I'm still working on the 'inland' post that goes with the pictures... it's coming soon.
More on the trip soon!
Labels: Belize
We had the bus let us off at the Belize Zoo. It cost $10US to get in the zoo. We ate our lunch in the shade with a breeze on the zoo grounds. We spent about an hour walking around. The entry fee got us a map of the zoo with all the animals labeled. They were also well-labeled outside each enclosure. In the heat of the day, most of the animals were sleeping, but I think we did get to see every animal in the zoo... all local indiginous species including toucans, tapirs (pigs), crocodiles, and
several species of lions/tigers. The zoo was very eco-friendly and the emphasis for locals was co-existence with the animals. They had one sign posted about a resort that was selling "Viper Rum"... rum with a snake in it. They had posted letters to the resort and to the government to get the resort to stop this non-eco-friendly tourist practice.
The zoo was good and clean and the animals looked well cared for. Both Dave and I had fun walking around.
We were able to catch another east-bound bus after a few minutes wait along the road, for the remaining 20 miles to marina.
Soggy Paws was in good order when we got back. We were happy to be "home".
We spent Thursday with me on the computer (posting pictures, answering email, doing some financial stuff) and Dave doing small boat projects and getting filled up on fuel and water. Diesel was $3.65/gallon US. We took on 75 gallons (what we used since Marathon).
Photo album link: http://picasaweb.google.com/SoggyPaws
Labels: Belize, Belize Inland
Well it turned out that "Jaguar Paw" and "Caves Branch Tubing" were one and the same. There were 4 of us, a guide, and a driver, in a minibus. The other couple were 2 kids fairly fresh out of college who had quit their jobs to go walkabout for the summer. They had spent 3 weeks in Guatemala--2 in intensive language study and one hiking around the volcano district. Our guide, Joanne, was a Belizian lady who was part of a family of independent tour guides. Each person in her family had a different
specialty (site). They contracted out to the various hotels/resorts in the area to put together tours. And on Thursday, to the cruise ships. Joanne said that all certified guides had to take a year of instruction and then take a set of 8 tests on Belizian culture and history to become certified.
Joanne picked a good specialty--it was an easy day for all of us. An hour drive, a 30 minute hike through the forest carrying an inner tube, and then a nice 3 hour easy float down through the caves. There was only one other group of 4 within sight. But Joanne says that on Cruise Ship days (Thursdays) they take groups of 45 people down through the caves! See the Caves Branch Tubing section of our photo gallery.
We got back to San Ignacio about 3 pm, spent about an hour in Eva's on their internet terminals reading email, and had a nice nap. For dinner we went to Elva's (on a back street 2 blocks from the main street). This turned out to be the best food we'd had in Belize and a more reasonable price than the places on the main drag. We went back for breakfast the next morning, and got a carryout lunch from them for the trip back to Belize City.
Photo album link: http://picasaweb.google.com/SoggyPaws
Labels: Belize, Belize Inland
Photo album link: http://picasaweb.google.com/SoggyPaws
Labels: Belize, Belize Inland
We left the boat at Cucumber Beach Marina (aka "Old Belize" oldbelize.com), about 5 miles south of Belize City. It is a secure marina with nice facilities (significantly better than the old Mojo Cay marina). We had no qualms about leaving the boat there for a few days under the watchful eye of Carlos. The 7-day rate was reasonable, about $25/nite US for our 44-foot boat. Dave's friend Cliff (www.catchartersbelize.com) was docked behind us so we knew he'd keep an eye on things as well. They have
diesel, gas, and water, too.
We hopped a westbound bus, marked either 'Belmopan' or 'Benque' and for $3.50 USD for each of us. We made the 75 miles to San Ignacio in about 2 hours. This was not an 'express' bus, so we stopped for anyone anywhere that was going our way (many stops as we were entering and leaving towns), s well as a 15 minute stop in Belmopan. The buses run about every half hour. They seemed to be on a schedule but we never saw anything published. You basically get out there and wait and flag one down.
