Now we were leaving the exotic destinations of Panama, Columbia and Honduras, and returning to the greater familiarity of Belize (formerly British Honduras) and Mexico. Michael and I took a scuba diving vacation to Belize back in the early 1990's, and were eager to return.

We left the protected harbor of the West End of Roatan, Honduras, at about sundown. As soon as we were out of the lee of the island, we were hit with 25 knots of wind and the corresponding ocean swells. Instead of the forecast 10-15 kts of wind, we got 20-25. This was a disappointment, but we were starting to believe that this area of the western Caribbean is just always windier than other places and always windier than forecast. The wind continued to rise to about 30 kts, and the motion of the boat was not very comfortable. So we hove to, essentially stopping the forward motion of the boat by taking down most of the sails and setting the wheel against the mainsail, keeping us at about 60 degrees to the wind. I got to be on watch while we were hove to, so not much going on, but Michael got to sleep while the motion of the boat was easier.  At 5:30 am we resumed our course to Lighthouse Reef, arriving at Half Moon Caye at about 10:00. Lighthouse Reef is one of only 4 coral atolls in the Western Hemisphere; 3 are in Belize, one is in Mexico.  Tioga arrived a few hours later. We looked ashore, decided it was really pretty, and decided to stay home and rest for the remainder of the day.

The next day (we're up to April 26) we went ashore in the morning for a walk around the island. The whole island is a national park, set aside as a bird sanctuary. This was the first national park created by the Belizean government after independence from Britain in 1981. At the far end of the island was a nesting area used by magnificent frigate birds and white red-footed boobies. (Red-footed boobies also come in brown, but these were all white.) We saw some fuzzy chicks and a lot of half-fledged juveniles, sitting awkwardly on the edges of their nests.  We walked all the way around the island in just over an hour, stopping to admire the birds and the ocean views. We returned to the boats for lunch then met again for a beach afternoon. The kids decided to play on the beach while the adults went snorkeling. Michael and Chris bravely swam through the breakers to snorkel the outside of the reef, but Sheila and I stayed inside. We saw a large eel poking its head out of a crevice, the usual assortment of reef fish, and the funniest looking lobster I've ever seen. Its shell was quite square, and its claws were all the same size, but it had a definite lobster tail. It looked like a small tank marching across the sand. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach until the bugs chased us out. Then we returned to Atalanta to shower and change before heading over to Tioga for Gerrit's birthday dinner. Quite a run of birthdays recently, and more coming up in May!

The next day we were sad to leave Lighthouse Reef but wanted to get to Belize City in order to stage one last inland trip with the Tiogas before they left for Cuba. We got as far as Turneffe Reef (one of the other coral atolls) the first day, then continued on to Cucumber Beach Marina on the mainland the following day. Cucumber Beach was a nice, new marina, but the tiny biting bugs were awful, especially in the evenings! We arranged a rental car and left promptly the next day!

Inland Trip - Belize and Guatemala, April 29 - May 3

Day 1 - Belize City to San Ignacio

Once again we set off in a van with Chris, Sheila, Joel and Gerrit. Rhiannon, Joel and Gerrit all brought their recorders, so we even had music along the way, although we had to institute some guidelines about all playing at once, playing actual music rather than squeaking, and volume in general. This was when Vienna also became interested in learning to play the recorder, and she and Joel were working through one of the books together. After stopping for a late lunch, we went to the Belize Zoo, a small but very well maintained facility. There we saw many animals native to Belize, including keel billed toucans, a bush dog (looks more like a ferret than a dog), grey fox mom and kits, mountain tapirs (which are all black, not the white striped variety), a jabiru stork rescued after being shot, and an enormous and majestic young Harpy eagle. The cutest by far was the baby black howler monkey reaching out for its mother who had just jumped across to the next tree. The mom kept a hold of the branch of the tree she was leaving until her baby was able to scamper across to her and climb up on her back for the rest of the journey through the tree tops.

We stayed until the zoo was closing, then drove for another couple hours to the town of San Ignacio, near the Guatemalan border. As we drove we saw women's softball teams playing everywhere. We learned later than the Belize national women's softball team had recently won an important Central American tournament. In San Ignacio we stayed at the Parrot's Nest, a small hotel advertising cottages in the tree tops. It was sort of like camping. We had a tiny but comfortable cottage, and the shared toilets and showers were in a separate building down the path. We were surprised to find the price to be twice what had been listed in our Lonely Planet guide though. In general, we found Belize to be quite expensive! Dinner that night was a Sri Lankan restaurant!

