To view the photo gallery for this month, click here

April 8, 2005
Location: Isla Mujeres, Mexico

The past week has been totally miserable for me as I’ve had a real bad case of bronchitis. There’s been a pretty bad bug going around the island and it seems that a few of us in the marina got it. Four days of high fever, achy joints and congested lung kept me confined to bed but the antibiotics have really helped. I was finally able to make it out of the boat two days ago for a trip into town and now today is even better.

We’ve grown accustomed to our new routine here but it looks like it won’t be for much longer. We’re now looking for a weather window so that we can depart for Belize in a week or so. There’s a lot of work to do to get the boat ready. Yesterday we took the boat for a harbor cruise with Roger and Claudia (s/v Summer Thor) and stopped at the fuel dock to fill our diesel tank and jerry cans. Basically what we have to get done is our navigation planning and stowing all the loose gear on the boat, and with us being on ‘island time’ it could take us a while. We haven’t called our families for quite some time so that’s on our schedule for the weekend.

We’ve really enjoyed our stay here in Isla Mujeres though it was much too short but it will be good to be on the move again. Can’t wait to see what waits for us in Belize.

April 13, 2005
Location: Isla Mujeres, Mexico

It took a week and a half but the bronchitis is gone and I’m feeling much better, I hear that I’m not grouchy any more. David got the bug too and was lucky not to have it as bad. Seems like most of the cruisers here got it to some level. But all is good now.

The boat is about ready for our trip south, we just needing to provision before we begin our wait for a weather window. Our plan is to sail direct to San Pedro Belize which is a 48 hour sail, we do have intermediate ports planned in our navigation should the weather turn bad or if we have any problems. Once we check in to San Pedro we’ll stay a few days then we’ll move onto English Cay (pronounced ‘key’), Cay Caulker, Placencia and some of the outer reef islands. We would like to be in Guatemala by the end of May so we won’t have too much time to spend in Belize this time around. In June we’re going to try to get back to Placencia for it’s world famous Lobster Fest, can’t miss that.

Isla has been a great place to stay, so much so that we are planning a return trip either in the fall or next spring. There is no theft here on the island so no one locks their boat or dinghies and lost wallets full of money is always returned promptly (with the money). We have eaten at every type of restaurant including the food stands and though we drink mostly purified water we do on occasion drink the tap water, we have never once gotten sick to the stomach. Most people here are very courteous and patient. When was the last time you walked into a store and actually saw people working hard and smiling? When was the last time you walked into a store and the cashier actually looked at you, smiled and said hello? Customer service here is at a much different standard. Though we haven’t been all over the island yet we have yet to see extreme poverty. Material possessions don’t seem to be a high priority among the locals but taking care of the elderly is important.

As much as we love the island there are things we dearly miss. Chinese food, sushi, a really good pizza. The food here is good but occasionally it would be nice to have a better variety of food. Yesterday I cheated and took the ferry to Cancun and had lunch at McDonalds, and it was wonderful. Next time it’ll be lunch at Pizza Hut. Boat stores, hardware stores and a really good grocery store close by would be nice, but we have adapted and we do have more time now so hunting things down isn’t too big of a deal.

While I was sitting on the ferry for the 15 minute ride to Cancun yesterday I looked at all the people around me. Most of them are tourists here only for a week, soon they’ll  be back at work sitting at desks, answering phones, planning and executing, sitting in rush hour traffic, wondering where the day went. The tourists are here taking pictures of the beautiful water and beaches lined with palm trees. It’s a shame what you don’t see in a weeks time, what a camera won’t capture. The hard working people, their cultures and their values. I feel fortunate that our stay was longer than most but I do wonder what we are missing.

Last weekend our wind generator kicked the bucket, the rectifier shorted out. I was able to go to Cancun and found a replacement rectifier but it only lasted 24 hours before shorting out again. So I called the new owner of Everfair (makers of our Fourwinds II wind generator) and he is sending me a new rectifier and a surge protection circuit. Hope this fixes the problem but I’m concerned that there is an underlying problem which is causing the rectifier to short. Guess we’ll find out soon enough. All the other systems on the boat seems to be in good order. Spent the day yesterday stowing and lashing down gear on deck. Not much else to do before we head south. Oh, thanks. for all the emails, though we try to answer each and every one it does take us a bit of time.

April 15, 2005
Location: Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Happy tax day!! The parts for the wind generator came in this morning so I spent a few hours pulling the wind generator down and replaced the rectifier. So far so good, it seems to be working good, just hope this new rectifier lasts longer than and previous one. We depend on our solar panels and wind generator to keep our batteries charged, when one system goes down we’ll have to start running the engine every few days to keep the batteries charged. After working on the wind generator I walked down to a taco stand I hadn’t been to before. It’s only two blocks from the marina and was some of the best tacos I’ve had yet.

