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June |
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14 June - Ranguana Cay & the Sapodillas
09 June - Queens Cays
07 June - Moho & Snake Cays
01 June - Leaving the Rio Dulce
14 June - Ranguana Cay & the Sapodillas
Click here for this sections pictures
Ranguana Cay
We spent 2 days at Queens Cay, it appears to be quite a popular little island, and we had some divers come in and also another Moorings Catamaran. They seemed happy enough to stay on their boat the whole time, which left us to cook dinner on the island in peace!
We then headed down to Ranguana Cay, which in Stuarts Pilot Guide had said was a lovely sandy spit (no mention of a flippin tourist resort!), seems since that was written someone has brought the island and leased it out to a holiday company! There is a hotel on there now, although it is more beach huts, so it remains pretty un spoilt and is very well looked after. Mind you for the prices they are charging it should be well looked after. The beach huts there (bearing in mind that they are just beach huts and nothing special) cost US$350 per night! Also to come aboard the island is Belizian $10 per person then another $30 to moor up for the night!
Anyway we stopped there for a few beers, and saw some people come pegging it out of the sea as fast as their legs would take them, after seeing a shark in about 3ft of water!! Good job I wasn't in there, I would have had a heart attack! There seemed to be a lot of sea life around the area and we saw a huge ray come leaping out of the water at one point. I was a bit too scared to do any snorkeling after the shark incident so we stayed in the bar instead, we sill saw a lot!
We have had a bit of a hiccup with the engine as the alternator doesn't appear to be working, it is not charging the batteries. So it is a good job that we have the wind generator to top them up and we are praying for a good bit of wind each day (yes ho, ho! if it was that kind of wind we would be laughing, what with all Stuarts trumping!!). We were very lucky though, as we spent so much time in the bar we got friendly with the guy who looks after the island and he offered to charge our battery from his generator. Which he did for us the next morning for no extra charge. A list of jobs is now being compiled for Stuart to do when we get back to the river! Another one of these jobs is to fix the oven, which decided to blow up in my face on our travels, it singed all the hairs on my arms and ruined the best pizza I have ever made! I am not very please with the oven at the moment!
The Sapodillas
The next day we headed off for Tom Owen Cay, and had a couple of dolphins come and play around the boat again, I got very carried away with taking pictures again! I still can't get over how clear the water is and at one point we could clearly see the bottom with its plants and little fish at 20 meters! Again our book appears to be a little out of date and Tom Owen Cay has now also been developed on, so we thought we would give this one a miss and head on down to the Sapodillas
All the islands from here on down have been developed on which is a real shame as they appear to have squashed as much on the tiny islands as they can, leaving them looking rather ungainly. We ended up mooring on Hunting Cay, which is supposed to be a national park and has a beach where the turtles come and lay there eggs, I feel a little sorry for them as their island appears to have been taken over. We were lucky enough to see one swimming past on our way in. He popped his head out of the water, saw us, and nosed dived away as quickly as he could. The island would have been very beautiful, had it not been covered in building equipment and rubbish. We were very disappointed, after having come from some of the loveliest uninhabited islands, we had been spoilt to begin with. We got charged the $40 fee here too.
Our keel also had its first proper encounter with the bottom here. We must have come in when the tide was at its highest, or left when it was at its lowest as all of a sudden we were scrapping along the bottom! Luckily it was a sandy bottom, with the occasional rock, but we managed to get out with out too much damage.
Back to Punta Gorda and Livingston
We headed off from here back to the Snake Cays for a night before going back to Punta Gorda to clear out of the country. We had a bit of a bad night in the Snake Cays as a storm passed over and one of our anchors dragged. Stuart spent all night watching out the window to make sure that we didn't go careering onto the island, or over to one of the reefs. I managed to stay pretty calm and slept through it all!! Oh dear I don't think I'd make a good watch man. Luckily we didn't move too far and left very early in the morning to get out of the the sticky situation.
It felt very much much like a rainy Sunday in England this morning, it was cold and wet and quite miserable so we had a tin of Heinz Baked Beans on toast, felt very much like home! We managed to clear through Punta Gorda customs etc with no probs and stormed off to Livingston to catch the 13.30 high tide. We got there at about 14.30 but made it across the bar without so much as a bump and we are now waiting to clear in tomorrow then to head back to the Rio Dulce.
