Ship's Logs and Trip Diaries 

Detailed information on provisioning, checking in, marinas/anchorages, etc. is available at our SaltySailors.com website.

Belize 2007

February 23 - 28:  Placencia

Swimming in clear blue water again.  That's been my favorite part so far.  It's interesting to see how much has changed.  When we first came thru in 2004, Placencia was still recovering from Hurricane Mitch.  Now buildings are covered with flowering vines & foliage again.  Very pretty.  For those of you that have been here and knew that the Purple Space Monkey had burned down, it's been rebuilt.

Have taken the dinghy to the guy who repairs dinghies for The Moorings twice and he's tried to fix the leak.  First time he used glue we had that just wasn't good enough.  Next time he used other glue and while it still leaks, it's not as much so hopefully we can make it back to the States before we have to buy another dinghy.

Had to check into Belize here and didn't want to take the boat over to Big Creek.  The anchorage is full and we have a good spot.  We all took the Hokey Pokey Water Taxi over to Mango and hired a taxi to take us to Immigration and then to Big Creek to Customs.  They weren't real happy we didn't bring the boat over, but since we'd been in and out of the country so many times, they just said okay.  A small world at Customs where we met Sea Rose & saw Mike from Dragonheart and Roy from Liberty.  Customs made Mike & Roy go over to Agriculture where they were informed they would both have to pay $20 US for the privilege of being boarded so they could look for animals & fruits & veggies.  We lucked out.   

February 28 - March 9:  Placencia to Cucumber Beach Marina

Time to move on as we are meeting friends in Caye Caulker on the 2nd so we headed for Middle Long Caye to anchor for the night.  What a sail in the afternoon ... hitting 7 knots (that's really, really fast for us).  Then on to Cucumber Beach Marina in Belize City so we could meet up with our friends Kim & Carl from sailing vessel Querencia.  There were no slips available so we rafted up beside them.  Planned to leave the next day, but we are still here.  A norther was going to blow thru so we decided to wait here with Kim rather than sit anchor watch in Caye Caulker.  Our friends that were going to fly in from Highland Village couldn't make it so we might as well stay here and be comfortable.

We had planned to leave as soon as the norther blew thru, but Cliff on the charter boat Aubisque asked if I would be crew for him on a 6 day charter starting on the 9th.  Hey, get paid to cruise Belize on a beautiful catamaran ... why not!  Thane and Michael will move the boat to Cay Caulker while I'm gone.

Cliff was nice enough to drive Kim & I to the new Brody's grocery store in Belize City.  It was such a treat to go into a store that actually had shelves & shelves of stuff to buy.  We loaded up.  Belize City was very interesting. 

Carl had to go to work so Thane, Kim & I played tourists and visited the Belize Zoo.  The zoo was very small & quaint.  They label the animals with cute rhymes.  You can get up close and personal with many of the animals.  Thane got to pet a Tapir and we could have touched the jaguar, but thought better of it as the signs warn if you like you fingers you better keep them out of the cage. 

We made an excursion into Belize City.  Went to the area where they bring the people from the cruise ships and had a great time talking with all the taxi drivers and tour operators.  We stopped at Big Daddy's Diner for lunch and had a great burrito for only $2.00 US.  We had never stopped in Belize City before as everyone said it was not safe.  We rode the buses and walked all through town and never felt threatened.  However, we did this during daylight hours and did notice that just about everything has bars on it.   

One thing I noticed about Belize City was that everyone said hello and seemed very happy.  They do speak their own brand of English called Creole ... when they spoke Creole, there was only one word in their sentences I could understand ... f#!*.  Used about every other word. 

March 9 - 15:  Crewing aboard Aubisque

The boat:  Aubisque is a 47' Lagoon catamaran.  It has four staterooms, 4 heads, a large galley & a large salon area.  It is a beautiful boat.  For pictures of Aubisque see their website by clicking here.  I was responsible for dropping the anchor and the best part was the windlass!  Just push a button.  Thane's gotta get one of those. 

The guests:  The Bloom family.  Ira, Carol, Adam (16) & Rachel (14) are from Toronto, Canada.  They were very nice and we had a great time with them. 

The trip: 

Day 1:  Cucumber Bay Marina, Belize City to St. George's Cay.  I was nervous about my sailing duties.  Ira proved to be a great help throughout the trip.  He helped me with dropping the anchor & raised the sails with Cliff.  I steered Aubisque into the wind when we raised the sails.  A 47' cat takes a little more muscle to steer than my 31' Island Packet.  Ira took the helm most days as he was working on his sailing skills.  He and Carol hope to buy a boat one day and do some cruising.

Day 2:  St. George's Cay.  We stayed two days in St. George's Cay.  Carol stayed on the boat and Ira and the kids went and got their diving certification. 

Day 3:  St. George's to Cay Caulker.  Thane & Michael had arrived in Cay Caulker & I was able to spend the next 3 nights on my boat ... leaving after the guests went to sleep and arriving back at work at 7:00 am.  Haven't had to do that in a long, long time! 

Day 4:  Cay Caulker to Shark Ray Alley & back.  Snorkeled Shark Ray Alley.  Saw lots of rays and some beautiful fish, but alas no sharks for me.  Ira, Adam & Carol did see a shark in the distance. 

