| |
Dave and I arrived in Fronteras, a.k.a. Rio Dulce, about noon. You get a great overview of the place as the bus goes over the bridge which spans the river. We had a little time to run errands before Chico, Jennifer's "guardian," would take us the twelve miles or so down the river to where Malakii was moored in the bay in front of her house.
We parked our bags in the bar at Bruno's, ordered a couple of licuados, and did our grocery shopping for the next two weeks.
Arriving in Rio Dulce now feels akin to coming home. It's a familiar place; the river speaks of peace and quiet, despite the hustle and bustle of activity in the town of Fronteras. Once I head down the river, what worries I may have seem to fall away.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Rio Dulce Bridge | Rio Dulce from Bridge | Bruno's Bar | Main Street, Fronteras |
After a while, Chico showed up. That's one of the nice things about not being in a hurry -- we had a flexible schedule. We know we'd see him "in the afternoon," in time to make the trip down the river to Jennifer's. He wouldn't be running around like crazy on a tight schedule, and we didn't need to worry about it either.
We loaded his cayuco with our bags, groceries and us, filled up his gas tank, and then headed down the river. Then most of the way down the Golfete, a large lake the river flows through, and into the bay where Malakii lies on her mooring at Jennifer's.
I had arranged with Jennifer to fix us a nice dinner at her "Accidental Restaurant." I figured Dave needed one good meal before we set out, after which he'd be subject to my cooking. It was yummy, and we had a great evening.
The next morning we got under way relatively early, heading down to Livingston at the mouth of the river. I wanted to check out in time to sail over to Cabo Tres Puntas, across the Bay of Honduras, since Livingston is not a very sheltered anchorage, and it's generally noisy.
 |
 |
 |
| Chico in his Cayuco | Jennifer's House | Dave Sailing down the Rio |
We got down the river to Livingston in reasonable time, but had the usual noon time slowdown checking out. It was 3:00 by the time we got back to the boat, and the tide was still going out -- low tide was at about 16:00. I've never had difficulty crossing the bar at the mouth of the Rio, despite Malakii's 6' draft. But it didn't seem wise to head out on a falling tide, and a -1.3' one at that. So we hung out for a couple of hours.
I wasn't feeling particularly great -- my digestive system had been complaining a little ever since we had breakfast in Antigua. I stopped by a pharmacy and bought some Cipro, but decided to hold off a little before taking it. I hate taking drugs if I don't have to, and I don't like wiping out all the good little guys in my gut.
We hauled the anchor at 18:00, after the sun was down but with still enough light left to see on our way out. It was pretty black by the time we neared the sea buoy. Most of the Livingston fishing fleet was out and about, but they were all ahead of us, having gone out an hour or so earlier. We had good wind and could sail straight across to Cabo Tres Puntas, where we anchored for the night.
We had a quiet night, in spite of unsettled weather. My crud from the past few days disappeared by the time we anchored, and we both slept well. Cabo Tres Puntas is pretty good shelter from most bad weather, and it's quiet.
Since we weren't in any particular hurry, and since we had a fair amount of produce on board which I didn't think the Belizians would let us bring into the country, I decided to spend the next day exploring a little. We sailed down to Bahia de Graciosa for lunch, where we practiced deploying the life sling rescue setup I'd brought down, and measured the boat so I could make a better sunshade for when we were anchored. Then we sailed back up to the point for another night.
I set the alarm for an early start at oh-dark-thirty. I wanted to arrive in Punta Gorda, Belize, about 9:00 so we could check out and buy supplies in time to sail up to Moho Cay for the night. The last time I tried this a few years ago with Lynde, we didn't get out of P.G. until 15:00 and got caught out and ended up sailing all night. It was fun, but I didn't really want to do it again...
We weighed anchor in the dark and sailed out with good wind and the main reefed down. The weather was unsettled, with squalls passing to the north of us. We were sailing by the compass, as clouds obscurred the lights of Punta Gorda when we were about half way across. It was wet and rainy, but it's a warm rain, and the wind wasn't really piping up. The clouds opened up when we got about two miles off, and we came in easily, dropped the hook, and headed in with the dinghy by 09:10.
Punta Gorda is a great place to check in and out of Belize -- everybody is in offices right at the dock, and you don't have to wander all over town. After checking in, we walked to the market and the grocery store, loading up on what food we hadn't bought in Guatemala and more produce. Then we headed up to Moho Cay for the night.
 |
| Dave crossing to Punta Gorda |
We had a quiet night at Moho, then headed over towards the Sapodillas. It's a fair ways over to the Saps; we were headed out by 07:30. It was a bit tricky getting the hook up in our small anchorage with the wind blowing, but we did ok with Dave at the helm and me cranking the winch.
