Ambergris Caye, Belize

            Captain Chris assesses the anchorage in shallow, windy but beautiful Ambergris Caye


                After anchoring in the very shallow Caye Caulker, it was even more nerve-wracking
entering the Ambergris Caye anchorage at San Pedro. Average depth of this anchorage here? 7-8 feet.

 
          It's not only very shallow here, but the holding is bad -- it's near solid coral. This photo
           shows our double anchors, which we deployed for the first time during our adventure.


              The Belizian island of Ambergris Caye is world famous for it's crystal clear
                                 water and death-defying SCUBA diving adventures.

     Most famous of all is the Big Blue Hole, just offshore from Ambergris Caye.  It's beautiful and horrifying to behold.  IMHO they should call it the big BLACK hole, though, because it looks like the hole goes all the way to hell. But in actuality, it is "only" several hundred feet deep.


 

         You can dive it, and many do, but you've gotta go down 100 feet before the spectacular stalactites and stalagmites come into view.  Cough. Hack. A-hem. Did this wimpy cruiser get up the courage for such a dive?   Me thinks not, sadly. Ah, well.  But thankfully,  lunatics like these guys in the photo above go for us and film the whole godforsaken entry into the portal of hell, so you and I can enjoy the spectacle from the comfort of our couch at home (or aboard)... LOL...   :-)


                   Any-whoo, we made the day sail north to Ambergris with our
                                         buddy boat Blue Shift, from Denmark.

  Me with "The Norseman," as we lovingly referred to A.J. and Philip, the Danish crew of Blue Shift


        I've gotta give a big shout-out to these young guys. With no sailing experience, they flew to the Bocas del Toro in Caribbean Panama, sailed through the Panama Canal, crossed the Pacific to French Polynesia, sailed to Easter Island (!) then to Ecuador, back through the Canal and up the Western Caribbean to Belize...

....all in 9 months.    Without an auto-pilot.     YIKES. Yowza. These guys are my heroes. And they're not done yet!  Soon they'll be crossing the Caribbean to Martinique, where they'll jump off and sail across the Atlantic, returning to Scandinavia.

 Wow. Did I say they don't have an auto-pilot and will be hand steering the whole way?

And to top it off, they had their (locked) dinghy stolen here in Ambergis Caye, right off the dock. Infuriated, they spent hours looking all over the island and finally found her, no worse for wear, up on the beach next to a local watering hole (natch).   Looks like it was nothing more than a joy ride by some local youths, thankfully.

   Philip smiles bravely as he ponders the daunting return trip to Denmark. Keep smiling, my friend!  



 

           The view from our favorite coffee house and internet cafe. Espiritu is in the distance.

                                                                             Anchors

                                   Palms sway every which way


   The main form of transportation on this small island is golf carts. And get this: they use John Deere tractors to pull merchandise from place to place!

                                            Yeee-haw!      :-)

          Our "swimming pool" over the side of Espiritu. We don't have a shower aboard, but we have no trouble bathing in the salt water (we just use a bit more shampoo and soap) -- and then giving ourselves a final fresh-water rinse aboard in the cockpit. It works fine for us, and in fact, is a real pleasure!

                                          We're sure going to miss this view

                                                              Bike on beach

        Everywhere we've traveled we've found our friends the Mormons working hard evangelizing. Here, they were really smart: they scored a mission house right on the beach! Location, location, location.   :-)

                               Colorful scene in San Pedro, the only town on the island

                                       Boat and snowy egret in distance

                         I was entranced by the three layers of clouds. Can you find them?

                                     Fishing is, of course, also big business here

             Christmas decorations mingle with Day of the Dead skulls

                                                              Tranquility

          In parts of town, the beach and the street are the same. You would think I would find this offensive, ecologically speaking, but here it just seemed right, especially since golf carts are the main means of getting around. And the island is clean.

               They've got their golf carts, and we've got our faithful dinghy!

                                                       Clouds and sea

This young tourist from Nevada gracefully modeled his shirt which said: "Keep calm. Things are
           about to get weird." Indeed. Anyway, with the hat and bright colors, I liked his style.



        One thing I love about Ambergris Caye is the fact that although the town of San Pedro is built around tourism, local children are constantly playing all around -- on the beach, around the palapas, amidst the SCUBA shops.  I'm sure some tourists find it irritating, but for me it was charming.

                     Local children ride bikes on the beach in front of a beachfront hotel

     Giving candy to the children, then watching their faces light up is the biggest pleasure of my day. :-)

                                                                     Boys being boys

        This scene just amazed me when I took the photo. Check out the idilic locale for this waterfront public playground.  Now notice the children of different races all happily playing together. If I saw this photo I might cynically think it was some doctored photo for an ad promoting diversity and tolerance. It looks fake and too good to be true.

