Glover’s Reef to Lighthouse Reef, Belize

2/27/15

Two days of February left, where does the time go?  We have arrived at the southern end of Lighthouse Reef – the smallest of the Belizean atolls.  I never get tired of looking at this water.  This morning it is a greenish aqua and we are anchored in 10’ of water with a sandy bottom, some turtle grass, but not like at Glover’s Reef.  Our passage yesterday from Glover’s wasn't as bad as the days before, but I had intestinal “difficulties” which left me limp as a dishrag and not much help to Charlie.  Although I did rally by the time we had to make our entrance through the reef and anchor.  We are now at an anchorage on the west side of Long Cay.  On a personal note, I gain more confidence with each arrival to a new island.  I have total confidence in my captain and I am his dutiful first mate or Admiral as the case may be.

Susan and Jerry on s/v Vida Dulce have been wonderful boating buddies and I look forward to more time with them in Mexico.  Not sure what today brings as Charlie is on Vida Dulce planning the next part of our itinerary.  I, in the meantime, am enjoying some coffee and watching the sea.  To our starboard is Long Cay with mangroves along this shoreline.  There is a beach, but we are betting it is full of sand fleas – the dreaded “no-seeums”, so we are not going ashore to explore.  Off of our stern is Half-Moon Cay which is part of a National Park, which has an entrance fee.  There is a bird rookery with Blue Footed Boobies nesting there.  This would be interesting to see, but alas it is not on the itinerary.  So we are off again for the 16 mile sail to Northern Cay.  Yeah, we are finally sailing and with a 17 knot wind.  Island Sol is doing 7 knots, and we are pulling our dingy, too.  Charlie tries fishing again but there is just too much sargassum weed which is continually fouling his rigs.

We have picked our way between Northern Cay and Sandbore Cay to anchor.  We have reefs on both sides and Charlie is contemplating on putting out a stern anchor, but the wind is out of the East now, so we will just watch and see what the wind does.  After some lunch we took the dingy to Southbore Cay and walked around over half of the island, finding small treasures along the way, how many shells can one boat hold?  The light house which is a 200’ tall metal structure has an osprey nest on top.  Through the binoculars we could see 2 heads in the nest with Mom and Dad situated nearby.   These offspring appear really large so maybe they will be fledging soon.

 

2/28/15

After listening to Chris Parker (our weather guru) on the SSB radio, it appears we will spend another day and night on Sandbore Cay.  So we decided to explore Northern Cay, which as the Rauscher book says, has a state of the art Dive Center, an airstrip, hotel/restaurant and bar.  The problem, which is occurring more and more often, the Rauscher book was printed 7 years ago and come to find out this whole island, was closed down in 2006 and the place is pretty much dilapidated.  We walked the beach and met an Italian guy who was raking the seaweed away from the beach.  He and a few Belizeans live in the deserted cabanas of the resort.   We walked the airstrip and saw a few iguanas and so ended our exploring of Northern Cay.  Charlie and Jerry later took the dingy out for some snorkeling.  Again they saw some beautiful coral but hardly any fish.

Tres Puntas, Guatemala to Ranguana Cay, Belize

2/23/15

s/v Vida Dulce

My captain is very good at reading charts and plotting waypoints.  We were also fortunate to have friends that added their comments and waypoints to places we were heading.  Finally around 1:00 we could see Ranguana Cay, as the Rauscher book stated, “It is visible by the tall palm trees”.  So now we are using our chart plotter to find the entrance into the reef.  Seems I am now at the helm again as Charlie directs me by how many degrees port or starboard I have to steer in order to pass through the reef.  I have to tell you I was doing a lot of praying at this point with sweaty palms, but we made it through. (Thank you Lord)… As luck would have it Jerry and Susan were arriving at the same time, we couldn't have planned it any better.

