more attention to navigating. My route was taking me near North Drowned Cay. And threw a cut called Swallow Cay Bouge. I was reading the guide and they stated that when they were coming threw here they had followed a Barge. I as in luck as a barge just happened to be overtaking me. They passed me and pulled ahead, the depth went to about 6 feet then up to 20 feet for a while. The barge was to far ahead now and had turned. Suddenly I was in very shallow water 6 feet again. I slowed and turned a bit west. The water deepened. A tricky area to travel threw. I made my last turn and now had a straight shot to Cucumber beach. The water was turning very brown , like chockalott milk. By the time I was ready to turn into the breakwater that leads you into the marina the water looked like a chockalott milkshake. After all the clear water I have been in for months it made me nervous as you could not gauge the depth at all. I could tell it was shallow from the wave action and the depth sounder it was shallow 6.5 feet. I left the AP on right up until I entered the break water which was only 50 feet wide. I had contacted the Marina a couple of minutes previous on the radio and they were standing by on the starboard side of he Marina. I am always nervous when coming into a Marina. I had prepped the ropes and fenders at strategic locations around the boat but had not finalized anything as I had no idea what the set up was like. I saw two men waiting and showing that I would just pull up to a dock. Like parking on a empty street by pulling up to a curb Got a rope to them no problem and reversed to a stop. The trip took about 6 hours going 4 knots or so. I tipped them $10 Belize to get started on the right foot. Met the very friendly marina manager named Carlos. The weekly rate is $38 dollars Belize about $20 dollars US. Not bad. They have wireless Internet but he signal is very slow at the boat. I saw one boat with a TV cable running to it and asked carols about it, yes we have cable A mad rush to find all the TV coax I have on board . I have enough make the 75 foot run. Ya Hoo I have cable TV. 40 channels or so. So I have the A/C going and cable TV, this is heaven. In the morning I went over to the restaurant side of the marina. The wifi signal is much faster over there. There is a huge restaurant and a swimming park complete with a giant tower with a wire you can ride to the ground. Not many people around, mainly just labors working on boats in the yard. .