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After I left Dona at the airport in Belize City, I resupplied and headed back out. I was hoping to make it to Bluefield Range or Colson Cay for the night, then down to Southwater to meet my friends Kris and Tom on Dragon Lady. As I was headed out, I saw that the cruise ships anchored out in the Belize shipping channel were starting to leave. Wow. They used to give their customers until 5 p.m. to do their one-day country tour, but two of the three that came in yesterday evening and one of the two that came in last night were leaving by 3 p.m.!
I had a pleasant evening, sailing south on a close reach with the sun not so intense. I sat in the cockpit and read, snacking on watermelon, cookies and peanuts. By 17:00 I was off the north end of Middle Long Cay, and it was clear I wouldn't make Bluefield Range before it was too dark to see the entrance. We had perfect tradewind conditions from the east and northeast, so I got smart and decided to anchor on the west side off the south part of Middle Long. I dropped the hook at 18:30 just after the sun set. The fishermen in the shack on shore just south of me were raising a racket arguing; probably not the best of characters to have as neighbors.
The next morning I sailed down to Southwater, trailing my 200# test line and fishing gear as I went. I had a nice fish on at one point, but I lost both the fish and a good lure because the eyelet on a snap swivel broke. I tried to haul it in while under way, doing about 5 knots. I should have hove to. Later I had a small (2') barracuda on, hove to and got it up to the boat, then it spit out the lure. I arrived at Southwater fishless, but was pleased to see Dragon Lady anchored there.
We left the next morning for Glover's, one of four atolls located off the barrier reef which runs from the Yucatan south to Guatemala. Dragon Lady was starting to motor out as I was sailing out; they let me pass and took some nice pictures as I sailed out the cut. We had wind on our nose and had to tack to make the south entrance to Glovers. I hit Glovers a little further north on the west side, and followed the edge of the surrounding reef down and around to the entrance at Southwest Cay. I found a few breaks where it looked like I could get through, but since I was sailing and it was tight, I didn't try them.
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| Heading out Southwater Cut
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Malakii
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Carrie Bow Cay in background
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| Dragon Lady |
After I was settled in at anchor I put the dinghy in and motored about 1/4 mile west along the edge of the reef and went snorkeling. I saw a hawksbill turtle, a pleasant surprise. I took my speargun, but the sling (rubber band that powers the spear) broke. I was bummed, but I still had my hawaiian sling, a more difficult and shorter range fishing spear. That evening, we were treated to one of those picture-perfect caribbean sunsets.
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| Glover's Sunset |
We put my dinghy anchor on Kris and Tom's skiff and used it to explore a bit, snorkeling in a number of different places. After the first day the wind increased and stirred up sand in the water, so visability wasn't very good as the first day and we didn't see as many fish.
Tom and I used our hawaiian slings to shoot some grunts for dinner. I found a big lobster, but they were out of season. Tom had a big grouper six inches off his spear, but they were out of season too. He also saw a big hogfish but didn't get a shot.
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| Dragon Lady at SW Cay, Glovers |
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| SW Cay, Glovers |
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| Dragon Lady | Malakii |
I went over to Isla Marisol, the resort on the Cay next to SW Cay where we were anchored. There is only a narrow channel separating the two cays. The dive operator there gave me a used replacement band for my speargun. It just had a string at the back for notching the spear instead of wire like mine, but I figured I could modify it to make it work. It was the last week of Lent, Semana Santa, and a big holiday in Guatemala. For all the wealthy people with their big power yachts, it's a big party weekend. The dive op told me there were fifteen boats at Southwater waiting for the weather to improve and then they would head out to Glovers.
We spent the next day snorkeling around inside. We moved the boats a little closer in during the afternoon in anticipation of more wind. There are few sand patches off SW Cay; it's mostly turtle grass. So I dove on the Danforth and buried it by hand. The anchor was in eight feet of water but I let out 150' of scope, so it was good for anything -- as long as it came from the anticipated direction. We played scrabble in the evening, and I learned some new words.