So, here in front of us is the lovely little island of Ranguana Cay, beautiful white sand beaches and huge palm trees.  There is one other power boat at anchor in the lee of the island, so again we go through the procedure of anchoring, another practice and another victory.  There is a lot of wind now and the sea, even inside the reef is choppy, which makes our boat somewhat unpleasant with all the tossing around.  Charlie dove the anchor to make sure it was in, of course it wasn't so I had to start the boat again and put it in reverse and give it 2700 RPMs and that did the trick.  I couldn't wait, I had to jump in too, I was so glad to be in such beautiful water. 

Later that evening we made our way to s/v Vida Dulce for cocktails and dinner with Susan and Jerry.  They have a 44’ Lagoon Catamaran.  Wow, this is a huge boat.  Cats are so roomy and I have to say I was just a little bit envious.  Jerry and Susan have retired from the Seattle, Washington area and are enjoying their 5+ years cruising.   Jerry is writing an app for an anchor alarm and he has a 3D printer on board with which he has made parts for his boat…pretty amazing. 

Susan showed me all of her molas from the Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands of Panama.  We hope to sail there at the end of this year.  These molas are an amazing pieces of handwork.  There are usually 3 layers of cloth, black being the predominate color.  I don’t know if I can explain this well enough, but the material is cut and folded back under to reveal the next layer of color and so on.  The handwork is amazingly tiny.  As Susan informed me that a mola master makes stitches that are not seen, using thread in the same color of the layer he/she is working on.  Their lines must be very straight and the widths of the color lines are also thin.  Susan purchased a mola that Vecincio made over a period of 6 months, it was truly a work of art.  At any rate, I really appreciated the education into what to look for when I get the opportunity to purchase molas.  The whole culture is worth a story unto itself….so I will report on that when we get there with pictures of the molas I intend to buy.

We had a wonderful dinner and great company that night.  Susan sent us home with 6 homemade chocolate cookies for coffee the next morning….Susan you are a life saver!

2/23/15

Today we got into the water and headed to the reef for some snorkeling.  Jerry was with us, as Susan is not a water person….hmmm, how can that be?  The current and the waves were very strong and it didn’t take long for me to be out of breath and energy.  And, to add to this misery, we really didn’t see that many fish.  We moved to the south end of the island where the water was more protected.  The visibility was poor, but I had my first shark encounter.  In all the years Charlie and I have been diving, from Mexico, Florida, Bahamas and Roatan, I have never seen a shark.  Now, I am glad in some respects, but it was very exciting to see this 4’ nurse shark.  Hey, that is the best first encounter to have in my book…a shark that doesn’t have those huge teeth and are very docile.  I watched it swim away, I’m sure he doesn’t like to have encounters with people either.  After dropping Jerry off, we had 3 porpoise follow our dingy back to Island Sol.  I really wanted to drop over the side and be in the water with them, but I was not sure how wild porpoise would react to that, so for now I held back…but that would be a check off on my bucket list for sure.  The pod stayed on the starboard side of our boat for some time.  It appeared to be one mature and two immature porpoise just swimming around and having fun  Such beautiful creatures!

Ranguana Cay to Glover’s Reef, Belize

2/25/15

Again we have another beautiful morning with the wind on our nose.  This is the misnomer about “sailing”, we mostly motor as of late, no sailing involved, due to the direction of the wind.  So again, we had a very uncomfortable crossing, pitching back and forth and sideways for the next 5 hours.  We listen each morning to Chris Parker for our weather reports and it seems that the south east trades winds that we need come at night, so in the near future we will be making a night “sail” on our way to Mexico.

The entrance to Glover’s Cay seems so ominous when reading it from the books.  “Be sure to have good light overhead, flat seas, and watch for numerous coral heads”.  But with the correct way points and Charlie on the bow directing me at the helm we made it into Glover’s with no problem.  Vida Dulce was behind us all the way and they are now anchored behind our stern.  Glover’s is one of the few true atolls in the Americas.  It is ringed with coral and there are only a few cuts in the reef for entrance and exit.  The island is flat with beautiful white beaches, coconut palm trees and palm nut trees.  It is another beautiful sight to see.

