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April 2007 |
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7 April - Belize, Mexico & Florida
Click here to see the Ranguana pictures
We spent a few days in Providencia, it was nice to be able to leave the boat again after being cooped up inside with the cold front. Also great to go out for dinner rather than cooking for everyone!
Click here to see the Providencia Pictures
Click here to see the Queens Cays Pictures
From Providencia we moved off to the Queens Cay's, our favorite place so far in Belize. When we got there we couldn't believe it, they have now built porta-loo's and a huge concrete bar-b on the tiny island. It wouldn't be so bad if they had made them in Island style, with bamboo sides and palm roofs for the toilets and something a bit less ugly for the bar-b, but these would be more at home on an English building site! Belize seems to be changing right before your eyes, we won't recognise the place in 5 years time.
Its also very funny to watch the day tripper snorkelers who ascend on the small island in hoards. A boat load will come in, the guides will set up the bar-b, food and drinks for when the snorkelers have finished then the peeps will all go in the water in a huge group, many with life saving devices around there body's so they don't drown (in no current and only 5ft of water!) then they all swim around the island in one big herd! Not one of them goes off in a different direction or swims off to look at something else, they all stick together like glue. Then out they all troll, are fed and then zoomed off to the next destination and another group will come in and do the same thing!
We were very lucky though as no one appears to work on the weekends and no other sail boats turned up either so for the Saturday we had the place all to ourselves and if you ignored the toilet block it was back to our old favorite desert island again! So we descended on the island, claimed it as our own and had a lovely bar-b with far too much red wine and rum and no interruptions.
Click here to see the Man of War and Turneffe Pictures
From here we moved onto the Tobacco Range and anchored off of Man of War Cay, a frigate bird nesting colony (or as my dad would say an island covered in stinking birds!!) It was interesting to watch. All the males had there throats puffed out in big red bulbs and all the females were flying around, I assume, trying to chose who has the fanciest red throat!
Getting into the anchorage was a little nerve racking as the water stayed very shallow with coral heads all the way in. It has been nice having Andy on the boat as this doesn't seem to bother him (maybe because its not his home that he is guiding through hazardous waters!!) but that means whilst Stuart is directing up the bow Andy can be steering, Caroline can be sunbathing and I can be hiding indoors pretending that it not happening!! Its funny to be back in Belize after the San Blas, I had totally forgotten how much time you spend in shallow waters avoiding reef, it is a lot more nerve racking than I remember.
One night here then we moved onto Turneffe, more to break up the journey to Lighthouse Reef than anything else. Andy and Caroline took the dingy into the fishing lodge on the inside of the lagoon (we ran the big boat aground here list time we tried to take it inside!) to see if they could make some phone calls. They came back with lovely photos of the resort inside. I think it would be well beyond our budget!
Click here to see the Lighthouse Reef Pictures
The next day and we are off to Lighthouse reef, we have never made it up this far in Belize. Last time, before we made it here, we noticed our P Bracket was split so had to make a swift dash off to Honduras. We had a smooth sail over and again a nail biting entrance to the anchorage where we first anchored with only 1 ft of water under the keel. I wasn't too happy with this and Stuart ended up having to go snorkeling to direct us to a marginally deeper spot (8 ft)! This place is well worth a visit, the sea colour is absolutely beautiful, all shades of blues, greens and turquoise.
We took the dingy into Long Cay, the only island in this particular spot, we expected to find a hotel there or a large diver resort, but although there was one there once it was now closed down. The island was really nice, mangrove and palm interior, fringed with beaches (watch out for the mozzies though). Iguanas running all over the shop and only a spattering of nicely built wooden houses and little signs with numbers on dotted to the trees. These I stupidly thought were something to do with the wildlife and preservation research, but oh no, silly me, these are housing plots, around 300 of them!!! I don't think I even want to look back there in 10 years to see what has happened to the poor place. Anyway we found a very nice couple of Americans living on the island who said they would lend us a diving cylinder so Stuart and Andy could go diving together. We showed him our thanks by giving him a large bottle of rum from our enormous stash, and the boys then managed to get them filled with air from one of the large dive boats that stay around the area.