We arrived in San Ignacio about 2pm. We had previously scoped out several hotels to check out near the center of town using a combination of the Lonely Planet Guide to Central America (2001), a local tourist magazine, and the internet. We got there and walked around and checked on rooms at each of the hotels. All the low end rooms were booked. Even though several people said it was 'low season', there were a lot of college students taking up the low end rooms. ($12/nite US for a double without
a private bath or A/C). After looking at a couple of rooms, and trudging around in the heat, we ended up back at the Venus hotel, in their nice room with private bath, king size bed, and A/C, for about $37/nite US. It's a little steep compared to Guatemala, but still pretty reasonable for what was probably the best room in town.
Once we got settled in at the hotel, we checked at Mayawalk Tours, and at Eva's, both just down the street from our hotel, about their excursions going the next day. Both had trips to "the most phenomenal trip you can go on" (Cliff's words), the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) trip. This is a 'strenuous' hike through a huge series of caves, with a number of Mayan artifacts (pottery and human remains) plainly visible. The other trip we were interested in was the "Caves Branch Tubing" trip--more caves,
but less strenuous as you float down through the caves in inner tubes. We settled on Mayawalk for the ATM trip, primarily because the guy manning the desk was a better BS-er, and their lunch sounded better (it wasn't). The cost was $80 US per person. This included transportation, entry to the park, lunch, and a guide for the day. A little on the high side, but we had to do it. There is no way to visit ATM without a guide, and there are only 2 companies authorized by the government to do this
trip (due to the unspoiled nature of the site and its religious and cultural sensitivity).
Once we had the next day's trip booked, we took a local bus out toward Xunantunich (soo-NAN-to-nich), one of the Mayan temple sites. When Dave had been here before, it had been a long hot walk uphill for about a mile, to get from where the bus leaves you, to the site itself. "Jimmy", the guy at Mayawalk had told us that we could probably pay someone with a car to take us up. We got off the bus at the free car ferry, and paid a local taxi $2.50 US to go across on the ferry with us and take us up
to the entry point of the site. We paid about $5 pp to get in (but received no pamphlet or anything, just a wave up the hill to the information building). There was a nice information center with pictures, maps, and explanations, and a set of bathrooms, but no concessions, vendors, glitzy tourist crap, or crowds of people. It was a nice quiet site. We spent about an hour exploring. We were kind of limited on time, because the site closes at 4pm. But an hour was pretty much enough time. We
climbed to the very top of the tallest structure, the temple, and sat for awhile in the cool breeze to cool off. We were fortunate that a group was there with a tour guide, and we got to hear her spiel about Xunantunich, surrounding sites (Tikal is only about 50 miles to the west), and general info about the Mayan culture. Xunantunich is a typical Mayan site with buildings at opposing ends of a plaza built in a pyramid. (see pictures posted in my photo album)
We met 2 different 'missionary' groups from South Carolina while at Xunantunich. Both were mostly teenagers. One group's focus was primarily singing and performing religious skits. They ended up at the other end of the site, at the observatory (about a quarter mile away directly across the courtyard from us), and sang a song. It was very nice. They were spending several weeks going from place to place, performing at local churches, and talking to people on street corners. The other group was
doing pretty much the same thing. We met a third group that was actually helping build a new room for a school house. I think Belize is a favored destination because they speak English, but are still as poor and primitive as Guatemala, once you get outside the 4-5 bigger cities.
On the way back, we managed to bum a ride with one of the missionary groups, in the back of a pickup truck. They wanted to go see the Guatemalan border, so we took the side trip with them (It was only about 5 miles further west). They let us off back in San Ignacio, where they stopped for dinner.
We had a nice nap and a shower before strolling out for dinner. We ended up next door at Serendib, a Sri Lankan restaurant. The typical meal price in San Ignacio was about $5 US for breakfast and lunch, and $5-$15 US for dinner. The cheapest, and on every menu (including breakfast) was 'stewed chicken' which is a few pieces of chicken on the bone and beans and rice. This normally cost about $4.