Day 2 - around San Ignacio

We spent the entire day with a local guide named Teddy. After a satisfactory breakfast on the deck at the Parrot's Nest, during which we spotted a brown jay and a violaceous trogon in the trees, and saw an agouti ambling across the lawn, we set off with Teddy. Our first stop was the cave at Barton Creek. We climbed into 2 canoes and paddled toward the mouth of the cave. After a tug over a shallow spot, we were in the cave. As we paddled farther into the darkness, Teddy told us that the cave had been a sacred site for the ancient Maya. In more recent times, bones, skulls and pottery shards have been found within the cave. The cave was beautiful and eerie, seen in the light of the battery powered lanterns and flashlights. Calcium laden water dripped from the ceiling, continually adding to the stalactite and stalagmite formations. We paddled in about 1/2 mile. There we stopped, turned out all the lights, and sat in total darkness and silence for several minutes. The experience of TOTAL darkness is so rare in our world of electricity. Soon the kids started whispering, which broke the mood, and surreptitiously flashing their lights. So much for total darkness and silence. On the way out, Teddy pointed out the bats hiding in their holes in the walls and roof of the cave. We saw a few flying around, but most just wriggled away when we shone the lights on them. We turned out the lights again as we approached the last bend before the entrance to the cave. As we rounded the corner, the daylight flooded in.  

After a picnic lunch, we set off for our next adventure - swimming at the Hidden Valley waterfall. These falls are also known as the Thousand Foot Falls, although they are actually 1500 feet high. Even now, at the end of the dry season, there was plenty of water coming over. Everyone swam to the foot of the falls and the more adventurous (including Michael and Rhiannon but not me) climbed the cliffs in order to jump into the pool below the falls. After a final stop at the 5 Sisters Lodge to admire the view of the same river a bit farther downstream, we returned to town for dinner. We went to a recommended family-friendly restaurant called Hode's. The kids played at the playground while the adults sat around having grown-up talk. When dinner arrived, the kids were happy to sit at their own table to have kid talk. Everyone was happy, the food was good, and we returned to the Parrot's Nest for a good night's sleep.

Day 3 - San Ignacio to El Remate, Guatemala

This was Saturday morning, and we wanted to visit the town market before leaving for Guatemala. We had heard that many Amish live in the area and come to the Saturday market. We had seen some of their farms during our drive the previous day with Teddy, and we were looking forward to seeing the horses and buggies that I associate with the Pennsylvania countryside here in the interior of Belize. But no buggies or Amish were anywhere to be seen. So we bought some fruit, then walked a few blocks to the San Ignacio Resort Hotel to see the Green Iguana Exhibit. It was very hot, close to lunchtime, we had to wait 15 minutes for the guide, and it was more expensive than we had thought, so we debated whether or not to stay. Boy, are we glad we did!

The Green Iguana Project is an on-going conservation project which aims to create awareness about the threatened green iguana, as well as repopulate the river banks of Belize. Our guide took us along the Medicinal Jungle Trail on the way to the iguana enclosure, pointing out native plants and their traditional medicinal uses. We also added a plain chachalaca to our bird list. When we entered the iguana enclosure, our guide immediately noticed that the adult female in the exhibit had laid her eggs in the brief time he had been gone. After a brief talk about the iguanas, and a scavenger hunt to see how many of the 60 or so bright green juveniles we could spot (not many), the kids got to take turns holding a couple of the little ones. Meanwhile, our guide went looking for the eggs. When he found where the eggs were buried, he invited the kids to come down to the floor of the exhibit to help him dig up and count the eggs. I don't remember how many eggs there were, but Vienna says there were 44!  They then re-buried the eggs in a dish tub. The tubs are dated and kept in a climate controlled area.  After the eggs hatch, the juveniles are kept in the exhibit for several weeks before being released to the wild. Meanwhile, after the eggs were taken care of, our guide asked if we wanted to come along down to the river to release the mother. Who could pass that up? We were certainly getting our money's worth! So off we went to the river. The kids each got a chance to hold the mother iguana, then Joel and Vienna waded it to the river to let her go. At first she just floated there on the water. We were worried about her, but our guide said not to worry, she's an iguana, and she'll be fine. Sure enough, after about 30 seconds, she perked up, took off swimming and, as far as we know, has not been seen since.