Sure enough, four big motor yachts came in about noon on Monday the 17th as soon as the weather calmed down a bit. They anchored right next to us, spreading themselves out between Dragon Lady and Malakii in a manner which virtually guaranteed we would have a bumper boat scenario if the wind shifted. Grrr... Three more followed shortly afterwards.
I took the dink ashore and walked around SW Cay; it seemed to be deserted. I climbed up the lighthouse. At the top there was only a solar panel, a battery and a light; not even a platform. The ladder rungs were rusty, and hadn't been climbed for a while as I kept knocking off big pieces of rusty steel as I went up.
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| SW Cay, Glovers |
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| Cairns, SW Cay, Glovers |
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| Lighthouse view of Marisol Resort | Cairns | SW Cay |
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| Malakii | Dragon Lady | Lighthouse |
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| Moonlight over SW Cay, Glovers |
I went for a dive with the folks at Isla Marisol. We did a dive just northwest of the cut. What a delight! There were lots of turtles. We saw a big loggerhead, five or six feet, longer than a person is tall. I also saw a few nice lobsters, big hogfish, and a few good grouper but not really big. Also porcupinefish and spotted trunkfish.
During the dive I went by the tether for a buoy, and it looked like it was just held by one cinderblock. That was difficult to believe, so there's something I didn't understand there. I later learned they were anchors for recorders for an experiment. There are tagged fish and the sensors record when the fish are near, allowing them to be tracked.
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| Loggerhead Turtle | Loggerhead |
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| Hawksbill Turtles
(Note dancing ones on sand) |
Hawksbill Turtle | Hawksbill | Hawksbill |
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| Hawksbill | Hawksbill | Hawksbill |
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| Lobster | Lobster | Pair of Lobsters | Pair of Lobsters |
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| Hogfish | Indigo Hamlet | Barracuda |
The next day was a lazy day. It had been blowing 15 - 25 pretty continuously, so we were kind of in a holding pattern. I played my banjo and read. In the afternoon Tom and I went snorkling looking for dinner, but visibility was pretty poor. We went over to the Marisol bar and the owner was there. He said would like to buy the Manta Resort (the deserted one on SW Cay, closed in 2006), but it was $5M.
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| Nassau Grouper | Nassau Grouper | Nassau Grouper | Sanddiver |
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| Indigo Hamlet | Feather Duster | Blue Tang |
The lighthouse seemed to be intermittent. It was working one night, but then the next it would be off. Not exactly reassuring to a mariner. I cracked or bruised a rib rolling back into Tom's boat when we went snorkeling. Kris fixed us dinner; then we whiled away a few hours talking and playing scrabble.
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| Scrabble players |
Chris had told me she was making yogurt, and since I was out she gave me a little for starter. I fixed up a batch and it came out great.
With the constant wind, Malakii was hunting back and forth like a restless hound. I put up the riding sail and it helped some. I had to tie the boom side to side to stabilize it.
On the morning of the 19th I did another dive. There were no other customers so it was just me and the d.m., "Kitty." I was surprised they even went out. We saw a good variety of stuff, but not any monster turtles or monster anything else. But we did see some spotted drums, tiny little guys with long flowing dorsal fins who are really cool.
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| Scrawled Filefish | Soldierfish | Lobster | Lobster |
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| Lobster | Sponge | Spotted Drum | Spotted Drum |
At about 02:30 a.m. on the 20th, the wind shifted to the northwest and all the boats swung around. One of the bozos in a power boat bumped into me. With the wind shift, I swung into only seven feet of water. I dug Big Bertha, my storm anchor, out of the cockpit locker, put her together, shackled on 30' of chain and another 30' of line, and set her out. I hoped it wasn't going to blow very hard, as I didn't have a lot of room to increase scope.
Tom and I had spent some time earlier talking about what to do in a wind shift,
and I had offered him use of Big Bertha.
About half an hour later he called me on the radio and asked if he could use Big Bertha; Dragon Lady was draggin'.
He motored over and we ran my CQR all the way out,
which gave me lots of scope and I could pull Malakii up a bit and get some breathing room.