Day 5:  Cay Caulker to Holchan and back.  Holchan is amazing.  I highly recommend it.  So many beautiful fish & sea plants.  It made me want to take up under water photography.  When we arrived and did our snorkel there was almost no one there.  After we finished the place became packed with dive boats.  Did not see a shark until us girls were swimming back to the boat.  I looked down and saw a shark.  I swam up to Rachel & pointed it out to her.  By the time we reached Carol to point it out to her, it had been joined by 3 other sharks and they were directly under us.  I had been teasing them about being Canadian and that a radio host I listen to always says at the beginning of his show in a speech to aliens "Eat the Canadians first" ... Carol promptly grabbed my arm and moved me to the front of our group ... she said she thought the sharks should "Eat the American first!" 

It was amazing and frightening to be so close to those sharks.  Okay they were only Nurse Sharks, but still they were about 5' long and very scary looking when they are within a few 100' of you.

Day 6:  Cay Caulker to Drowned Cayes to Cucumber Bay Marina.  Stopped at the Drowned Cayes so the Blooms could go kayaking over to the manatee reserve, then returned to Cucumber Bay Marina.  Had a nice dinner at the restaurant (Tami got an evening off from washing dishes!).  Kim and Carl were still at the marina waiting on a part so I spent the night on Querencia. 

Took a Tropic Air flight from Belize City to Cay Caulker.  A 12 seater.  Got to see Belize from the air.  The landing was a little shaky, but after a bunch of bouncing around, we finally stopped & all was well. 

March 16 & 17:  Cay Caulker 

I'm exhausted.  I spent the day doing nothing.  Did make an exception to go over to see Judy & Woody on s/v Lapis for happy hour.  The next day we had happy hour with Steve & Deborah on Argo.  It's good to be among cruising friends.

March 17 PM:  Drag Races - 4 times!

The predicted norther hit about 10:30 pm.  We promptly started dragging.  The winds were over 40 knots while we tried not to drag back into the catamaran True Colors that was directly behind us.  After finally getting the anchor up, we moved out of the anchorage as far as we could and reset our anchor.  While we were dragging, so were at least 4 other boats.   One boat drug back onto a catamaran and tangled in their lines.  They spent the night rafted up to each other.  Good thing that cat's anchor was down good.

We drug again at 1:30 pm, and again at 4:30 am and again at 5:30 am.  These last 3 weren't as bad as the first time since we had moved so far away from other boats and didn't have to worry about hitting other boats.  It was getting to be light at 5:30 so we moved back into the anchorage and found a spot to anchor that was sand and not turtle grass.

The worst part was not being able to see.  The rain kept making it impossible to see thru my glasses.  This was the first time we have drug on our the new anchor that we purchased in Marathon, FL last year, a 35 lb. Delta plow. 

These are the nights you wonder ... why am I doing this again????

March 18:  Cay Caulker 

Looks like at least 5 days before all the North is gone and we can head towards Mexico.  Guess we will just have to enjoy Cay Caulker some more.

March 26:  Cay Caulker

We are still here waiting for the North wind to go away.  It looks like we will be able to leave on Thursday.  Yesterday we went to a favorite swimming hole with Woody & Judy, sailing vessel Lapis, and spent an hour or so swimming & talking.  We then met up with our friends Sandy & Cheri on Namaste' at the Lazy Lizard for a drink. 

This morning Sandy & Cheri invited us all over to test out Cheri's new muffin recipe (it was really good).  Sandy's daughter and son-in-law are visiting and we enjoyed visiting with this wonderful young couple. 

I am however, getting lonely.  I need some one-on-one girl time.  Nothing against my lovely husband & son, but we don't speak the same language most of the time.  I need my girlfriends!

March 31:  Happy Birthday Clay!

April Fool's Day:  Caye Caulker

Still in Cay Caulker.  We were ready to roll last Thursday.  Wednesday night everything looked good, we had the dinghy in the davits, food prepared for the trip, took my sea sick pill .... checked the weather fax on Thursday morning and it had completely changed.  While the winds were no longer blowing out of the north, the seas were reported to be 7-9'.  Too big for our little boat.  We had planned to leave with sailing vessel Liberty, but when they pulled by the boat on Thursday morning, we told them we weren't going to leave because of the forecast.  They went on and sailed up to San Pedro, looked at the cut in the reef where the seas were breaking at 8' and came back to Cay Caulker.

We are all still here waiting.  We have been joined by Ed & Sara, s/v Corazon, who came into Monkey Bay Marina just as we were leaving and Sandy & Cheri, s/v Namaste is back for a few days.

We have eaten all our provisions and will have to re-provision (and cook for the trip)  once again.  Not good in a Port were it costs $7.00 US for a bunch of celery! 

We've enjoyed a couple of happy hours together with friends and are planning a return to the swimming hole today at 4:00 pm.  Weather looks good for next Wednesday now.  Fingers & toes are crossed.  Ready for Isla & some good Mexican food.    

April 3:  Woo Hoo, Caye Caulker to Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Finally it looks like it might be good to head north.  Our friends on Liberty pulled up anchor and took off for the cut in San Pedro about 6:30 am.  We don't rise that early unless really, really necessary so off we went at about 8:00 am.  We led the way for our friends on Corazon as they draw 6 1/2'. 

Liberty went thru the cut in San Pedro about an hour before us & it was great to get a report of the seas before going thru the reef.  We headed out and were on our way.  We motor sailed at about 7 knots.  Our first overnight in a long time.  We had a beautiful full moon & for the first time in a long time we are cruising in the company of friends and we can all chat occasionally on the VHF.

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