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I picked up Lynde at the airport the afternoon of the 22 of March, and we headed out the next morning early. Malakii needed to get out of Belize for a few days (You're normally only allowed to have a visiting boat in the country three months.), so the plan was to run to Guatemala, pick up some anchor chain friends had brought down with them, then return to Belize to sail and dive. Why the Belizians don't want you to stay for more than three months is beyond me, since tourism is a huge part of their economy.
We made it to Southwater Cay, and planned to head out to Glover's Reef the next morning. But when we were ready to head out, we discovered there was no water circulating through the engine cooling system. We spent the morning dealing with that, then had a great snorkel off the barrier reef in the afternoon. We saw two spotted eagle rays, a real treat.
The next day we sailed to Glovers, and up the inside to Long Cay. After we anchored, we took the dinghy ashore, where we met Jim and Kendra who run Off the Wall Diving. We were delighted to learn they would give us air fills. We planned to return and dive with them on our return from Guatemala, and do some diving on our own. They live on Long Cay full time, and own the middle third of the island. The northern third is owned by Slickrock Adventures, run by an old Colorado kayaker named Cully Erdman. Cully wasn't there, unfortunately, but two friends of Lynde's were -- Bonnie and Barry Willdorf from San Francisco.
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| Lynde, Bonnie, Barry, and me |
There was a norther coming and Glovers is pretty wide open under those conditions, so we skedaddled back towards the inside of the barrier reef. The wind died half way across; we floundered around for a while, then motor sailed for Gladden Spit. It was pretty dark as we approached, but we had a good GPS waypoint for the entrance and it is very wide, so we went in with Lynde on the bow looking and listening for surf and me watching the depth sounder. We made it inside fine, but the norther was building. We couldn't safely go anywhere, so we anchored in the shelter of the reef. We put Big Bertha on the second anchor rode and I rowed it out and dropped it, so we were lying with the two anchors at about a 90 degree angle.
We sailed south to Ranguana Cay, where we bought a Hogfish from some fishermen anchored there. We had a great meal of Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, onions, peanuts, hot chile oil from a rice ramen package, soy sauce, vinegar, honey, and fried fish.
The next day we sailed to Moho Cay -- the one farthest south, just a bit north of Punta Gorda. There are three Moho Cays in Belize, so it can be confusing.
Then we headed to Livingston, Guatemala. We arrived in late afternoon. As we were anchoring, the engine quit, but we managed to drop the hook where we wanted it. This was about the fourth or fifth time the engine had died, seemingly starved for fuel. Each time, changing the fuel filter allowed it to start again. I decided to completely empty the fuel tank and clean it as best I could.
That evening, just as it got dark, the Rio Dulce seemed to open up and belch out a steady stream of small fishing boats. Colorful and picturesque, it was amazing to see that some of them even ran, let alone were in service daily.
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| Livingston Waterfront |
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| Fishing Boats Heading Out |
While walking up the street we met a local guy, Nati Phillip Flores. As he put it when we asked him where was a good place to eat, "Most of the restaurants on the main street are Latin, but if it were me, I would eat Garifuna." So we decided to have an authentic Garifuna meal. As we wound our way through back alleys and dirt paths, we wondered for a while where we were going. Where we were going was a small Garifuna restaurant, Maria's, where we had a delightful meal. We would never have gone there, or even known about it, had it not been for Phillip. To get there you had to traverse some pretty scruffy looking territory. While waiting for dinner, we tried out some Garifuna percussion instruments, help from some regulars / friends of Maria -- drums, a coconut, and some gourd rattles. My rhythm is not nearly as good as theirs... I left my Tilley hat in the restaurant by mistake, so we went back the next morning and Maria had saved it for me.
The Rio is constantly buzzing with boats as the local Mayans spend the day in their cayucos fishing, then head up or down river with their catch. In addition, there are numerous lanchas carrying people from the town of Fronteras to Livingston and back. This time we even saw what looked like a real live ferry of some sort.
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| Rio Dulce Ferry? |
The next morning the fishing boats returned, and there were birds everywhere, all looking for a free meal.
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| Pelican
(Photo by Lynde) |
We headed up the Rio Dulce, hoping to find our friends Kris Olsen and Tom Butts and pick up the anchor chain they had brought down with them in their car.
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| Leaving Livingston | Heading Up Rio Dulce |
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| Heading up the Rio
(Photo by Lynde) |
Heading up the Rio
(Photo by Lynde) |
Hitchhiking Swallows
(Photo by Lynde) |
Much of the north side of the Rio Dulce is nominally a National Park. There are even signs proclaiming it so. However, it's not clear what the designation means in practice, as development still seems to happen wherever someone wants.
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| Park Sign
(Photo by Lynde) |
On the way up the river, we had to make way for a small tug and barge coming down. As I learned later, when Malakii was hauled for painting and repairs, it was Abel, the owner of the boat yard in Fronteras.