We pulled up big bertha, took her over to
I had barely gotten back to the boat when one of the big motor launches decided to move, and he went out and started to set his anchor over my CQR. I yelled at him but he was already drifting over it. He slid my anchor rode right up to his prop, then slid down the rode and bounced into me. After trying various futile things to get him off, I grabbed my boat hook and was about to snag my rode coming out the other side of his boat, attach a line to it, then cut the end closest to me, when it parted. They motored off to anchor again and offered to loan me another hook to use. After they were settled in and I was temporarily stabilized, I went out to get it. It was even smaller than my little stern danforth, which is 12 lbs, so I said no thank you, came back and put mine out. I was in seven feet of water, and hoping the wind wouldn't get worse.
Like Malakii, Dragon Lady has a lot of windage. She was riding on three anchors: a Danforth (~40#), a Bruce (44#), and Big Bertha (55#). After a while she dragged her Danforth out, and the Bruce, and apparently Big Bertha, as I had barely settled down when Tom called on the radio and asked for help -- they were bumping. We took the Bruce in and changed to his CQR, put the anchor and all the chain in his dink and ran it out. Then we pulled in Big Bertha and moved Dragon Lady off with the aid of the engine. We dropped Bertha and drifted back so we had probably 60' line plus 30' chain out. But Dragon Lady was still slipping back and started bumping again. Tom snorkeled out and discovered the Danforth had flipped out but reset and was now ok. The CQR hadn't even had the chain tightened yet, so we were just straightening the chain; and Bertha was buried to the hilt. The CQR was still on its side, so he tipped it up and started the point in as much as he could. Then we tightened up the chain and inched out way off. Once free, we motored up another 15' or so and took in the slack, as we had enough rode out and it would give them some breathing room. That seemed to hold.
The guys who severed my rode left their dinghy tied to my boat when one of them came aboard to try to help. After the rode parted, we turned them loose and they went off to anchor. So they didn't have a dink. When it got light, I took it over to them, mentioning in passing that I would dive and search for my anchor. They said I shouldn't; they would do it. I was happy to let them retrieve it, so I went back to Malakii and started to make breakfast. Shortly thereafter they came by to say they were going back to Rio Dulce because their prop or shaft or motor was damaged. They gave me a bottle of Bo Trans rum, some birthday cake, and a gallon of gas, and wanted to give me some money but I refused.
So... it was time to practice my underwater search skills. Fortunately, the rode had been stretched out straight when it was severed, and there was a lot of chain and line. I hoped the line went straight down and hadn't moved much.
It took me half an hour to find the rode. It was well over 100' further west, and I had initially been searching too close to the boat. I was towing the dive buoy Dona and I found on the beach at NE Sapodilla, so I tied it off on the end of the rode. Happily I had thought ahead to that; it would have been a shame to have found the rode and had no way to mark it... Then I came back to the boat and pieced together a piece of 7/16" double braid and some 3/8" three strand, grabbed a fender and went back out. I replaced the dive buoy with the fender, as the buoy is not made of very stout material and the line on it is tiny. If something went wrong I didn't want to have to search for the anchor again. Then I tied my jury-rigged line onto the end of the anchor rode and drifted back towards the boat. But I was 20' short of the boat, and no amount of motoring with the dink would tighten the lines enough to reach. I took the line off and came back to the boat to get more.
Before I could attach more line, Dragon Lady called -- they were bumping again, so I went up to help reset. We got her temporarily stabilized, then grabbed my dinghy anchor and rode out of their launch and Tom came down to help me. We added it to my improvised line and then tied the whole shebang to the end of the lost rode, got back on board Malakii, and pulled her out enough so we were only on two of the three lines we'd strung out... and off the dink anchor rode. Then I got out some new 9/16" three strand I had brought down last year but not attached yet, untangled enough so we could run it out, and replaced the other two small temporary lines with the new one. Then we went back to Dragon Lady and worked on her.
While I was searching for the parted anchor rode, I checked the Danforth and discovered it had pulled out when the wind shifted and not reset. Fortunately the rode had dragged under a big log which helped slow the drag. I pushed the anchor in, and made sure the little stern anchor I'd put out during the night was well set as well.