  Except it's real. Welcome to Belize.    :-)


  So, as I write this Chris and I are safely anchored in Isla Mujeres, Mexico after a brisk (10 knots over ground!) overnight sail. More on that later.

  During out last night in Belize, it dawned on me that our nearly year and a half of living in Mexico and Central America is coming to a close. Upon this realization, tears sprung to my eyes.

   It will take me months to untangle my feelings and actually figure out how this trip has changed and affected me.   For now...there are only the tears...of gratitude and joy.

Shallow times in Caye Caulker, Belize

                       Enjoying a blissful sunny day in Caye Caulker, Belize


       

            Caye Caulker is a small Belizian island with white, sandy streets made of fine coral

             That's the anchorage off the end of the dock.  The water is shallow. It is all through Belize. That's what gives the ocean that lovely aquamarine color -- the fact that the sand is only a few feet under the surface of the crystal clear water. The anchorage here is 6 - 10 feet deep.  That doesn't leave alot of room for error.


                                      For this reason, many sailors skip Belize completely.

                                 But how on God's green earth could we miss scenes like this?

   
               This was our view for our daily coffee and internet  (insert gentle ocean breeze here)

       I pride myself on constantly learning new things, and I learned something new in Caye Caulker. This helpful sign outside a liquor store says: "Drinking is fun. Try this!" Wow. I'd never heard that! Well, in that case, I'll have to try it tonight.  I'll report back...

                                                                            Flat, calm

         Meet Caroline, a Belizian woman who runs this cute little ice cream shop/bar. See the little TV at the top of the photo? Caroline was watching the LIFETIME MOVIE CHANNEL!

O.M.G.     :-)

 I haven't seen a single Lifetime movie in almost two years (My friend Laurel and I used to lovingly call Lifetime movies "cheezies" back in the states). Like a moth to a flame, powerless to resist,  I bellied up to the bar, mesmerized. In her adorable Caribbean accent, Caroline eagerly brought me up to speed on the movie she was watching.

 I believe the plot involved a husband who was having an affair with Cheryl Ladd's best friend (or something). The details are unimportant. What matters is, we did some major female bonding. Caroline and I shared hugs and tearful goodbyes after our powerful Lifetime experience...with the hubster standing off to the side rolling his eyes.   :-)

Score one for positive international relations!    You're welcome, America...   :-)

Such is the power of the Lifetime movie. (LOL)

By the way, if you are tempted to apply the "shallow" metaphor to my Lifetime Movie Channel experience...all I can say is, "Back off, Jack!" The "shallow" metaphor only applies to the water.

You'll never understand Lifetime movies, boys. No worries. It's all good...

               And anyway,  guys, there are some things about you I'll never understand either. ;-)



                        But I digress. Back to Caye Caulker, Belize:

 

                                                         Empty docks and blue skies

                           The white sand was nearly blinding under the sun -- shades are mandatory!

                            I enjoyed this typical Belizian meal of jerk chicken, beans and rice,
                                              cole slaw and fried plantain at an outdoor eatery

                   But just as I started the meal, this unattended Rottweiller mix roamed
                                in off the street looking for scraps (or more than scraps...)

           Considering his bloodline, we were afraid to even toss him a scrap, for fear he would feel entitled to more. So we ignored him and hoped for the best -- after which he approached the next table.            Just another reminder that we ARE still in Central America.

                                                          Beauty

                                                  Beachside vendor

                                                  Local fisherman tries his luck

                                                Shallow water, deep roots


     After 5 days here, we pulled anchor as the wind turned and began blowing us dangerously close to the beach.   Buddy boating with "The Norseman" as we lovingly call our new Danish friends A.J. and Philip aboard Blue Shift, we headed north through bad weather to our current location, Ambergris Caye.

                It's even shallower here in Ambergris Caye.  But more on that in my next post.


    XOXOXO Liz and Chris

Drama at Port O' Stuck

   After a month in the Placencia anchorage in southern Belize, we finally pulled anchor and headed north to explore some of the country's remote cayes.

          This was our view of Placencia as we pulled anchor. For many reasons, it was tough to leave.



                               Our first stop was a day sail away: The Pelican Cayes.

                             This dock was one of the few signs of human life in the Pelicans



          There is a young American couple with a newborn baby who have actually built a life for themselves on one of the tiny, remote cayes here. They dubbed their little island "Hideaway Caye" and have built a little restaurant and tiny home there for the three of them.

                                                            Leaning in to say hello

                                   An apparently very slow moving construction job

                                 But mostly it's just the sound of the sea here at Pelican Cayes


       We had a peaceful night's sleep here.  We had a spectacular view of the Milky Way, which seemed to cradle and protect our little anchorage like a canopy.