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| Abel Towing a Barge to Livingston
(Photo by Lynde) |
We hooked up with our friends Tom and Kris, on Dragon Lady, and relieved them of the anchor chain. I also located a 35# used CQR anchor to replace the piddly little 15# lunch hook which came with the boat. We took a short ride in the dinghy up a small creek near Rusty's, where Tom and Kris had Dragon Lady moored.out
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| Bird Hiding Under Rock
on the Bank |
Northern Jacana | Egret
(Photo by Lynde) |
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| Flower
(Photo by Lynde) |
Lilly Pads
(Photo by Lynde) |
While on a mooring at Rusty's, we watched a Mayan casting a net from his cayuco. It is quite a balancing act, standing up in a small cayuco and casting a heavy net.
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| Mayan Casting a Net from a Cayuco |
One night I went up to Tortugal, another marina further upriver, with Doug Widmayer from Kristiana to hear a pair of wandering minstrels -- a fiddler and guitar player. Alicia Jo Rabins was a fine fiddler, and we all enjoyed her a playing that evening. We shoved tables aside to make a weird shaped dance floor and waltzed a little.
We were anxious to get back to the cays to do some snorkeling and diving. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating. There was a big cold front sitting over Cuba, squeezing the trade winds so they came roaring in, kicking up some pretty good seas. But it looked like the weather was going to give us a break, so we said good-bye to friends and headed down river a little ahead of the nice weather -- I wanted to be in Belize when it arrived, not on my way there. We sailed all the way to Livingston, and we earned every foot of it. At first there was hardly any breeze at all, and we poked along at a knot or less. Then the wind picked up a bit, but it was on our nose the whole way. We tacked across the Golfete, then back and forth and back and forth and back and forth across the river, making twenty feet at a pass sometimes, barely anything others, and occasionally a good run. Because the river is very deep, right up to the banks, we could sail just about onto the bank before tacking. We gave some little Mayan kids a real thrill a few times, and they yelled and went running. I'm sure it looked like we were about to crash into their house...
We made it to Livingston just before dark, but unfortunately after the Customs man had shut his office for the day. So we couldn't check out until the next morning at eight. That delayed out departure, because eight turned out to be closer to nine, and it was ten by the time we left.
We made it to Punta Gorda, Belize, in good time, but by the time we got there it was blowing pretty good. Malakii was hopping around quite a bit -- Punta Gorda is an open roadstead. We spent two hours scurrying around buying produce, as we didn't bring much with us from Guatemala. The Belizians confiscate different things depending on what kind of a mood they are in, and we didn't see any point in buying stuff in Guatemala just to give it away when we got to Belize.
As a result, it was 1600 by the time we left Punta Gorda. We started the engine, weighed the anchor, and headed into the not very smooth seas. We were trying to make it about 8 miles to Moho Cay, the closest anchorage. Just after getting the anchor up, the engine quit ... again. The wind was on our nose. We tacked up towards Moho Cay, but by the time we got close, it was too dark to safely negotiate our way to the anchorage, so I decided we were better off in the open water. We headed out, working our way north, and sailed all night.
It was a rough night, but the moon was pretty bright, at least for the first part of the trip. We had two reefs in the main and were flying the #2 jib, making 5 to 6 knots most of the time. I enjoyed the sailing, Malakii beating her way into the waves. The dinghy, hanging astern on the davits, never took any water or dug in, which was a relief. We splashed a lot of water over the bow, and occasionally got a face full of spray, but mostly we were dry. It was a warmish night; I had on my foul weather jacket just to stay dry. We pulled one of the cockpit cushions out, and put it on the leward side of the boat, moving it each time we tacked. Lynde lay down and rested, trying to get some sleep, but she wasn't feeling great and didn't sleep much. She was a little worried about the rough seas and a little seasick, and the combination didn't make for good sleep. So I stayed at the helm most of the night. Lynde would take the helm just before we tacked, and I would check our positon on the GPS and then check the chart to make sure we were still in the clear as we worked our way north. At one point she took the helm for about a half hour; I lay down on the cushion and was out like a light. We got up to Little Monkey Bay just before dawn, so we stalled a bit until we could see well enough to enter, then went in and dropped a hook. We spent the day resting, napping, and moving very slowly. I replaced the bilge pump float switch, which was being intermittent, and fixed the binnacle compass light. Lynde sewed up my busted sandal.
We were hoping to go back out to Glover's Reef, but the weather was too unstable. So the next day we went over to Pelican Cays, a wonderful little group of islands with deep water all around.
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| Malakii in Pelican Cays
Photo by Lynde |
We went snorkling on one of the reefs, and Lynde found a beautiful conch.
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| Lynde and her Conch | Me just hangin' out |
I turned 55 while we were in Pelican Cays. Lynde even fixed me chocolate birthday treats!
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| Skinny Old Man on his Birthday |
Since Lynde loves to eat fish, we decided to get out the spear gun and see what we could do. We took it snorkling, and I managed to bounce the spear off more than one fish, but we had something else for dinner that night. I got out a file and sharpened the spear...
We took a short hop up to Spruce Cay, where we went snorkling again. This time I successfully speared two fish for dinner. Lynde helped by "herding" fish my way while I hid behind some coral.