With all that pulling on anchor rodes in an adrenalin rush I was lucky, I think, as I hadn't trashed by back. But I was tired.
I came back and started cleaning up. Then I went over to the bar at Marisol to get some weather forecasts. 10-15 NW next two days, then shifting SSE 10-15. But the current forecast had also been for 10-15, and it was doing 25-35 and had probably gone over that. I gave the dive ops / bar tenders / workers the rum, as I didn't have much use for it alone.
In all the buffeting by the wind, the riding sail ripped at the seam. It was my fault, as I should have restitched everything when I made it. Duh.
When the boat ran over my anchor rode and slid down into me, someone or something caught on the SSB antenna and broke the guy for the lower end and the feed wire. So I had something else to occupy my time in the coming day.
The morning of the 21st dawned overcast, but the wind had dropped to 15 or so. I was up for heading out; I was hoping to be in Anapra, Mexico by the end of the month. Kris was apprehensive, and I felt that for this trip we were traveling together, so I agreed to wait. We had a lazy day, pulled up Dragon Lady's anchors and reset them, and loaded their launch and dink. I pulled up the Danforth and pulled myself up to the chain on the CQR, took off the old, severed line, and replaced it with 200' of the new stuff. I stayed up late finishing a novel Kris gave me about a Blackfeet Indian lawyer. It made me aware I was probably missing spring in Montana.
We headed out the next morning at 06:00, sailing back through the reef at Southwater about 10:30, then down the east side of Spruce and on south to Placencia.
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| Dragon Lady leaving Glovers | Dragon Lady |
As we were heading out past Douglas Cay Tom radioed that he had a large dolphin near them with a scarred dorsal fin. Sure enough, a few minutes later it was keeping me company.
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| Dolphin with scarred dorsal fin |
It was Easter weekend, and rumor had it that one couldn't check out at Placencia, or anywhere in Belize, until Tuesday. I checked on airline tickets from Guatemala City to Juarez, Mexico, or El Paso, Texas, and the cheapest one way was $770. Way more than I was willing to pay. So I settled on taking the bus back north.
I spent Sunday relaxing, but wanting to be on my way. I met a nice couple on the boat anchored next to me, Androsian, from England and Canada. They have been cruising 30 years. I took my dive tanks in and had them filled.
I've always disliked checking out in Big Creek (the port near Placencia), as it always takes longer than seems necessary. One has to visit two offices several miles apart, and it's a pain in the neck. At Punta Gorda everything is close together right at the dock. But PG is an open roadstead.
I've had fairly good experiences at PG. I've spent some nights anchored off there bouncing around, but never gotten really trashed. The weather forecast was still for light winds, although it had consistently been wrong. But I decided I'd gamble on the weather improving a bit and the seas not being too big. I wasn't planning on spending the night at PG; I only needed an hour to check out, and conditions didn't need to be comfortable; they just needed to not be horrible.
The next morning I left Placencia in the dark at 04:00. The satellite maps looked pretty clear the evening before, and the forecast was for 10-15 out of the northeast, not bad for doing business in PG. But 10 - 15 had been the forecast for the past week... The wind was light, I had all my sail up and only did 4 knots the first few hours. But as I worked my way south, the wind slowly built. It was increasing as I passed the Snakes, and I considered going in to Mangrove Cays and holing up. But it was still only 10 - 15 knots with 1 - 2 foot seas. The sailing was pleasant enough... I was reading a book most of the way. The wind was out of the NW, and if it held there I'd be somewhat in the lee of the coast when I was off PG. So I pressed on, hoping things would hold. Bad idea. By the time I was three miles off PG I had 4' - 6' seas and the wind was howling, probably 35 knots. I had dropped the jib and was sailing on the main alone with two reefs and was doing six knots. There was no way I was going to go in there and anchor in those seas and wind.
I decided descretion was a good idea and headed for Cabo Tres Puntas, Guatemala. I considered beating back up to Mangrove Cays, but it was going to be touch and go to get there before dark in those conditions, and I didn't want to try to go in there in the dark. It was a broad reach and about 11 miles to Cabo Tres Puntas, and I could make that easily. The only problem was I hadn't checked out of Belize. I thought about not doing so, based on the conditions. I was pretty sure the officials would let me in, but they'd probably charge me a big penalty which they would pocket.