The next day we all headed out to one of the diving buoys, tied our dingy on and the boys popped in for a dive. Caroline and I were about to pop in for a snorkel when I noticed a large shadow under the boat. Being super brave as I obviously am, I put my mask and snorkel on, stuck my bum in the air and put my head over the side of the dingy to check it out. A foot under the dingy was a large barracuda just staring at me, I popped up and told Caroline, so she promptly put her mask and snorkel on, and stuck her bum in the air and her head in the water too! This barracuda would just not leave, what ever side of the dingy we looked over he would come over to us and stare, so from here on I managed to scared myself and Caroline (who would most likely have gone in if not for my scary barracuda stories of them biting peoples hands off as they were attracted to their shiny bracelets) into staying in the dingy for the whole time! We did do the dingy snorkeling though and spent a lot of time with our bums in the air and heads over the side, it was soo pretty under there, just like being in an aquarium and I am quite ashamed that we never went in. I must learn to be braver! Also we must have looked a right sight to anyone who happened to see us from one of the large expensive dive boats, they must have thought we were off our trolleys!!
Anyway the next day we all went to another spot and me and Caroline spent a long time snorkeling whilst they boys were diving, the water wasn't so clear here and the fish life not quite as stunning but it was still very nice all the same. This was a better spot for the boys though as they saw a lot more fish deeper down and also made friends with a turtle.
On the 3rd afternoon when we were sure the dive boats were gone for the day, we moved onto one of the diving boys to see what fish we could catch in the light at night (there turned out to be only one!) We all jumped in in the day light and were instantly surrounded by fairly large chubb, trigger fish and yellow tailed snappers all looking for us to feed them. There were hoards of them around us and when Stuart cunningly threw a banana in the water next to us we couldn't see for the fish in front of our masks! There was a lot of shrieking and laughing going on, especially from me and Caroline as the boys both decided to strategically place bits of banana on our heads or around our bodies!
We moved up to the north end of the atoll, again I left Andy in charge of the steering and Stuart in charge of the directions (Caroline was in charge of sunbathing and I was in charge of photo downloads and cooking!) The whole journey we took inside the atoll in shallow reefy waters (rather than taking the longer safer route outside the reef) the depth sounder never went above 3 meters for the entire 15 mile journey. I was called up halfway there, with a 'quick come outside, you'll want to take a look at this'. So out I popped and we were just entering inside the Blue Hole (made famous by Jacques Cousteau in 1970). There was no one around so we took the boat towards it, went through the channel did a full circle inside and popped back out again!! Right we can tick that one of the list now!
We anchored up on the northern end of the atoll off of Sandbore Island for a couple of nights. We went on an expedition to Sandbore, which has a big lighthouse on it, the others all climbed the very rickety, steep looking stairs to the top, I sensibly stayed at sea level! But they got some fab pictures and had a fantastic view. We met the light house keeper and a few fishermen who stopped over at the island, it was a very un spoilt with just these few people inhabiting the place in huts that looked like they were mainly made of things that had washed up on the beach.
Andy and Caroline took the dingy over to the larger island next door and found a ghost town, it too used to be a resort that had failed and was now deserted with only 3 guys living there as care takers. (Well that's what they said, although what with there being a runway there and no one around for miles, we thought it may be a prime drug smuggling spot!!)
Click here to see the Isla Mujeres Pictures
We were slowly running out of time for Andy and Caroline so headed next up to Mexico and Isla Mujeres. It turned out to be a 3 night trip rather than the 2 nighter we had envisaged it to be as the wind was so against us on the first day we had to tack well out of our way which added on extra miles. The first day was a little lumpy (which always seems to be the way where ever we go) but calmed down a little after that. The boat shrunk so much underway, the V berth was so uncomfortable to sleep in with the boat motion that Andy and Caroline couldn't sleep up there, it didn't help that the cat pooed on their bed too, being too traumatised by the sailing to go outside and use his box! The boat was healed over so much that you could only sleep on one side of the main cabin too so we now had 4 people with only one sleeping place! We alternately slept on the floor, on the bunk and occasionally on the second bunk when we weren't healed over too much, but when we finally arrived at Isla Mujeres I think we were all pretty glad that it was over! I have decided that more than 1 night at sea with more than the 2 of us is not a good idea in future! (Unless that is, in a much bigger boat, with a chefs and possibly a crew!!!)
We did have a fantastic moment on the journey though, when we were joined by a school of Whales, they were only small ones, probably 15ft at the largest and we think they were Pilot Whales. But they stayed with us for around 30-40 minutes, popping out the water in groups of 3, zooming towards the boat then disappearing under the keel at the last minute to appear out the other side. It was amazing to see the creatures doing what they do in their natural habitat and being so close too. We only have a low freeboard so are very close to the water, you felt like you could almost stretch your hand out and touch them. They were obviously fairly inquisitive about us too as they joined us again the next day for a shorter period of time, it was defiantly an experience of a life time.