Photo album link: http://picasaweb.google.com/SoggyPaws
Labels: Belize, Belize Inland
So Dave suggested hopping the western bound bus for the city of San Ignacio, which is in the middle of an area of Mayan ruins and caves and rivers. It will only cost us a few dollar each way, and we've used our Lonely Planet guide and the internet to scope out a couple of low budget hotels to use as a base ($20-$25 US per night). We plan to spend a couple of days doing some sightseeing/backpacking. I am taking camera, but not the computer. I promise to post some pics and a recap of our trip when
we get back.
Labels: Belize, Belize Inland
The dock electric here is 220v/50amp service and we could not plug into it with our 110v/30amp plug. The dockmaster said they used to have adaptors to loan out, but they had 'disappeared'. Fortunately Dave knew someone in the marina who had one we could borrow. Another cruiser here is still without his A/C... It was looking like a $200-$300 proposition to get a taxi into to town and buy one at the only marine store. He did get an extension cord to a regular plug on a lamp post, so he has some
110v for fans.
The dockmaster offered to get us a taxi to go into town, but we opted to use the local bus system. We flagged a bus headed into town, and paid $1 each (US) round trip to go the 5 miles into town. We ended up at the downtown bus station, which is right next to the open air market. We didn't buy anything (yet) but did look it over thoroughly to see what they had and what prices were.
We trekked into the center part of town and wandered around until lunch time. We stopped in 3 hardware stores, a diesel motor place, 1 'department store'. The couple that went with us were looking for the adaptor plugs (or the parts to make one), Muriatic acid, and a 'watch battery'. Dave had a small list too.
We walked past a stand that had a sign 'unlock your cell phone'. One wanted 3 days to do it, another guy said he could do it in 2 hours. I had my cell phone with me and paid him $25 US to have it done. (I had previously researched it and didn't think it was an easy prospect with my phone).
I have lost my watch--it went missing the night we got in. We thought it was 'LOB' (Lost on Board), but I have searched high and low, and haven't heard it beeping since I misplaced it, so I think it went over the side. I may have taken it off and put it on the swim platform and knocked it off while I was bathing. I was pretty sleep deprived then and may just have not seen it. And so I was on the lookout for another Timex. After checking vainly for a decent ladies rugged watch, I gave up and
bought a big fat men's watch for $5, with the brand name QUEMEX (sorta sounds like Timex...). It says water resistant, but I don't believe it. I'll get my daughter to get a replacement one at WalMart and put it in the next mail package. This one will keep me from going crazy for the next month or so. (Changing 2 timezones AND losing your watch at the same time is very disorienting, I just couldn't deal with it.)
We had a really nice lunch at a place recommended by a local... with A/C, very clean, good food, and reasonable prices. (Grilled fish plate with drinks and tip for $10 each).
We walked into the bus station just as a Western-bound bus was pulling out, so we had a fairly quick trip back to the boat.
Labels: Belize
About 2:45pm we came in through the pass in the reef just north of Long Cay (south of Ambergris Cay), and proceeded down through Porto Stuck (a narrow passage) and to an anchorage about 9 miles east of Belize City. We've had a swim and put the boat in order. Now for Happy Hour.
Labels: Belize
They were ALL out last night, every one of them. When you live around lights, you forget what the heavens really look like. If everyone went on top of a mountain somewhere and looked at the stars every now and then, NASA wouldn't have any funding problems for space exploration...
We had a good 24 hours, though we did have to motor for quite awhile to keep a reasonable speed up. It seemed to go on forever though (more than 24 hours between waypoints!) We passed close by the southeast end of Chinchorro Bank about 4am. I remember having a "Pizza Cookoff" there with 3-4 cruising boats 10 years ago, on our way back to the States from our Caribbean trip. My favorite was Conch Pizza. There were lots of conch at Chinchorro. (Dave promises fresh seafood soon, but we haven't
had any luck with the fishing pole yet).