9 June - Queens Cay's - Belize
We left Placencia this morning as the weather appeared to be taking a turn for the better. Yesterday was a really nice day too, but we stayed put just in case and checked out Placencia. It is a really nice little town, very back packery, lots of lovely little beach shacks to rent out and sandy dirt tracks taking you in and out of the town. Lots of pubs and restaurants, well worth a visit if you are ever in the area.
On the way to the Queen's Cays we had a school of dolphins come and play around the boat which was very exciting. Click here to see the pictures. The water was so clear it's unbelievable, then they left as soon as they came. The first time I saw one of them I thought it was a shark!! That was just as exciting too!
It took us about 5 hours to get here, guess what, motoring again as there was no wind at all, but it was a lovely sunny day and when we got here we had the island all to ourselves. We got stung by the National Parks charge again though, not a soul around for miles then they pop up out of nowhere, charge you then disappear back into nowhere! Anyway it has been well worth it, we spent the afternoon and evening on our own private little desert island, built a fire and made dinner, put our hammock up and just relaxed. The only shame was that another boat decided to come and moor up on our island! There are hundreds of different beautiful islands around here, all with no one on them and they had to come and stick there boat right next to ours!! We managed to keep the island to ourselves for the evening though.
7 June - The Moho and Snake Cay's - Belize
Leaving Livingston
Checking in with the customs at Livingston turned out to be very straight forward, we paid our fine for the outdated boat papers, got the papers stamped by the Port Captain, and had our passports stamped with the correct date. This was all made simple for us with help from the Eduana who spoke English and could explain our predicament to all the other officials, so all was sorted very quickly and hopefully for good. A very nice man.
We then moved off for Belize and Punta Gorda on Wednesday 3rd with the 5.26am high tide, all went pretty smoothly after an initial panic when we were just coming up to the bar and the engine stopped completely. Turned out that Stuart had cleared the fuel filter before we set out but didn't bleed it, so he quickly rectified the problem and we set off again. It took us about 30 minutes to cross the bar with the depth meter constantly reading 0.0 - 0.1 the whole time, so it was a bit nail biting that we would hit the bottom at any moment, but we managed to clear it intact. You hear many stories for people getting stuck on the bar here and having to be towed off. The best one we have heard is the guy who supplies the tidal information getting stuck on it! He really should pay more attention to himself!
Entering Belize
It took us about 3½ hours to motor to Punta Gorda in Belize, we had to motor as the wind was on our nose the entire way so no chance of getting the sails up. The customs here all worked out pretty smoothly too, everyone was very laid back and we were back off on our way within a couple of hours. By the time we started to head off to the Moho Cay's, the wind had completely changed direction so it was back on the nose again!! Still no sailing! It took us another couple of hours to get to the islands, where we anchored up for the night. Click here for pictures
Moho Cay's
We stayed at the Moho Cay's for a couple of days, where we got stung by the new charges they are imposing on all boaters in Belize. They come round in a Launcher and charge you $20 (Belizean) per person per day (roughly £5 per person) so if 2 of you want to cruise around Belize for a month it will cost you £310 just in these fees alone. It is a silly expense and will only drive people away.
The island was very nice and had a ship wreck around the back of it, which made Stuart happy! We found lots of big iguanas living on the island and hundreds of 'no see ems' that quickly chased us back to the boat, we also stocked up on a fresh supply of coconuts! It was a pretty sheltered anchorage and we managed not to get stuck on any of the reefs when we came to anchor up which is always a bonus!
Punta Gorda
We took a trip back to Punta Gorda on the Sunday to pick up some supplies (we had run out of rum!) On the way back Stuart stuck his fishing rod off the back of the boat then we forgot all about it, all of a sudden whilst Stuart was playing with the sails the line started running out. To start with we just thought that the hook had snagged on the bottom, but on closer inspection saw that we had in actual fact caught a fish!! (I know, it was as much a surprise to me too!) We forgot all about the sails and turned the boat round to chase the fish, Stuart wrestled with it for a while and eventually ended pulling up a huge Barracuda! (well huge to me, maybe not to anyone else!) All very exciting stuff, and you can click here to see the pictures of the formidable catch, if you don't believe me!