I made it to my anchorage spot off Cabo Tres Puntas in record time (for me). But since this was apparently payback week for something I had done once upon a time, there was another twist waiting for me... My anchor locker is relatively deep, so it's not easy to flatten the pile of chain and line that builds up as you feed it in when weighing the anchor. I've worried off and on about chain / rope snarls in the anchor locker preventing the chain from feeding back out. When I dropped the hook off Tres Puntas, I got 30' of chain out and then the mainsheet snagged on a winch so the sail wasn't luffing, and the boat started sailing. The chain started running out like crazy for another 30' or so, then came up sharp when a snarl of chain caught and wouldn't feed through the chainpipe. I'd already set the hook lightly, but that set it really well...
I wished I knew what the consequences of not checking out of Belize were as far as the officials in Livingston were concerned. But that probably depended on their mood, how much sleep they'd had the night before, and who knows what else. I decided I'd get up at 04:00 and try to make it back up to PG if it had calmed down. But I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to stay ugly for a few days. I hanked on the storm jib on the assumption I might have to deal with crummy conditions.
I had a pleasant evening, straightening up the boat and fixing a few things. The owner of the nearest house on shore came by on a jetski and said hello. Toward dusk, two local fishing boats arrived and anchored nearby.
I didn't set my alarm, figuring I'd be up off and on during the night. I usually get up a few times to take a leak anyway, and I figured I'd keep up with conditions well enough that way. I woke up at 05:30, and couldn't quite tell what the wind was doing. I was in the lee of Cabo Tres Puntas, so it was calm where I was, and it was too dark to see farther out. The rigging wasn't whistling, so I knew it wasn't blowing too hard. I finally decided the wind had backed to north, which would mean PG was somewhat protected. At 06:40 I headed back. I couldn't point high enough to make it without tacking, but I was making 4+ kts and figured I'd be ok. By 08:40 the wind had dropped and I put the #2 back on. By 09:10 it was pretty slow and I was worried about the wind changing, so I turned on the engine and motored the rest of the way. I arrived in PG at 11:00 with only a 4-6 kt wind, dropped the hook and rowed ashore. Checking out, they made me pay a guy $20 Bz to type up 6 copies of my crew list and the ship's report, which they are supposed to fill in anyway. I had 6 crew lists, but they didn't like them because Dona and Dave were on it and scratched out. When I checked in I had used crew lists with Dave's name crossed out, but I guess they hadn't yet taken the course on how to squeeze people then. I knew that could be an issue, but people had always been pretty accomodating up until now.
In the interest of getting out of there, I didn't argue too much. It still took an hour; island time is something you just have to deal with. The more anxious you look and act, the longer it takes. They were probably doing a slow dance because of my protests over the crew list. I got out at 12:00 with the wind still light. By the time I was three miles out and able to turn toward Livingston, it was starting to blow seriously. I had quite a sleigh ride, 7 kts most of the way, waves 5' - 6'. I made the Livingston sea buoy at 14:40. Wish I had taken some pictures.
I have spent a number of hours contemplating the Livingston bar and tides and Malakii's draft. I've always come to the conclusion that I don't need to worry about the tide, as long as I'm on the right course coming in or going out. I didn't have the tide information, although from what Tom had said in Placencia a few days before I figured high tide was 11:00 or so. Which meant I was coming in at about low tide. The wind was blowing more or less straight at Livingston, so it would pile water up, which would be to my advantage. Livingston was protected somewhat by Cabo Tres Puntas, although that was quite a few miles away; but the seas were reduced slightly.
As I approached the sea buoy, I could see a line of breakers all the way across the bar. I thought long and hard about that the last few minutes of the approach, and then decided I knew my draft, I had a good line of sight to steer by, and the breakers had to be caused by the wind fighting the current in the river and the rapid shallowing of the bay forcing all the water to pile up onto the bar. So when I reached the buoy I headed in.