Anyway, we are about 25 mile east of the north end of Belize. We are aiming at a pass in the reef about 35 miles ahead of us (north end of Long Key), and we expect to arrive there about 3:30pm. We'll stop somewhere between there and Belize City for the night, and get into Belize City fairly early tomorrow morning. We have a lot to do once we get there (Customs/Immigration, fuel, water, laundry, groceries, INTERNET) and we want to get out of there by Sunday and get out to the outer reefs.
Weatherwise, it's nice now. 10-15 kts out of the East. Typical 'tradewind' day. However, a Tropical Wave is forecast to come through here tomorrow, so we expect some showers in the next 2-3 days.
Current Position: 18-01N 087-32W
Labels: On Passage
We are motorsailing SSW and are currently located about 50 miles east of Cozumel Mexico. We are currently motorsailing due to light winds, and may have to continue motoring for the next 24 hours (or slop around out here forever).
Looking forward to Belize. We have booked 2 nights at the Cucumber Beach Marina in Belize City to get checked into Customs, get fuel and water, and do some grocery shopping. Then we'll head out for the offshore reefs about Sunday.
Labels: On Passage
Right now we are still feeling the effects of the Cuba land mass. We were able to sail nicely all day yesterday, but had to motor sail most of the night in very light winds. But as we clear the western tip we expect the wind to settle in at 15 kts out of the East. Right now we have huge swells from the Caribbean wrapping around the S coast of Cuba. Hopefully these will ease off as we clear the coast.
Other than that, can't complain. We're having a ball!
ETA Belize is still sometime Thursday.
Labels: On Passage
2 hours later, we were drifting along at 3 knots and Dave suggested we motorsail for awhile. The wind finally came back and about midnight we turned off the engine. It got boisterous enough that we reefed the main (more for comfort, and for Janet, our autopilot, than anything else).
It is now 5:45am and we're jogging along at about 5 kts making good 210 degrees. We are definitely in the Gulfstream... and trying to cross it quickly by heading south more than west. Our plan is to go as close to the Cuban coast as we dare (12 miles out) and try to pick up a counter current. Someone told us you can't find the counter current without going closer in, but I don't think Dave will go in closer.
The stars are finally out... we had a funny high overcast all yesterday afternoon... a very uniform gray... almost like fog. But it looks like it has cleared out and will probably be a pretty typical tropical tradewind day.
We saw 3-4 ships about 20 miles out of Dry Tortugas. It seems that most of the traffic is headed into the Gulf, and so they were all rounding the end of Florida and heading NW.
0500 Position: 23-34.6N 083-50.4W "All is well on board"
Labels: On Passage
Planned Route: Leaving Dry Tortugas headed S and SW toward coast of Cuba. Plan to stay 12 miles offshore and follow the coast of Cuba to Cabo San Antonio, then drop about 60 miles straight south, before angling off for a direct route to San Pedro Belize. Total distance: 531 nm, approximate time enroute: 4 days.
General expected waypoints & progress:
Leave Dry Tortugas 1200 17-June
12 miles off coast of Cuba 0900 18-June to 0500 19-June (Tuesday)
Due south from Cabo San Antonio Cuba 80 miles (to 20-30N 85-10W) arrive abt 2000 19-June
Sail straight SE from there direct to Ambergris Cay
Off SE Tip of Chinchorro Bank, Mexico 0400 21-June
Ambergris Cay, San Pedro Pass, 1200 21-June (Thursday)
(all times EDT, and assuming a 5.5Kt average speed. We can go 6-7kts if wind is favorable)
Our bailout plan for bad weather or problems will be as follows:
(a) Back to Dry Tortugas or Key West if in the first day
(b) Coastal Cuba for a temporary severe weather or mechanical situation, when along the coast of Cuba
(c) Isla Mujeres or Cozumel, once south of Cuba
(d) Chinchorro or maybe Xcalac once near Chinchorro Bank
Expected Weather: Current weather forecast is showing SE and East at 10-15 for the foreseable future.
General Communications:
Northwest Carribbean Net at 1000 EDT on 6209 or 6212 USB
We may listen daily at 2000Z to Herb's Southbound 2 weather net on SSB 12.359 MHZ USB.