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| Fish for Dinner! |
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| Lynde at the Helm |
We went for a night snorkel and saw some really cool squid. They weren't afraid of us at all and we could get really close to them.
After a pleasant night at Spruce Cay, we went up to Bluefield Range. In the morning we went out to Rendezcous Cay, but there were a couple of boatloads of cruise ship sun worshippers crowding the Cay. It looked like a ship had wrecked somewhere, and all the ants were scurrying onto the only available land. We anchored about a quarter of a mile south just inside the reef. The snorkeling was great.
We had to deliver Lynde back to the Belize airport, so we headed for Cucumber Beach Marina. As we started out, some dolphins swung by to raise their noses and remind us how slowly we were progressing.
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| Dolphins (Photos by Lynde) |
We made it just before dusk with some fresh wind on a reach. The marina was crowded, full of boats sitting out all the iffy weather. We started the engine to come in, dropped the sails, and motored slowly past the jetty. When we got to the inner lagoon, the staff told us to tie up on the last dock out which we had already passed. I swung as wide as I could to turn, but still had to back and fill. As I was backing, there was a loud "clunk" and suddenly I had a motor that ran fine but apparently the prop wasn't turning. I told the marina manager and he indicated they had an open slip downwind. We were drifting with the wind enough that I had some steerage, and managed to get close so we could throw a line and secure the boat.
Lynde headed home the next day. I spent the next week going over the drive train from the transmission back. The prop shaft key had busted, and both bolts securing the shaft were loose. The stuffing box was leaking too much, and the transmission was spitting oil and needed a rear seal.
I discovered the previous owners, or someone before them, had replaced the bolts for the prop shaft coupling with poor substitutes. One of them is supposed to be tapered to a point of sorts, which goes into a small dish in the prop shaft to keep it from slipping out of the boat. They had replaced this with a simple sawed off bolt, with the result that none of the bolt went into the dimple; it was only holding the shaft where the edges of the bolt contacted the outside of the shaft.
Cucumber Beach Marina is owned by Cisco, a company that does a lot of road building and services their own equipment. They have a complete shop, and were nice enough to let me use it. I found some new bolts and made a trip to the shop, where Harold turned the end of the appropriate one down to a nice tapered stub. I purchased some key stock and made a new prop shaft key and a few extras. Then I attacked the transmission.
Unfortunately, in order to replace the rear seal on the transmission, you need to take all of the components off the secondary shaft. This requires use of a hydraulic press. Fortunately, Cisco's shop has one. Also fortunately, Gerard, a Frenchman on Plenitude, a boat about the same size as Malakii, was rebuilding a transmission virtually identical to mine. I decided that since I had to take the whole thing apart to replace the seal, I may as well rebuild it. Unfortunately, the tolerances on the transmission are .02mm. Fortunately, Gerard had a micrometer. Gerard and I spent the next few days learning about transmissions, and transmission manuals. We found two serious errors in the French translation he had, but managed to correct them based on my English version. In the end, both of our transmissions worked, and we felt a lot better about dealing with them.
Since I had to take the bell housing off the engine in order to remove the transmission, and I had to take the heat exchanger off to remove the bell housing, I decided to go over it as well. I discovered the zinc was shot, and replaced it; other than that it was in great shape.
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| Rear of Engine | Engine Bell Housing | Prop Shaft and Stuffing Box |
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| Prop Shaft Coupling | Heat Exchanger |
I met some nice people that week in the marina. Tom and Cassie Padon, on Cyrano, were invaluable boosters, offering much appreciated advice, ideas, and cheer, in addition to supplying a few tools we didn't have. In the process, we learned that Tom had grown up about half a block away from me when we lived in Prairie Village, Kansas. Small world...
I met Larry and his friend Alisdair on Inukshuk. I was a bit confused when I first saw this boat, as it had a funny Inuit indian icon and the city "Midland" painted on the side. I kept thinking "What is someone from Texas doing with a boat with an Inuit indian name?" So when I got a chance to talk to them, I asked, and learned they were Canadians from Midland, Ontario. I couldn't see their ensign (flag of origin) because it was hidden behind the bimini from where I was on Malakii.
The little symbol is an Inukshuk, and it stands for hope and direction. Inukshuk is an Inuktitut word meaning "likeness of a person", and an Inukshuk is a rock cairn built to look like a human form. Inukshuks often serve as vital landmarks in the Canadian North, marking traditional meeting places, directing travelers to safety,
Alisdair was full of questions, such as
What is the eastermost state in the United States?
answer
If you are traveling south and you have just left Detroit,
where are you?
answer
What is the state with the longest name?
answer
Larry says I should read the books about Mischief by Tilman. Something to bring along to read on the boat next time.
Alaska. The islands at the tip of the Aleutian Island chain extend past the 180 degree longitude line, which delineates the break between east and west. The international date line makes a jog around these islands so they are all in the same time / date zone, but the lines of longitude don't jog. back to question
Ontario. Yikes! back to question
State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. back to question
This page last updated on 2013-10-23.