David went to Cancun with Ken and Becky on s/v Polaris, today is the provisioning day. We’re going to stock up on food to last us about six weeks. Though we can get provisions in Belize it’s much cheaper to do so here, actually there’s a better selection here too. We did find out that we’ll have to limit our stock of fresh produce and meats as they will be confiscated when we check into Belize, we’ll only take enough for the 48 hour sail down.

Our friends Roger and Claudia on s/v Summer Thor left for Isla Contoy a couple days ago. It’s a small island that is 35 miles north of Isla Mujeres. Isla Contoy is a park and wildlife sanctuary and you can only go if you get a visitor’s permit. Anyway, we talked to Roger this morning on the single side band (SSB) radio and it sounds like they’re having a great time. They will be back tomorrow and may be going down Belize with us. I’ll be heading to the internet cafe later today to check on weather windows, hopefully we’ll leave here sometime next week. David and I are getting much better with our Spanish but won’t need it in Belize. The official language down there is English. Maybe we’ll have a chance to keep up with our Spanish in Guatemala.

April 19, 2005
Location: In Route from Isla Mujeres Mexico to San Pedro Belize

We pulled out of Marina Pariaso yesterday and anchored out in the harbor. After securing all the gear we went to bed early in anticipation of an early departure. It wasn’t a great night sleep, seems like all the dogs on the island began howling at 3 in the morning. And if that wasn’t so bad the roosters started going at it about a half hour later.

This morning came fast. We weighed anchor at 0630 and exited the harbor with s/v Polaris. We decided to buddy boat with Ken and Becky to San Pedro. The weather is great, seas about 4 feet and winds 10 to 12 knots out of the east. We just passed Cancun and are now in the Yucatan Channel with all our sails up. Beautiful day to be on the water. The next update will be in a few days if we can find an internet cafe either while we’re in San Pedro or Cay Caulker Belize.

April 21, 2005
Location: Cay Caulker, Belize
Miles Traveled:  242 Nautical Miles

Wow, what a sail down here. We had easterly winds the entire trip and enjoyed a beam reach sail with full main and jib. Because of the strong north flowing Yucatan current we were slowed down to as little as 2 knots, but then we turned on the engine which increased our speed to 3.5 knots, still pretty slow. All in all we ended up motor sailing about a quarter of the way. Just south of Cozumel Mexico we found ourselves in a southerly current and was able to maintain an average speed of about 8.2 knots for most of the the first night, top speed recorded was 9.2 knots. This was obviously a fast moving current for us to get speeds like that. the winds remained 15 to 20 knots from the east and seas were 3 to 5 feet for most of the trip. There was half a day of 8 foot swells but by the time we got to San Pedro the seas were only 2 feet. During the time the swells were 8 feet or so there were times where Polaris would dip down into the bottom of the swell and all we could see of them was their sails.

The trip took 49 hours and we averaged 5 knots. David and I agreed that this was probably one of the best sails we’ve ever had on our boat. Highlights of the trip was cleaning the flying fish off the boat, they seem to not see us in the night. Other highlights were buddy boating with Polaris, their boat is really well matched in speed and performance with ours and we remained within a mile of each other the whole trip. Saw a few other sailboats out there, mostly heading north. Saw four cruise ships at night, got a chance to talk to one for a few minutes on the radio and they were kind enough to give us the latest weather forecast. They were heading back to Florida.

All the systems continued to work well on the boat. David and I stood three hour watches. During the day and most of the night all we wore were shorts, but at three in the morning it got chilly enough to put on a light jacket.

By 0600 this morning we found ourselves at the entrance to San Pedro. The entrance is a small cut in the reef with another small reef behind the cut. We’ve heard from others and from reading our guide book that the entrance can be tricky, especially in rough weather. We found the entrance to be fairly easy, especially since Polaris decided to go in first because we got to follow them in. Once inside the harbor we found a good place to anchor in 7 feet of water. The next hour was spend cleaning us up, the boat up and launching the dingy. After being in a hurry to get to town we realized that Belize doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so we set our clocks back and hour and moved a little bit slower.

At 0830 we took the dingy over to s/v Polaris and picked up Ken and Becky then continued on to town where we found a dock to lock the dingy to. San Pedro is a small town with dirt roads and relies on tourists. And though this is a tourist town it has a very laid back and comfortable feel to it. When we arrived at the Immigration office we were told to return in a couple hours, it looked like there might have been a break in at the office earlier. So off to the beach to Emelies where we enjoyed breakfast. It was a great breakfast just like you would find in the United States, actually it was probably even better. We did experience a bit of sticker shock though as breakfast for David and I cost us $25 USD. Belize is definitely more expensive than Mexico.