      Our view of the Milky Way wasn't quite THIS spectacular, but this NASA time lapse image gives you an idea of what we are actually seeing when we catch a glimpse of the galaxy spreading across our night sky.  Star-gazing in these remote places has been one of the real privileges of our sailing adventure. Light pollution has obscured our view of most of the night sky in our big cities, and it's a real shame.





                              The next morning we awoke to an amazing sunrise:

                       Note the way the cloud splays out at the top of the photo like a fan,
                                                 revealing the deep blue sky beneath


                        After watching this display, we pulled anchor and day sailed to the
                              another group of remote islands: Colson Cayes.

         Les Stroud did an episode of "Survivorman" on one of these remote Belize Cayes.


                   These Cayes were completely uninhabited. We were on our own.


        Coincidentally, during this time I happened to be reading Vincent Bugliosi's memoir "And The Sea Will Tell," the true story of a young couple sailing exotic islands who were murdered and thrown overboard by another sailing couple who occupied a crappy, beat up sloop which was running low on provisions. After murdering them, they then scuttled their own boat, stole the nice, clean, fully stocked ketch, painted over the name and hightailed it on out of there.

                           They also made a TV movie of the same name, starring Rachel Ward.


        This story merely proves my point that out here, I think, if we cruisers are to be afraid of anyone it should probably be our fellow gringo sailors rather than the locals. Or anyway, if we're going to be afraid, our fear should be spread 50/50 amongst gringos and locals. Just sayin.'  ;-)


        The next day, we sailed to the third island group, the Robinson Cayes.

We had fun poking around these islands. There were a couple of buildings ashore but some very troubled and hungry dogs guarded the tiny dock, so we regretfully sailed on.

By this time our fresh food was running low. I believe we had one avocado, one apple and two potatoes left. And interestingly, our drinking water suddenly flowed brown and ugly out of the tap.

Hmmmm. Well. 

Fortunately we have two drinking water tanks, so we were fine. But it's real out here. There's no messing around. 

            The rippled water surface gives this starfish at Robinson Caye a psychedelic look


     After an uneventful night anchored at Robinson Cayes, we pulled anchor for our sail to Caye Caulker. But this was not just any sail. To arrive at Caye Caulker, we had to cross over the infamous "Port O' Stuck."

       Port O' Stuck is a thin, half mile spit that is very shallow, hence the name. Our boat depth is 6'3," which is relatively deep for a sailboat. Catamarans can get through no problem. We asked our experienced cruising friends who have sailed the area for their advice: should we try it? Or should we take the long, long, LONG way around?

   After taking a poll, half of them said: "Oh yeah, no problem! Go for it!" And the other half shook their heads in dismay.

 Sigh.

  Well, being the adventuresome cruisers we are, we said, "What the hell! What's the worse that could happen?"

  So, as we nervously approached Port O' Stuck, we studiously and cautiously followed the waypoints and the markings along the way that showed the deepest part of the spit.  Once we entered, there would be no turning back.

Just as we were entering, two dolphins came out of nowhere and basically LED us into the spit. I squealed with glee.

This was a very good omen. :-)

   About 100 feet into the spit, we found our reverie short lived. we could not believe our eyes. A giant BARGE was entering the spit from the north side.  There was only room for one boat at a time!

BAD omen! BAD omen!

   I ran to the VHF and tried to hail the barge to ask him to wait and let us continue through. They ignored us and only seemed to gun it faster.

Now you know why they call it a BARGE!   :-/

   As if this were not enough, we discovered just as we entered that our depth sounder was suddenly non-functional.

   So we would be crossing the thin, very shallow Port O' Stuck at the exact time as a large, wide barge.

   Ah, well.  We had no choice but to proceed and hope for the best.  What more could we do?

   We couldn't believe our luck when we made it through without even touching the bottom. Captain Chris was so happy and relieved.   :-)

   Now that Port O' Stuck (and that giant barge) were behind us, all that stood between us and the tourist town/anchorage of Caye Caulker was beautiful Caribbean-blue water, a 14 knot beam reach breeze and sunny skies!

                                            Sailing here was a dream come true.
                         This is was the actual horizon on the way to Caye Caulker.


       The great thing about sailing Belize is there is a gigantic barrier reef far out to sea that keeps the swell and fetch down, but lets the beautiful wind in! So we sailed in 15 knots of breeze with practically no waves to pound through.   :-)

                                     Sailing to Caye Caulker   :-)



      It was the most glorious sail we've had in a very long time.  :-)

     We're now safely anchored at Caye Caulker with several other sailboats, including Capria, Jock's Lodge, Blue Shift and Twilight.

 
              Caye Caulker is often called "funky," as this photo from 2007 displays. Yeah.


         We should be here for 1-2 weeks as we look for our weather window to continue northwards through Belize and into the Mexican Yucatan.

          XOXOXO Liz and Captain Chris