Isla Mujeres is a fun place, a real tourist town, not that dissimilar from Playa Del Carmen, lots of silver jewelry shops (hooray, say me and Caroline!) and touristy shops, although a lot more expensive than we are used to. The shops obviously know they have a captive audience and they work together to keep prices up, so there is very little you can do in the way of bartering.
We managed to sign in without too much bother, although you do have to do it all over in Cancun (apart from a bit that you have to do in hospital in Isla Mujeres where I think they just tick some boxes to say that you are healthy). We managed to get it all done in one day although we did get a little unstuck as we decided not to sign in in Belize, and say that we came straight from Honduras, although we had written on our paperwork that we would be stopping at Belize. After a lot of explaining in our version of Spanish and having to write a report on why we didn't stop in Belize we were finally signed in. We were originally asked to write the report in Spanish but after asking how to spell every other word and the Port Captain not really knowing, he eventually said to write it in English and someone will translate it at a further date! So no doubt that went straight in the bin after we left!! Having said that all the authorities were very nice, although a bit confused as they only changed the system around at the beginning of that week, so I think we got away quite lightly. It's a fairly expensive deal signing in and out of Mexico though and cost us about £60 in total, but that was with 2 extra people on the way in and we did manage to get away without paying the $50 boat importation fee.
Anyway whilst we were in Isla Mujeres we had a great time doing all the touristy things. We hired a golf cart and spent the day driving around the island, all taking it in turns to drive, it was very funny, but what was more funny was seeing golf buggy tours! This consisted of about 12 golf carts being shown around the island in a long caterpillar type line by a guide on a scooter! We can only assume that this was a thing arranged but the cruise ships, as the island only had 1 road going around it and only a few well posted tourist attractions!
It wasn't before long that it was time for Andy and Caroline to head back to Scotland, we couldn't believe how quickly the time had gone past, 6 weeks gone in a flash. I think we all did incredibly well too all living together 24-7 in a small boat for 6 weeks and not one argument (well apart from Stuart and I bickering, but that's just life!). It was strange to see them go and felt quite lonely and quiet on the trip back from the airport.
We have quickly got back into our old routine now though, we met up with another couple, on a boat that we had met previously in the Rio Dulce and were invited over to them for drinks. Very funny as we found out they are very good friends of our other English friends (Pagos) parents! A very small world and I still find it strange that at home I could go into my local town for the day and not see anyone I know, but here we can turn up in Mexico and you are bound to bump into a load of people that you know!
After Caroline and Andy left we went on a mission to get ready to head up to the States. The cat had a trip to the vet, who we called up in advance only for the taxi driver to take us to a completely different place. So there in a vet in Isla Mujeres still waiting for us to show up! The cat had a rabies injection and we got him a certificate of health, then we set sail for Key West, Florida. The journey was a fair one, again the first day the seas were a little lumpy but calmed down to nothing by the time we reached Key West, it was a long drag of a journey though, which started of so well, with the wind in our favor. We managed to jump into the Golf Stream and with the current with us we were making 8-9 knots average. We knew it was too good to be true, when we had to leave the Golf Stream the current and wind was against us and we were only making 1-2 knots for a long time. The wind picked up, then it died, so we spent a lot of time motor sailing rather slowly.
Well we finally made it here and as always arrived in the middle of the night. Its a very well lit channel though so not a problem, although possibly a bit too well lit, it's difficult to see the wood from the trees! There is a strong current that runs through the anchorage so you have to have 2 anchors out as the tide turns you every 6 or so hours with up to 4 knots of current. We managed to sign in yesterday no problems at all, although I had to wait outside the building as you are not allowed to bring cameras inside. I had fun making friends with the very good humored security guard and we whiled away the time laughing at the crazy tourists going haywire on mopeds!! The Police officer popped outside to check me with my passport and had what I was thinking was a nice chat, but soon realised was an interrogation of sorts! 'So where have you just come from? Did you enjoy it, blah blah blah, and where were you before that, and before that, and before that, and before that!!!' I had a mental break down and forgot where we had been!! Ummed and arr-ed a bit but got the correct answers in the end! He turned out to be very nice too and when he was sure that I wasn't Bin Laden we had a nice chat about where we had both visited in Colombia!
We still have yet to explore here, but 2 things we noticed straight away, is that 1) Its flipping freezing!!! We have just had a cold front come through and now my feet are like icicles, all the windows are shut and we need a duvet on the bed at night and 2) It stupidly expensive! 3 beers last night cost us $14, we could have brought 46 beers in Panama for that!!! I don't think we will be doing much in the way of shopping here!! Mind you we are looking forward to Walmart and have a long list of cheap electronics that we want to get! Mind you I'm sure that's not going to be as cheap as we think either and we will come away with nothing but T-towels!