1st time for wifi in weeks

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I dove the anchor with Charlie today so I could see exactly what that looked like.  As it turned out we needed to put the boat in reverse again and dig the anchor in deeper.  We also have out 200’ of chain, which seems excessive, but after our dragging experience in a squall in Mexico we learned from a fellow sailor to put out more chain when you anchor in “turtle grass”…which is what we are doing here.

never get tired of these sunsets

Melinda and Harry on s/v Sea Shell, who we had met in the Rio Dulce, was also anchored nearby.  We picked Susan and Jerry up and headed to their boat.  Susan said Melinda would know anything we needed about Glover’s Cay.  As it turns out several cruisers are meeting at the bar for happy hour.  In Belize, happy hour is exactly that, just one hour and then the drinks were $8 (US) for my (very small) vodka tonic.  We made arrangements to have dinner in the dining room, as Isla Marisol is an all-inclusive resort for diving and bone fishing.  Lobster was on the buffet tonight….which was somewhat disconcerting as lobster is out of season at this time.  Then we found out, finally at pay up time, that each dinner was $30 (US) per person…we all grumbled and got the price down to $25 per person….hell I was just glad Charlie didn't have to cook and I didn't have to clean it up.

We finally got a great night’s sleep as the water had smoothed out, so Island Sol was like a water bed for tonight.

Bar at Marisol Resort

 

Susan & Jerry (back left)   Melinda & Harry (front)

Rio Dulce to Tres Puntas, Guatemala

2/22/15

Our "Solita" (middle boat) is the
launcha we use in the river.

Sunny and very little wind on our nose

Our time in the Rio has ended and we are both so ready to get out of this river. The green of this country is overwhelming and we are looking forward to the aqua blue of the Caribbean.  Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful here and there are many things to see and do, but we are ready for some salt water.  We slipped out dock lines around noon and left Luvy's marina.  Luvy and his family were very wonderful hosts and took great care of our baby while we were in the states.  So, muchas gracia Luvy and we will see you again in June.

Island Sol with the Shade Tree up....making her really a cool boat!

We motored through Lake Golfete then through the gorge passing simple palapa huts and people in dug out canoes call cayucos.  Some cayucos have outboard motors but some are driven by human power.  The Guatemalans along the river are fisherman, catching mojarra.  We finally reached Livingston and crossed the sand bar at 4:00pm, which was high tide, so our boat with a draft of 4'10" motored right across.   This sand “bar” is large and continually changing with the river flowing out, we have bumped over it in the past, but today was easy peasy.

We motored on about another 2 hours and anchored behind the peninsula near Tres Puntas.  It seems now that our jobs are set when it comes to anchoring.  Charlie is at the bow and I am at the helm.  He directs me via walkie talkies on when to go forward, to go into neutral or to go into reverse, in order to set the anchor.  I am always reluctant to get behind the helm, but I am slowly gaining more confidence with practice.

As soon as we got the anchor set and secured it was already dark and up comes a boat of 3 guys 15’ from our boat and in their broken English told us they were fishing.  This was a little disconcerting at first, but sure enough that is what they did for the next couple of hours.  We must have anchored in their best fishing spot and they were probably just as unhappy with us as we were with them.  I hope they caught what they needed.

We slept really well that night and the next morning we were off to our next destination…Ranguana Cay, Belize to meet our friends Jerry and Susan on s/v Vida Dulce.  Again, we do what we mostly do and motored the entire way as we had no wind, and if any came up it was on our nose.  The sea was very rolling with large swells which made the trip not very pleasant.  But, the water is now 2000’ deep and very dark blue.  A pod of 4 porpoise followed us out of our anchorage early this morning, always a good sign.