We had all our sail up as we headed out, but the wind piped up so we threw in one reef and then the second. I checked in on the SSB net so my friends would know we were out there somewhere, and maybe we'd hook up for a visit.
With two reefs in the main and the #2 genoa up we were still a little overpowered, but the next step would be the storm jib because the #3 I have is too light, and I didn't want to lose any speed. The wind was on our nose, so I was trying to keep my options open if we couldn't make it over to the Saps -- there aren't any really good anchorages on the way over if the weather turns stinky, and so at some point I would have to decide to go or turn around and find shelter closer to the mainland. We pounded pretty hard all morning, making slow progress; by 13:00, just as I was thinking of heading back, the wind eased and it cleared up. I decided we could make it to NE Sapodilla Cay with enough light to see our way in.
At 15:00 as we neared Seal Cay I shook out both reefs. We were still a little pokey with the wind on our nose; I was pinching a bit to try to scoot by north of Seal Cay, but we didn't make it. The steering felt a little loose all day, and I told Dave to remind me to tighten it when we anchored.
There is a narrow cut in the reef extending south of Seal Cay, about 1/4 mile south of the cay; going through there saves a lot of time if you're headed to NE Sap. As we neared the cut I could see we wouldn't make it, so we tacked up and then angled back down along the cay and its reef extension. We headed into the cut as tight in as I dared, but the wind was right on our nose and we couldn't make it all the way through the cut in one go. As we tacked inside the cut, I realized the steering was totally loose... or something! There was next to no response to the helm, and I suddenly realized I could turn it more than its normal two full revolutions lock to lock. Fortunately the sails were pretty well balanced, the boat responded to what little hints I could get with the wheel, and we came about ok.
I grabbed the emergency tiller out of the cockpit locker, but it's not easy to put on. I got it on one side of the pin on the rudder post, enough to work the rudder with care, and we finished our run through the cut and on into clear water. Once we got the tiller properly attached, I had Dave steer while I crawled into the belly of the beast and discovered one of the pieces of mild steel (Doh!) angle to which the steering pulleys are fastened had rusted through and broken off. I've wondered about them ever since I first saw them, but never did anything because it would be such a difficult and unpleasant job. So now I paid for it. I guess I wanted to convert to a tiller anyway, so now I have some extra incentive. I have checked out the emergency tiller every year before I head out, and this year was no exception. Before heading up the river to meet Dave, I discovered the tiller was deteriorating at its base, and rebuilt it... good thing!
We made it the rest of the way to NE Sapodilla Cay, where we dropped the hook and settled in after a long day.
 |
 |
 |
| Emergency Tiller | Rusted Wheel Pulley | Northeast Sapodilla Cay |
I dove the anchor to make sure it was well set, then we lowered the dink and headed for the island to explore. We beached the dink and had a liesurely evening wading through the shallows around the cay.
As with many cays, there was a lot of trash in old fishing camps. We found a friendly little lizard, and a hammock that wasn't much fun with all the trash around.
 |
 |
 |
| Lizard | Gary in Hammock | Dave |
Right behind the makeshift tents of a fish camp, there was a "No Camping" sign...
There seemed to be plenty of coconuts around, but I'm not a big coconut fan, and I still haven't figured out how to open them easily, so we didn't grab one.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Fish Camp | "No Camping" sign by Fish Camp | NE Sapodilla Cay | NE Sapodilla Cay | Coconuts |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| NE Sapodilla Cay | Dave, NE Sapodilla Cay | Dave and Gary, NE Sapodilla Cay | NE Sapodilla Cay |
|
|
|
 |
| NE Sapodilla Cay | Stir Fry |
We took a layover day the next day, taking it easy and enjoying ourselves. Dave had a new camera with an underwater housing, so we went snorkeling to see what we could see and try it out. It took pretty good pictures, if you discount the operator...
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Starfish | Coral, Bluehead | French Grunt | Coral, Four-Eyed Butterfly Fish | Dave Snorkeling |
The next day we sailed up to North Spot, a tiny pile of rocks with some make-shift shelter used by illegal fishermen from Guatemala and Honduras. It was unoccupied when we were there, and was a rather forlorn sight.