We ended up spending Sunday night in Punta Gorda, we hadn't intended to, but forgot it was a Sunday and the whole town was shut. We anchored up here over night, which was not much fun as the boat really rolled about all night, I had to hand the cooking of fish (barracuda!) and chips over to Stuart for fear of involuntarily vomiting into the batter! Les you would have been proud of me, I spent the rest of the night laying on my back on deck, for fear of feeling bad when I stood up! The boat managed to roll from stern to bow until about 10.00pm, then it stopped and started rolling from port to starboard (note the nautical terms there!!) So was a pretty uncomfortable night all in all.
Snake Cay's
Well we managed to pick up enough rum in Punta Gorda to keep a whole ship full of pirates happy for a month or so. Then we headed off to the Snake Cay's, surprise surprise we were motoring again, the wind wasn't on our nose this time though, it was no where to be found! This island was much more impressive to me than the last one as we got there when the sun was shining and the water was really clear and sparkling, it just looked like a proper desert island click here for a pic.
I did my first bit of snorkeling here, we only brought one set of snorkel stuff between us so I had to go out on my own, which I was a little apprehensive about. Once I had swam from the boat to the nice clear, shallow sandy bit I was feeling a little more confident, I then found the edge of the reef which was nice and shallow and started to see lots of little pretty fish. I was beginning to think to myself, "arrh, I like this, lots of pretty little fish" then turned my head to the right and there staring me in the face was a huge ray about the same size as myself not a meter away!! I did a double take (which I'm sure he would have too) panicked turned in the opposite direction and swam away as quick as humanly possible!! I wasn't ready to encounter such a huge fish quite so soon. So that ended my snorkeling adventures for the time being!
The anchorage here was pretty rolly as well and when Stuart checked the weather it had shown a large low pressure in the area for the next couple of days (which apparently means lots of thunder storms and winds), so we decided not to stay another night and to head of to Placencia where the anchoring should be more sheltered.
Placencia
And again we ended up motoring all the way, due to the wind being in the wrong direction. We went through a bit of a storm, where it got pretty windy and a little rainy, much like being in the uk. Then finally made it to Placencia in about 6 hours. Just in time for a huge rain storm, which Stuart and I took advantage of by washing our hair in it! Water is too precious on the boat for such things! People must have thought we were mad! It washed all the salt away from us which was nice, it also nearly washed away a large Catamaran too! We think we will stay here for a couple of days and wait for the weather to pass.
Weather Report from Stu
I have been checking getting daily information from the Tropical
Information Centre in Miami, via the weather fax. Whilst watching the
low pressure that made us turn to Placencia, I noticed that 36 hours
later it turned into a named tropical cyclone (hurricane). This is very
unusual as hurricanes don't actually form in the Caribbean until the
very last part of the hurricane season and we have been using this
information to base our plans in this part of the Caribbean, we may
have to rethink our plans.
1 June - Finally leaving the Rio Dulce
We finally managed to get our supplies together and tie up any loose ends on Tuesday then set of for Livingston on Wednesday afternoon, we had a really nice trip motoring down to the Golfetee where we anchored up and spent the night. Click here for photos. We managed to get another Ensign for the boat from a lady who lives in the Golfetee and makes courtesy flags, so that was one problem solved.
We stopped for lunch at the hot springs on the way down, where the seagull decided to play some more tricks on us. After splashing about in the hot springs for a while we jumped in the dingy to head back to the boat. Unfortunately the dingy was pointing inland rather than towards the boat, so when Stuart pulled the starter cord, not expecting it to go first time as it never has before, it decided it would start first time and at full speed which sent us careering up the rocks! Luckily there were only three other people there and they were to busy hopping about in the very hot bits of spring to pay us much attention!
We had anchored the boat up with our new 50ft half inch chain and 35lb anchor which Stuart had to flex his muscles pulling up, in a very strong current! He will be like Jeff Capes by the time we have finished here and will be able to pull lorries up hills by a tire round his neck, like an old cart horse!!
Anyway back to the story at hand. We arrived in Livingston in the afternoon and plan to check the papers in with the Eduana tomorrow then leave with the high tide at 5.30 on Friday morning, from there we plan to head to Belize, but only time will tell!