We will listen to Chris Parker's Caribbean Weather Net. 0630 4045 USB
We will attempt to check in on the Waterway Net at 0815 EDT 7268 LSB
We have not been real regular on the Ham/SSB freqs yet, so if we're not there, don't worry!
We will be doing daily updates to our website (http://www.svsoggypaws.com/blog/) and we'll send a 'we've arrived' message out when we get there. (assuming email/computers still working).
Our position is updated and displayed at the following website each time we communicate ashore via the WINLINK system (at least daily when weather an propagation permits);
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=KN4TH
However, lack of an update should not be grounds for concern!! We may just be too tired or have equipment problems.
We have worked hard over the past few months, and Soggy Paws has never been in better shape for going to sea. Weather looks good. We hope for an easy trip!
Labels: Dry Tortugas, On Passage
The weather for hanging here is beautiful (for now). Glassy calm most of the time, and the water is starting to get really clear.
Dave sent me up the mast yesterday morning to put the 'top of the mast' stuff back in place since we're free of 65' bridges for awhile. After we finished our chores, we up-anchored and motored Soggy Paws across to Loggerhead Key. We anchored off a drop-dead-gorgeous beach and took the dinghy out snorkeling. We snorkeled a marked wreck... an old steel schooner that wrecked in the early 1900's. Lots of fun, fish, old wreck pieces, and one HUGE Jewfish (aka Goliath Grouper). On the way back, we
stopped off in an area of big coral heads. They were fantastic... about 10' diameter live coral heads, loaded with fish.
The weather is supposed to turn nasty here tomorrow afternoon, so we will probably dive today and then get ready to tuck up inside the protected harbor til Monday. After Monday things are looking better.
To all those women racing in the PCYC Mermaid Regatta this weekend... I'll be thinking of ya! Have fun and most of all remember to "Put your ass into it".
Labels: Dry Tortugas
We are finally away from the lights of civilization and so the stars on the foredeck were gorgeous.
We have no cell phone coverage out here (gasp!), so Dave used the Iridium phone to call Matt at the NWS office for a forecast update. He still says there are signs of a developing low down in the NW Caribbean that we might run into (though I can find no evidence of that on any of the charts I pulled yesterday morning). I will pull some more data via Winlink myself, and Dave said he'd call the NWS again just before we make our final go/no go decision (noonish today).
This morning is glassy calm. The sun is rising over the fort (anyone who wants to see pictures, Google Dry Tortugas Fort Jefferson). There are dolphins swimming around next to the boat (feeding). And I can hear the birds on Bird Island making their bird noises. If we didn't have the worries about approaching hurricane season I could easily stay here for a week or two.
Labels: Dry Tortugas
It's beautiful out here, but the wind is negligible and we are motoring almost due West in glassy seas. Our ETA in Dry Tortugas is about 7pm.
We just passed Mel Fisher's dive boat on the Atocha Wreck. I took a picture and marked the spot on the chart.
We finally did a detailed plot of our trip from Dry Tortugas to Belize, including estimated speeds, etc, and realized that our most likely arrival has us arriving in Belize on Saturday. That usually means more Customs hassles and likely overtime fees. We are discussing options to delay entry til Monday. We may stay a day at Dry Tortugas if our weather assessment indicates everything looks stable. And/or we may hole up on the north end of Turneffe Reef in Belize til Monday morning.
Once we are sure when we are leaving Dry Tortugas, I will post a Float Plan for the trip.
Labels: Dry Tortugas
Labels: Florida Keys
By 11am I was on my way north in the rental car... taking laundry, various boat parts to be returned, and a few items we wanted to leave back at the house. The stops (Marathon Power Systems, Key Largo West Marine, and RPM Diesel in Ft. Lauderdale) went OK, but the traffic was horrid in Miami/FtL. I seldom go thru there on a weekday--man I'd hate to live there! There was a big nasty afternoon storm system moving through also, so that made it even more fun.