While we were getting ready to go snorkeling, a fisherman stopped by. He told us he came from Belize City with five other guys, and they came down here for about two and a half weeks at a time. One of his buddies had stopped by when we were down at NE Sapodilla Cay but we had some hamburger we needed to use up, so we hadn't bought any fish from him. Turns out he wanted to sell us a lobster, so it's just as well -- lobster is out of season, and I don't like to encourage illegal harvesting by buying it. But it sure did sound good! We told him we'd like a hogfish for dinner if he had one, and he said he'd be back in a few hours with one.
 |
 |
| North Spot |
There wasn't a whole lot to explore above the water, so we went snorkeling some more.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Grey Angelfish | Bluehead | Blue Tang | Blue Tang | Maybe Immature Blue Tang |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Stoplight Parrotfish | Blue Chromis | Queen Angelfish | Sergent Major | Little Stuff |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Immature Yellowtail Damselfish | Immature Yellowtail Damselfish | Southern Stingray | Southern Stingray Fishing | Flamingo Tongue | Ocean Surgeonfish |
Our fisherman showed up with a nice hogfish, so we had a stir fry and hogfish for dinner. Yum!
 |
 |
| Fisherman, North Spot | Hogfish Dinner |
The next day we headed north again; I was hoping to get to Queen Cays early enough to do some more snorkeling, but the wind just fizzled and the normal afternoon breeze didn't kick in. We ended up at Hatchet Cay, a poor anchorage but ok for this night.
We continued north, trying to snake our way through the sand bores on the east side of Lagoon Cays. I turned on the GPS so we would have a trace of our path in case we needed to backtrack. The wind was still non-existent, and we ended up motoring for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, we were off by one, and eventually had to turn around. The sun was now in front of us, and we couldn't see worth a darn. We had snaked our way through some pretty narrow openings in the sand bores and reefs, and it was difficult to retrace our steps. At first I tried rigorously following the GPS trace, but soon enough realized I had left the recording step at a large interval; connecting the dots made the trace take us right over some reef patches. Dave stood in the bow and helped navigate, and we slowly worked our way back. Then we headed out the "normal" way, up to Lagoon Cays.
 |
 |
 |
| Hatchet Cay | House Island | Dave |
Shortly after we anchored at Lagoon Cays, a local fishing boat pulled in. And we thought we were cozy! On a boat quite a bit smaller than Malakii, they had five cayucos and six guys.
We put the dink down and inspected the inner lagoon. I always hope to see a Manatee in there, but never have.
Just before heading down to Guatemala on this trip, I purchased a small "mini" banjo. I wanted something small enough to take as a carry on on a plane, so my choices were pretty limited. It's been fun to have along, although it sounds pretty... bad. Way to tinny, and it rings something fierce. But it's better than nothing, and I get some practice in. If my friends are far enough away, they like it...
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Fishing Boat | Dave, Lagoon Cays | Gary |
We headed up towards Southwater Cay the next day, stopping by Twin Cays to pick up some friends from Montana who were anchored there on the way. We had some great snorkeling!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Sand Tile Fish | Queen Triggerfish | Blue Striped Grunt | Schoolmaster | Blue Striped Grunt, White Grunt |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| School on Coral | School on Coral | School on Coral | Squirrelfish | Male Stoplight Parrotfish |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Princess Parrotfish | Princess Parrotfish | Four Eyed Butterflyfish | Spotfin Butterflyfish |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Trumpetfish | Trumpetfish | Feather Duster, Juvenile Xxx | Feather Duster, Juvenile Xxx | Yellowheaded Wrasse | Yellowhead Wrasse, Immature |
 |
 |
 |
| Blue Tang | Spotted Trunkfish | Ocean Surgeonfish |
Then it was time to head north to Belize City, to drop Dave off at the airport. We spent the night at Bluefield Range, then had a quick sail over to near the Ft. George dock off Belize City. On the way we got into the watermelon we'd brought along... refrigeration is great!
 |
 |
 |
| Watermelon | Heading for Belize City |
As we dropped the hook off the Ft. George hotel, we noticed a square rigger coming in. It was pretty cool! Then we went ashore and walked around the core of the old city. The Baron Bliss Lighthouse sits out on the point where Haulover Creek, a diversion of the Belize River, dumps into the sea. The fishing boats anchor in the mouth of the creek, just downstream from the Swing Bridge, which blocks their way. Every evening at 18:00 except Sunday, the bridge opens so the boats can go up the creek to the fishermans' coop, where they unload and sell their catch. The bridge is designed so that four men can pivot it about its center.
 |
 |
 |
| Square Rigger | Baron Bliss Light |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Fishing Boats | Swing Bridge |
 |
 |
 |
| Waterfront | Waterfront | Waterfront |
We had dinner in a small restaurant downtown, then one last night on the boat. The next morning I dropped Dave off at the airport, loaded up on provisions, and picked up Ian and Trudy at the airport in the late afternoon.