I'm glad I had the sea buoy to start from. A few times the boat felt like it was stopped, but that was just tide and river current vs. wind. I had the wind mostly at my back with two reefs in the main; the jib was blanketed by the main and wasn't doing much. I considered poling it out or dropping it but decided if I had to maneuver neither of those was a good idea, so I left it slack. I'd turn into the wind as soon as I went to anchor and might want it.
I kept an eye on the depth sounder as I went in; With 3' - 4' seas, there's 2' less water under the boat in the troughs, assuming the ends of the boat aren't buoying it up appreciably. If the waves are far enough apart, that's the case, but in this case the ends were somewhat supported by the waves. I saw a minimum of 6'2" once but never felt a bump, although it sure looked shallow from the color of the water.
I breathed a slow sigh of relief as I moved closer to town and the depth slowly increased. When I was safely inside the bar I turned towards town. In short order I had the hook down and called the port captain. No answer, so I put the dink down and rowed in. Raul, who used to be the customs inspector but now had his own business helping people check in and out, was in, so I had him do the paperwork. I was hoping to get it done quickly so I could continue on up the river.
While waiting for my paperwork, I walked up the hill into town and across to the bluff that looks out to sea. I wanted to make sure I hadn't been halucinating about the breakers, and somehow been in the wrong spot. Wow -- there was a solid line of breakers across the bar, with no obvious channel in. I wished I had the camera with me!
The paperwork took longer than I was hoping; Raul had lots of interruptions, as usual. I got back to the boat a little after 17:00. I thought about continuing on up the river, but getting the anchor up wasn't going to be easy given the wind and current, and I wasn't sure how far up river I'd get before I had to quit. The local fishermen put nets out at night, and while they're supposed to be 6' below the surface, they often aren't. I probably should have gone on up to Ak Tenemit and had a pleasant night, but I decided not to push it and spent the night right where I was.
Livingston was relatively deserted compared to three weeks earlier when Dona and I cleared out. I figured it was the end of the tourist season, all the college kids had gone home, and things were winding down. But the lack of visitors may also have been a result of Ramiro Chaulk's people kidnapping some Belgian tourists a few weeks earlier.
It was an overcast evening, with rain to the south. But the wind was dieing down, and I had a restful night.
The next morning, when I went to bring up the anchor, it wouldn't break loose. I snubbed it up tight, but even then the wave action on the boat just pulled the bow down. About then I remembered I'd given Kris and Tom my mask and snorkel to take home, as they had room in their bags and I didn't want to haul stuff I didn't need in my upcoming travels around Mexico. At the time I thought about what I might need them for, and realized this was the one situation I'd thought most probably, but still unlikely. The bottom in Livingston is known to be littered with junk, and snagging things is a real possibility, but I'd never had it happen. Well, I guess now I have. Fortunately I have an extra mask with my prescription in it that I always keep on the boat. Fat lot of good it did, since I couldn't see a thing due to all the muck and the current stirring it up. I did remember to put the swim ladder down before I jumped in. I went hand over hand down the anchor chain, then felt around in the muck for the flukes and what might be holding them. The anchor was buried under about a foot of muck. I came up only with a 2" x 4" piece of glass. I located the stock and after about four tries I managed to roll the anchor out. Then I made a beeline for the swim ladder, threw my fins in, grabbed my glasses, pulled the anchor up and secured it, raised the main, and started upriver.
There wasn't much wind, and I since I didn't have any extra days to play with if I was going to make my "appointment" with my friend Von in Mexico, I started the engine. For a while there was 2 kts of current so progress was slow, but I got up to Jennifer's about 09:30. All told I ran the engine 11 hours this trip, and used about 4 gallons of diesel.
I spent the rest of the day decommissioning the boat, tidying up, remembering good days and good feelings, and saying good-bye. Kris and Tom arrived in the evening; they checked out in Placencia the day before and then made it to Livingston and up the river in one day motor-sailing. We had a great last dinner at Jennifer's and caught up on everything that's important.
The next day I said good-bye to Jennifer in the rain, and Chico took me up the river. Jennifer asked me to send her some pictures of nice Montana scenery.
This page last updated on 2013-10-23.
