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I picked up Ian and Trudy at the airport n Belize City late in the afternoon, after dropping Dave off in the morning and then spending the day stocking up on supplies. We got to the dock about an hour before sunset, piled all their gear into the dink and went out to Malakii. After we got everything put away, we pulled up the hook and headed out. Since they were only here for a week I wanted to get someplace where we could do some fun snorkeling. And there was a norther coming.
We had good wind, and made good time. We had a delightful night sail down to Colson Cays. I fixed spaghetti and a salad on the way. It wasn't rough, but I made us all wear harnesses because it was dark. We got anchored without any trouble, and had a quiet night.
The next morning we sailed down to Tobacco Cay. We had some squalls on the way down, but it cleared up by the time we got there and we had a great time snorkeling.
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| Immature Bicolor Damselfish | Sergent Major | Help! What is it? | Puddingwife |
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| Queen Parrotfish | Queen Parrotfish | Help! What is it? |
We even saw two Spotted Eagle Rays. One of them had a really long barb, and the other had none at all.
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| Spotted Eagle Ray |
We also saw a big Southern Stingray -- it was almost as large as the Spotted Eagle Rays.
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| Ian Snorkeling | Sanddiver | Southern Sting Ray | Souther Sting Ray and Bar Jack |
We took a tour of bird island, a small cay that's a wildlife preserve where frigate birds and booby birds nest. Trudy's pal, BlueMoos, showed kept a lookout on the way over.
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| Blue Moose on way to Bird Island | Bird Island |
When we got back to the boat we had a nice relaxing dinner. Well, Ian relaxed, anyway...
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| Ian and Trudy | Ian relaxing |
Then we sailed down to Tobacco Range, where we were in a good sheltered spot for the coming norther. It came through with gusto, and I was glad I had renewed the splices on the anchor rode and add 100' of high test 1/4" chain to the 30' of 5/16" BBB chain on the Danforth anchor we were using. We bobbed around in spite of our sheltered anchorage.
A local fisherman came by and asked if we wanted some conch, so we ordered a pound. He came by later and we got an education as he cleaned them. Talk about efficient! I don't know squat about cooking conch, and in spite of his instructions, it was still tough. I guess I need to really beat the hell out of it.
It blew all day; we sat around reading and doing puzzles. I need to get some dominoes or bring down the rummicub.
The next day it let up some, so we took Malakii over to Southwater. Talk about a bad day... Familiarity breeds contempt, and I came in too close on the north side. I had dropped the jib in anticipation of picking up a buoy, but long before we got there we bumped in six feet of water. Fortunately, by raising the jib we heeled enough to sail off. Then I dropped the jib again, as I didn't want whoever was on the foredeck trying to hook the buoy pendant to get knocked off if it was up and came across for some reason. Unfortunately, with the stiff wind and my bad judgement, when I rounded up to pick up the buoy we stopped much faster than I anticipated, and we were a couple of feet short. Without the jib we couldn't go upwind to pick it up and also couldn't come about to sail back out and try again. The wind was blowing us onto shore... I tried to come around and jibe but we got pushed into the shallower grass closer in -- grounded again.
Ugh. I was pretty bummed. We were bouncing and each bounce took us further in. I had Ian put the Danforth down to hold us. We put the dink down and Ian and I ran the CQR all the way out. I started the engine, and we winched in the bow. Malakii swung around grudgingly, and once we were pointed out to deeper water an occasional high wave gave us some lift and we inched our way off. Then we motored up to the buoy and cleaned up.
We went snorkeling in the Southwater Cut. The visibility wasn't great, since the water was all stirred up from two days of heavy wind. But we had fun going outside the cut and saw more rays and cool fish.
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| Squirrelfish | Southern Stingray | Trumpetfish | Black Durgon |
Oh, yeah, I also burned the popcorn. Not my best day...
The next day we decided to sail out to Glover's Reef. We had great wind as we headed out, but about half way there it fizzled. We motored for about an hour and a half, then caught some wind and sailed the rest of the way in.
After we anchored we broke into the watermelon, then took the dink back outside and went snorkeling. We found some great coral mounds full of fish, and found some of the weirdos wandering around in the flats.
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| Ian and Trudy | Glovers SouthWest Cay | Glovers SouthWest Cay |
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| Help! What is it? | Scrawled Filefish | French Angelfish |
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| Ian Snorkeling | White Spotted Filefish | Trudy Snorkeling | Ian, Elkhorn Coral | Black Durgon |
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| Barracuda | Stoplight Parrotfish | French Grunt, Elkhorn Coral | Redlipped Blenny |
Trudy spotted a fish I hadn't seen, or at least noted, before. Blue Moose helped us I.D. it when we got back to the boat. It was a Dusky Squirrelfish.
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| Help! What is it? | Dusky Squirrelfish |
Blue Moose helped me with my banjo playing. We had a nice relaxing dinner, and a great sunset while we fixed it.
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| Blue Moose pluckin' away | Trudy working on dinner | Glovers Sunset | Blue Moose doing Fish Id. |
The next day we sailed up to Turneffe. We spent the night there, then sailed over to English Cay.
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| Trudy | Ian and Trudy | Ian and Trudy | Trudy |
Ian jumped on the dock and struck his classic pose, one I will always remember from a trip down the Yampa River many years ago. We were on the bank after lunch, and he was tired of sitting around. It was time to go. With his hands on his hips, "Let's shove off!" he pronounced with as much authority as a ten year old can muster.
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| Ian at English Cay |
There was a nice Osprey hanging out there. We stopped for lunch and went snorkeling on a patch of coral nearby, where Trudy at long last found a spotted trunkfish.
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| English Cay Lighthouse | Osprey | Goffs Cay | Spotted Trunkfish |
Then we headed on in to Belize City. Ian and Trudy took me out to a great dinner. On the way we found some grafitti... those Belizians have things figured out!
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| Right On! |