After all that excitement, we went back to Hode's for lunch, then set off driving to the border. There were no problems at the Belize/Guatemala border, but it is expensive to leave Belize. The heavy departure tax for non-residents goes directly to the parks system to support the tourist infrastructure, so we didn't feel too bad about that. But since we'll be departing Belize again when we leave on Atalanta for Mexico, we'll have to pay the tax again. We spent the night at the Casa de Don David, in the town of El Remate near Tikal. The rooms were nice and the gardens were beautiful, and the price was right after a couple days in Belize!

Day 4 - Tikal

After a prompt breakfast in the morning, we picked up our box lunches and set off for Tikal. Unfortunately, Guatemala just does not have the resources to maintain their Mayan sites as well as some of the other Central American countries. We were disappointed to see graffiti on several of the ruins, and there were very few interpretive signs, which were all in Spanish. The first glitch was paying to get in. The ticket office was not set up to accept credit cards, and there was no bank in the neighboring town, so we had to scrape the bottoms of our pockets to pay the admission fee.

Tikal is a huge site, known for its impressive architecture which rises from the midst of the jungle. Unlike Copan, there are not a lot of carvings or stelae there. But the pyramids are impressive!  To see the entire sight requires over 6 miles of walking, so we didn't get close to seeing the whole area. We ate our lunches sitting on the grass in the Great Plaza between Temples 1 and 2, adding a Montezuma Oropendola to our bird list. There Vienna read to the group her research report on the ancient Maya. We were so proud of her for all the work she did on that report.

Day 5 - Guatemala to Cucumber Beach Marina

On our final day of the trip, we started the morning with a leisurely game of Hearts over breakfast. We packed up our things (all the shoes were still wet from the rain storm), and headed back to the border. The road in Guatemala is hard packed dirt and gravel, but immediately over the border to Belize it is paved. We made an unplanned stop at the border to eat all our mangoes. Despite the fact that the fruit had been purchased in Belize and had never been out of the van while in Guatemala, we were not allowed to bring it in to Belize. It was confiscated from the van while most of us were in line inside. Sheila and I noticed a man walking in to the agriculture office with 4 mangoes that looked suspiciously familiar. Sure enough, when Chris, who had been driving the van, joined us in line, he said the mangoes had been confiscated. After some discussion, Sheila and I, along with 4 kids instructed to look hungry, went to try to liberate our mangoes. The woman in the agriculture office eventually, grudgingly retrieved 3 of our mangoes out of an official looking refrigerator. Another mango had left a few minutes prior with a man in uniform, but she assured us that was not one of our mangoes. But she never gave us the 4th one back. So we ate the mangoes in the parking lot on the Guatemalan side of the building, then walked around to the cleaner rest rooms on the Belize side to wash our hands.

Since we were now almost back to San Ignacio, and it was almost dinner time, and we hadn't had much for lunch other than mangoes, we stopped at Hode's one more time. After a last satisfactory dinner there, we drove the rest of the way back to the Cucumber Beach Marina. Another fun road trip finished.

The next day (May 4) was a scramble to get groceries, return the van, and do laundry in time to leave the marina before the evening bugs arrived. Tioga left first, heading north, and we left shortly after that, heading south to Middle Long Cay. Middle Long Cay was just an overnight stop for us on the way to Rendezvous Caye, a tiny uninhabited sand island with 13 palm trees. We arrived there mid-morning on May 5, anticipating a day of solitude on the beach. Imagine our surprise when several pangas roared in, and men started unloading kayaks, coolers and beach chairs in preparation for the 150 cruise ship passengers who descended shortly thereafter for a day of snorkeling and beaching on a deserted island with 149 other people. Needless to say, we were a bit miffed by their appearance, which led to a long philosophical discussion.