Dave spent the day running around Key West with his friend Dave Whall (propane refill, stops at several marine stores, Radio Shack, etc). He got a personal weather briefing from the NWS office in Key West. The weather guy told him that it looked like the current weather would hold thru next Friday. So we are on track to leave Monday for Belize.
I made it to Melbourne Yacht Club about 7:15... just in time for a beautiful shuttle launch. We watched it on TV in the MYC bar and then went outside to see it go up. It was picture perfect--wish I'd had my camera in my pocket.
When I walked in the bar at MYC about half the people said "Hey, what are you doing here" and the other half said "Hey, I've been reading you blog and I know why you're here". It was fun both ways. I got kidded a lot about "fast trip around the world"
Nicki showed up a few minutes after I did, and got to go through a round of "I remember when you were running around here at 5 years old." with all our old friends (she's 21 now). We had a nice dinner together at Longdoggers.
I'm in the Melbourne area for today and I'm headed back in the rental car at the crack of dawn tomorrow. (need to have it back by 11am). I think Dave plans to stay at the marina Sunday night and then pull out for somewhere (direct to Belize or out to Dry Tortugas) early on Monday. He needs to send me up the mast to put back the stuff we took off to get under the bridges, and do a rig inspection before we go offshore.
Labels: Florida Keys
Wind is about E 15. We rolled out the genny and motorsailed (charging batteries) and were making about 7 knots. We had enough time to stop at Looe Key for a short snorkel. We arrived at about the same time as some of the Boy Scout boats, including the dive schooner Conch Pearl (http://www.schoonerconchpearl.com), and Siesta, both close friends of Dave's. The visibility has finally cleared up some from all the winds last week. It was a little rough for snorkeling on the reef, but it was REALLY
good to go swimming in water you could see in.
We dropped the Looe Key mooring at about 5:30 and sailed to one of Dave's old Boy Scout anchorages, Key Louis. It is a typical Keys anchorage... behind a mangrove island in about 6' of water. All the other Boy Scout boats went to the Palm Island anchorage (more scenic and a little more protected), so we had the anchorage to ourselves. Miles from nowhere...
Our plan is to get up early and get underway by 0730, and get into Key West by about 10:30, so I can get off in the car by about noon. Dave wants to get me on the road to Melbourne as soon as possible, as I have several stops to make for him on the way up. :)
The weather forecast continues to show decent East winds for the next 5-10 days. So we are thinking to get underway towards Belize on Monday. We are still discussing whether to stop at Dry Tortugas or not. We can probably afford a day or two stop time-wise but it would be foolish to gamble that the weather will stay benign forever. We'll assess the weather situation when I get back from Melbourne on Sunday afternoon...
We are literally a couple of miles from the nearest habitation, so I haven't even tried the wifi. This is going out via HF. (yay Winlink!)
Labels: Florida Keys
Labels: Florida Keys
Sherry got word yesterday that the management company for her Melbourne Harbor Condominium rental unit no longer wants to be in the rental management business. Bleah!(Construction on a condo next door has been making the job more difficult than normal). So Sherry has decided she needs to attend a meeting of owners in Melbourne this weekend. But at least it's only renting a car and driving up from Key West rather than flying back from Belize. Anyone interested in renting a furnished one bedroom
condo on Melbourne Harbor?
http://www.melbourneharborcondominium.com.
The cockpit cushion project is nearly done. Would have been done yesterday except Sherry took advantage of a visit from Dave's cousin Jay to make a trip to Publix. Between socializing and Publix, the afternoon was pretty much shot. The cushion covers are turning out really nice. They are made of Phifertex and the color is Lattice Bisque (http://www.sailrite.com/150112?sc=2&category=168). This is a really nice material to work with, and is very rugged, but also has a nice pattern to it. (a competing
product is called Textaline). It is basically the same stuff as the outdoor PVC furniture cushions are made from.
We are looking forward to getting out of here on Thursday and spending one night on the hook before we stop in at the Boca Chica Marina for a couple of days, so Sherry can drive back to Melbourne.
Labels: Florida Keys
Labels: Florida Keys