After breakfast we returned to Immigration and started our clearing process. Basically we had to fill out two forms and provide ship’s papers and crew lists and received a 30 day visa. Then it was of to Customs which was right next door. There we filled out more paperwork and after paying $20 USD we received our cruising permit. It took an hour to clear in didn’t cost us an arm and a leg. After clearing in we made it back to our boats and prepped for departure. San Pedro would have been a nice town to visit for a couple of days but the holding in the anchorage isn’t all the great. We weighed anchor and slowly headed to Cay Caulker, a small reef island about 10 miles south of San Pedro. It was amazing to sail in waters so shallow that there was only a few inches below our keel. Eventually we made it into deeper waters, about 9 feet. The trip was good going south and took only 2 hours. Along the way we had a mother and baby dolphin swim next to us for a while and we also got to see a lot of rays swimming along the bottom of the waters. That was a first for us and hopefully not a last.

We arrived to Cay Caulker at 1430 and set our anchor in 7 feet of water. This is a beautiful anchorage and well protected in anything but west winds. After settling down here for a bit we went to town and ran into Sandy and Sherry on s/v Namaste. We knew them back in Kemah Texas and had ran into them in Isla Mujeres. We chatted a bit and went to Rasta Pasta for lunch. David had chicken curry and I had the nachos, all very good. I ordered a pineapple smoothie and was impressed when they got a fresh pineapple and cut it up. Best smoothie I’ve had in a while. Rasta Pasta is right on the beach on the east side of this 4 mile long island, the view was incredible as we looked out into the ocean. So many different colors of blues and greens, and a few hundred feet off the beach we could see the swells breaking on the reef. The beaches here are fine sand and lined with palm trees. One of the nice things we noticed about the shore line here is that none of the buildings go right to the water so that there is actually a beach all the way around the island. Many of the restaurants here are accessed by the street side or the beach side.

By 1700 we were back on the boat. Roger and Claudia on s/v Summer Thor had left Isla Mujeres the day after we did and we had made arrangements to talk on the single side band radio in the evenings. They were doing good and were about 80 miles north of us, experiencing much of the same weather we had. We’re looking forward to seeing them again, looks like it might be tomorrow. Because of the lack of quality sleep during our two day passage, David and I found ourselves sound asleep by 1800.

April 25, 2005
Location: Cay Caulker, Belize

Well, we’ve been here about four days and have decided that Cay Caulker is a great place to be. Though it’s a popular destination for young travelers and back packers it has a very low key feel to it. It doesn’t have a lot of touristy things going on here, just a nice laid back place to be. We’ve been to town almost every day just walking around, it doesn’t take much time at all. Though the island is only four miles long you can walk from one end of town to the other in about 30 to 45 minutes. Yesterday we enjoyed spending the day with Roger and Claudia from Summer Thor. We explored the small downtown area, walked along the beach, through residential areas and even along the runway of the small airport here. We even stumbled across a small park. The part is small and is full of different types of vegetation. The paths along the park wind through the different plants and signs are posted to indicate what each plant is.

We’re back in our cruising schedule. We typically get up and have our coffee by 0800. At 0800 we tune our single side band radio to the NW Caribbean Net for the next hour. Here we get to see where the other boats are, listen in on the going ons in other parts of the Caribbean, weather and we get to talk to some of our other boating friends to see how they are doing. We can usually hear boaters from Florida to Panama and every where in between. Once the net is over we go to town and do our morning walk. In the afternoons David rests on the boat and I go snorkeling either next to the boat or near some reefs. Under the boat we have snapper, barracuda, nurse sharks, lobsters and so many other types of fish. Besides snorkeling I just enjoy the swim, gives me a chance to cool down. The water temperature since we’ve been here has been 85.1 degrees, very refreshing. I’ve also been trying my luck at fishing, but have only caught some small barracudas. I talked with some locals today and will try some other areas this afternoon and see if I can catch a snapper to two.

We decided yesterday that we will leave Cay Caulker on Wednesday or Thursday and start island hopping south to make our way to Placencia, Belize. We hope to meet up with some friends there and plan on spending a week or two there before checking out of the country and continuing on to Guatemala.

We both agree, life is good. So far there are no regrets in deciding to sell everything and go cruising, it’s been great to meet so many different people and visit so many exciting places. Can’t wait to see what Guatemala has in store for us.