Did we have more right to be there than they did? Were we justified in feeling upset by their appearance?  It certainly seemed like we had expended more effort to get there: 1 1/2 years on our own sailboat vs buying a ticket and showing up. But maybe some of those cruise ship passengers had been working hard at their jobs every day, saving money for years to take their family on this cruise. Maybe they were upset by our presence, drop-outs who are not contributing to society. How environmentally responsible are cruise ships? Do the passengers share the blame for the impact of thousands of people descending simultaneously on a once quiet reef or native village? Cruisers like to think that their individual impact is small, but we are all included in the footprint of tourism. And tourism by its very nature changes the places we are seeking out. In some ways the San Blas Islands, for example, have been spoiled by their own success. Writers 10-15 years ago tell of going ashore in villages where each woman had 2 or 3 very special molas for sale. Now boats are met by women with molas by the bucket full. We may regret the changes and by-gone simplicity of their culture, yet that speaks to the resourcefulness of the Kuna people who are taking advantage of a new and valuable source of revenue for their villages. So we didn't reach a lot of conclusions, but our conversation lasted long enough for the cruise ship people to pack up and leave, and we enjoyed the late afternoon solitude on our now deserted beach.

We stayed at Rendezvous Caye for 2 nights, then went outside the barrier reef for the journey north to Caye Caulker. Despite the lovely morning when we picked our way out through the passage in the reef, the wind soon picked up to 25 knots. We were starting to believe that it ALWAYS blows 25 knots from the northeast in the western Caribbean, as soon as we get ready to go anywhere. So after a couple hours of this, we ducked back inside the reef earlier than we had planned. Soon we were sailing briskly along in 8 feet of water. This took some getting used to. As we picked our way through Porto Stuck, we could see the scrapes of other keels on the bottom. We sailed right through, heeled over just enough to not add another. We did plough through the mud trying to get in to the lagoon at Long Caye, so we gave that up and went all the way to Caye Caulker instead.

 

The next day, May 8, we made the short trip from Caye Caulker to San Pedro, the main town on Ambergris Caye. Michael and I had spent a week here many years ago on a diving vacation and were anxious to see how things had changed. The town has done well keeping cars out, but the streets are clogged with golf carts instead. There was a lot of rebuilding after a hurricane several years ago, and many of the new structures are bigger but not taller, which was nice. It all looked about the same, just more so.  The Tiogas were here as well, so we had dinner together. I'm glad we got to see them again because the next morning they left for Cuba.

We spent several days in San Pedro. We weren't happy with the anchorage, which was exposed to the wind and choppy, but we didn't go out much because Vienna was sick. Her fever was so high one evening that first thing the next morning Michael took her to the town clinic for a malaria test, which thankfully came back negative. (We have all been taking anti-malarial medication since before Christmas, but it is still possible to get malaria.) Michael and I each went diving once. On my dive, the dive master told us to go down as soon as we were in the water rather than waiting on the surface for the group to gather because it was so rough. As soon as we were down, I started noticing the sharks. The dive master hadn't told us he would be chumming the water! They were all pretty small sharks, and they left as soon as the food was gone, but it was certainly an eventful way to start the dive. The water was not very clear due to days of high wind and chop, but our dive master was very good at spotting things: a huge crab, a moray eel sticking its head out of a crack, more sharks. Michael's dive included a swim-through cavern at 100 feet, which sounded very cool.

Our last day in San Pedro was a manatee spotting trip. We went out in a boat with a guide to an area known to have manatees. Apparently the manatee population here is much healthier than in Florida because there are fewer power boats in Belize to run them over.  When we first got to the manatee area, our guide spotted a mother and calf right away but no one else got a good look at them. We waited for 15 minutes or so but didn't see them again. Then we went around to the other side of the island and started looking again. This island where they like to live is a mangrove caye (doesn't have any solid land) with a lagoon in the middle. Soon we saw a couple manatees. They swim slowly in shallow water, eating the roots of the eel grass. They come to the surface about every 10 minutes to breathe. To spot a manatee, look for floating clumps of grass in muddy water with a dark shape down below. When they surface, the head comes up first with a whiskery, walrus-like nose. As they go back down you can see their broad, flat back and a thick tail. As we were on our way out of the area, we saw the largest one yet. We sat and watched him for about 10 minutes, grazing, surfacing and going down again. Sometimes he would stop to watch us for a while. After seeing the manatees at the San Diego Sea World last summer, we were very pleased to see them in the wild and hear that the Belize population is doing well.