Livingston, Guatemala

2/20/15


We are finally getting ready to leave the river, but first a trip to Livingston to complete our exit paperwork.  Luvy, our marina owner, lent us his launcha with a Honda 50 outboard motor, this made our trip only an hour down river to the town of Livingston.  On the way, we pass through a beautiful gorge with towering cliffs and jungle on each side.  There is a cliff wall along the way, they call "graffiti wall" for obvious reasons and so we enjoyed revisiting it again this year.  We just couldn't contain ourselves so we added our names last year.

Upon reaching Livingston, we made our way to the SAT office where we began the lengthy process of checking out of the country.  The same happens on entering the country also.  After the SAT office, we were sent to the Port Captain where more papers were stamped and more money is paid out.  This took some time as the electricity had evidently gone out and they had to hook up a generator in order to run the computer and copy machine to finish our paperwork.  Next we were sent to Customs for our passports to be stamped.  Charlie asked a young guy where the Customs office was and he sent us on a wild goose chase to the other side of the city.  But, not all was lost as we saw some pretty interesting sights.
                                                    Drying fish on long layers of cyclone

 fencing...can you almost smell it?  After all this walking we worked up an appetite and started looking for a place to eat.  One restaurant on the main street was full of people, always a good sign, but a Garifuna band was playing and the noise was unbearable so we continued on down the street and finally found a hole in the wall with one gentleman eating there.  Hunger over took us so we settled in and had a most delightful meal.  We both got the seafood soup and several cervezas.   It was delicious.

So with full bellies we got our passports stamped and we are on our way out of Guatemala and on to the Caribbean Sea and blue salt water.

The Mayan Ruins of TIKAL

2/17/15
hot and still

On February 5, we took off on another bus ride to Flores, in the northern part of Guatemala.  It was a 4 hour trip with unfortunately many stops along the way. We have finally realized that all bus rides are not non-stop.  We ended up in the bustling town of Santa Elena, much bigger than the Rio Dulce. There is a huge lake there, Lago Peten Itza and a causeway that goes over to the island city of, Flores.  Flores is the capital of the "state" of Peten.  It is a quaint colonial town with cobbled streets.




We spent the night in a small boutique hotel where we had a spacious suite...what were we thinking?  After dropping off our things we walked around one side of the island along the shore.  Now, this particular lake is the only lake in the world where the white bass is found....ohhh our son-in-law would love this!  After eating some nachos and a few beverages to go along with them, we ended up at another restaurant and had the aforementioned, white bass.  It was OK, but I have to admit I am more of a salt water fish person.

The next day we traveled to Tikal in a collectivo...this is a van that is packed with people, they put as many as possible in...so thank god the ride was less than an hour.  We arrived at the park and were then dropped off at the Jungle Lodge, only hotel that is within the park.

Jaguar crossing

 The chances of seeing a jaguar are slim to nothing, so we at least got a great view of the White Nosed Coati.  We also saw and heard Mexican Black Howler Monkeys and Spider Monkeys.  There were all sorts of birds in the park but a raucous
flock of toucans was pretty exciting, too.

Tony our guide

The park is huge, as you can imagine and just was so amazing to see.  The temples at Tikal are very tall and this seems to be the architecture throughout this site and what Tikal is known for.  Whereas, Copan is known for it's beautiful steleas and cravings.  On our last morning we did the "sunrise tour" and met our group at the main dinning hall at 4:00am.  After a short talk on Temple 1...Temple of the Sun, we were off for an hour trek in the dark.  When we arrived we then had to climb stairway after stairway to the top of the temple where many people had seated themselves on more steps to the very top of the temple.  And, then there we all waited in silence for the morning to begin.  We were very lucky that the weather was perfect to see the sun rise off in the distance above the jungle canopy.  As it got lighter and lighter, then the jungle came alive.  Troups of howler monkeys
in all directions started their morning calls.  Birds, of all kinds, became visible flying over the tree tops.  It was stunning and somewhat surreal.  So Charlie got to check off an item from his bucket list today.

Here are some other pictures from the park.....

Jungle Lodge

Dinning Room and the food was wonderful

Ocellated Turkey

after the sunrise

North Acropolis and Great Plaza