April 27, 2005
Location: Cay Caulker, Belize to Drowned Cays, Belize
Nautical Miles Traveled: 20

We left Cay Caulker this morning at 0830 with s/v Polaris and s/v Summer Thor and led the way south towards the Drowned Cays. Our challenge  today was passing through Porto Stuck, well known for it’s shallow waters and running aground. As we were leading through the pass we called out our depths to the two boats behind us and fortunately the pass did not live up to it’s name, there was no less than seven feet of water. We motored the remaining two and a half hours due to the lack of wind, but the weather was pleasantly warm and the waters remained unbelievably clear.

When we arrived a the Drowned Cays we made our way up one of the rivers and anchored in the middle of the island, surrounded by mangroves and creeks. The anchorage here has excellent protection from all directions and would be a great place to be during a storm.

Once the anchor was set we followed tradition and launched the dingy so we could set out to explore our new surroundings. While slowly motoring along the mangroves I was in awe at the brightly colored fish swimming in the crystal clear water. It was like our private aquarium with purple, yellow, red, blue and so many other colored fish. After motoring through the maze of creeks we made it back to the boat in time to start dinner. Ken on s/v Polaris had called us on the radio to tell us that the manatees were playing behind his boat but we were to far away to see them.

As David prepared dinner I examined the charts and decided that Colson Cay would be our destination for tomorrow. Fortunately the cays here are so close together that we no longer have to get up at the crack of dawn to leave, now we weigh anchor at our leisure after our morning coffee, usually about 0800 or so.

April 28, 2005
Location: The Drowned Cays, Belize to Colson Cay
Nautical Miles Traveled: 26

At 0900 Polaris and Summer Thor followed us out of the Drowned Cays towards Colson Cay. Today was yet another day of very little wind, I think the most we saw was about 5 knots. As we headed south we could see two huge cruise ships anchored to the west of us with smaller boats ferrying the passengers to Belize City. Aside from lots of local fishing boats out we didn’t see any other sailboats.

Colson Cay was an easy approach and we anchored a hundred yards off the beach. Ken and Becky on Polaris was having a lot of difficulty setting their Bruce anchor so I jumped in the water with my snorkeling gear. Since I couldn’t get the Bruce to set by diving on it Ken switched to a Fortress anchor but that wouldn’t set either. Eventually I was able to dive down on it and set it by hand.

Colson Cay was another set of mangrove islands and according to the charts there are sink holes and soft coral reefs, we’ll have to check them out tomorrow. After talking with the two other boats we decided to stay here a few days. Before dinner I decided to see how our anchor had set, obviously it had set pretty well because I couldn’t find it below the sand. While I was in the water I decided to take a bath in the salt water and rinsed off with fresh water from our tanks. Since we have a limited supply of water on board we sometimes have to use salt water for cleaning dishes and taking baths, but everything is rinsed in fresh water.

April 29, 2005
Location: Colson Cay

Today was a great day filled with snorkeling, fishing and lounging. We followed the chart in the guide book to a small soft coral reef about a half mile west of where we had anchored where we snorkeled. The waters were filled with a multitude of colored fish and rays. Roger from Summer Thor dove down and got some conch but they were too small to keep. Afterwards we dingied north and found a huge sink hole that was reported to be great for snorkeling, but we didn’t see anything spectacular there, thought he hole was neat to see. The water was so refreshing that I went out snorkeling about a half dozen times today.

The fish once again proved to be elusive so we had spaghetti for dinner. We’re deciding where to go tomorrow, either continue south along the islands or head towards the mainland. I think we’ll have a decision by the time we raise anchor in the morning.

April 30, 2005
Location: Colson Cay to Sapodilla Lagoon
Nautical Miles Traveled: 29

One of the most fulfilling things about cruising is navigating. Before we head out somewhere I pour over the charts and guide books, plot out our route and hope to get where we plan. Today was no different. As we set anchor in Sapodilla Lagoon there was a great sense of accomplishment knowing that we got here as planned and safely. Sapodilla Lagoon is a large lagoon located on the coast of mainland Belize. The entrance is a bit tricky as there are sand bars all around but once inside the water depth is sufficient throughout. It was another day of motoring due to the lack of wind, actually we did motor sail for a short bit but it would be nice to have enough wind one day to do some real sailing.

After dinner David and I sat out on deck mesmerized by the phosphorescence. The water all around us we brilliant with illuminesence with each bit of disturbance from the waves. And though it was dark we could see tons of fish swimming all around us as they left a trail of phosphorescence behind them. We sat out there for an hour and a half, it was truly an experience we will never forget.

We had thought about staying here for a few days as it looks like a great place to go exploring with it’s two rivers and few islands but we will head out tomorrow to continue south along the coast.