Our second stop with our guide was a shallow area not really near any of the islands. THe guides have been feeding the sharks and rays there for so long that they are quite tame. Another boat was there when we got there, and so was a crowd of sharks and rays. We put on our snorkel gear, were warned not to touch the rays on their tails, and slipped in to the water. Michael could just stand, so he held on to Rhiannon to keep her from drifting away in the current. I was nervous at first to have sharks and rays swimming all around! But soon we got used to it. Several times a huge ray would swim right over my shoulder from behind. That was startling! The biggest ray rubbed over Rhiannon's shoulder several times after trying to nibble her toes. She reached out to touch it as it swam by. Their skin is soft to touch, but their bodies are quite thick. So we ended our visit to Belize with an exciting wildlife day.

Later that afternoon we left Belize for the overnight passage to Chinchorro Bank. We knew we weren't going to have great weather, but we decided to bash through it to Chinchorro and then wait there for a proper weather window to head all the way north to Isla Mujeres, which is at the north end of the Yucatan peninsula. Sure enough, it was a rough, wet night, but Michael let me sleep through most of it. We hove to for a few hours so we would arrive after day break, and that was when I took my watch. By this time we had about 2 knots of current in our favor, so we were still making progress in the right direction. Chinchorro Bank is the one coral atoll in Mexico. As we got through he reef entrance and were shifting into reverse to slow down, the transmission seized up, and we were unable to shift gears. We turned the engine off and proceeded slowly (and with a high stress level!) through the coral under sail to the anchorage area and anchored. Of course that immediately changed Michael's day from a day of rest to a day of engine work. Scenarios of getting out of the reef and all the way to Isla Mujeres under sail only ran through our minds, definitely dampening our spirits for the day! It turned out not to be the transmission at all though. Our long dinghy painter had come unwrapped and out from under the dinghy where it is stowed on deck while we are underway. It was so long that the end went overboard from the foredeck, ran the length of the boat, and got tangled in the prop. So now the dinghy painter was much shorter, but the transmission was fine.

We spent 3 nights at Chinchorro. We went ashore one afternoon, but the beach was very narrow with biting sand flies, and there was nowhere to walk, so we didn't stay long. The next day, Michael was also working on the alternator, so he was spending a lot of time with his head in the engine compartment. This prompted Rhiannon's infamous question: "Is Atalanta falling apart?" The list of necessary repairs was getting longer, but we assured her (and ourselves) that Atalanta was not falling apart!

Tired of uncomfortable passages, our next move was an all day sail from Chinchorro to Bahia de Ascension. Compared to previous passages, this was a nice sail! We considered going on since it was going well but decided to quit while we were ahead for once. Bahia Ascension is a huge bay, but the only town, a tiny fishing village, was well inside the bay and on the other side. We anchored for the night, disappointed that there was nowhere to go ashore, and left the next afternoon for the overnight trip to Puerto Morelos. Once again we had a strong current in our favor for most of the trip, and when we were in the lee of the island of Cozumel, the seas were pretty calm. We got close to Puerto Morelos the next morning but decided not to stop. The anchorage would have been as windy and choppy as the anchorage in San Pedro. We endured some heavy seas getting back out of there, and then continued another 5 hours to Isla Mujeres, arriving midday on May 17. What a relief to enter the calm, blue harbor there, to see the beautiful beaches. But now we really were having a transmission problem!

We spent a total of 2 weeks at Isla Mujeres. We were at anchor for the first 2 days then moved to a marina. Michael fixed the transmission cable, fixed the alternator and got the steering arm for the auto pilot welded. While there we were very happy to see Orion again. Mike and Heather had skipped Belize all together and come straight to Isla Mujeres from the Bay Islands. It was great to see them again and share stories. We met other cruisers at the marina as well, and everyone was discussing a recent Cruising World article about tougher enforcement and new restrictions on US registered boats going to Cuba. We weren't planning to take our boat to Cuba, but we were considering flying there from Mexico. We were also concerned for Tioga because the article mentioned restrictions on any vessel entering US waters from Cuban waters. In the end, we decided to take another trip in Mexico since we have enjoyed Mexico so much and this would be our last chance for a while. But that is a subject for the next update.

Love to everyone,

Ginny