Belizean Impressions

 The map, although not the best, gives you an idea of how Peter and I spent our time in Belize.  Sailors could easily spend a season exploring offshore and inland.We saw all the featured animals on the map except for the whale shark - it was not the season.
Milly with proudly flying Canadian flag last flown in Rio at the Olympics. 

 Peter and I spent six weeks exploring Belize, mainly the cays and the atolls.  The barrier reef extending from the north end to the south end of the country was phenomenal, the second longest in the world after The Great Barrier Reef.  Huge ocean waves crashed on the outside and on the inside the water was flat and calm.  You could see the breaking line of waves from miles away - a white line on the very blue sea.  The atolls warmed us up for the Pacific one day - large areas of water completely enclosed by reef. Belize boasts three of the four atolls in the Atlantic. The water inside is every conceivable shade of blue and is dotted with coral heads and reefs, loads of fish including shark and magnificent spotted rays.  It was glorious.

After several days delay, we finally checked into Belize at Placencia, a sweet town with gorgeous white beaches, dirt roads, great ice cream and friendly people.  Checking in involved a dinghy ride, a bus ride on, yes, the Hokey Pokey across an enormous lagoon and a taxi ride to three different offices.  And then back in reverse order.

The Hokey Pokey is the local bus.

Lobster fisherman go out to sea in these traditional, now motorized, sailboats with very long booms.  They pile many dugout canoes on top.  Men spread out from the mother ship over the sea surface in the dugouts and dive from them for their catch.

Milly and TomTom

Tobacco Caye sitting right on the barrier reef was lovely.  We snorkelled and for the first time swam with very large black spotted eagle rays.  So majestic and graceful.  The tiny island, 200 m long and 100 m wide, had a couple of "resorts" and guesthouses.  Didn't take long to explore.

Oops.  Hurricane Matthew which we had evaded in Curacao did some damage here when it headed north.  Many docks were demolished including the main marina in Belize City where we had intended to stay.  Gone!

  

English Cay.  We dinghied ashore and were given a tour of the island by the lighthouse keeper.  He was 25 and happy to be living on the island where his family had been caretaking for generations.  

Construction in Caye Caulker to water access only site.  Nothing is easy.   The sand on this barge was shovelled from the sand bar in the middle of the bay by one older man up to his knees in water.

For the first time since Barbuda in the Eastern Caribbean, the land was flat as a pancake.  If sailing close to the coastal mainland, we could see large mountains in the western haze but the coast itself and certainly the cays were flat.  The cays are largely undeveloped mangrove islands.  The occasional palm usually marks a fishing camp or tiny resort of palm roofed huts.  The view from the boat was of blue sky spotted with cumulus clouds, spots of flat green cays and sea of beautiful blues.  

The water is very “skinny” as they say in the sailing world, meaning shallow.  It is so treacherous for sailboats that we had to pay an extra premium of over US$1000 to sail in Belize.  We were lucky if the depth was 1.5-3.0 meters - our draft is 1.2m.  At several points there was someone on the bow to look for coral heads that loom from the bottom making the shallow sandy bottom a maze of hard and sharp obstructions that regularly put holes in the bottoms of boats. 

The barrier reef as we approached the narrow cut to get to the wavy side - the Atlantic.  Breakers as far as we could see.  A  beautiful sight but not so pretty to negotiate.

Getting through the reef line to visit the atolls on a windy day was a nerve wracking adrenalin rush.  There are several cuts that are well charted, some wider than others.  Getting out into the sea is especially challenging on a windy day when the waves are breaking.   When the kids were with us we had one especially exciting exit through a very narrow cut at Ambergris when the waves were huge and breaking.  Tom and I were on the bow, uselessly looking for coral heads as we bounced from trough to peak, holding on for dear life.  We made it only to suffer a change of wind direction which necessitated a trip by motor.

Canadians are everywhere!

Caye Caulker - going to market.

  

Unfortunately, and despite Belize being an “eco-tourism” destination, litter in the sea was a disturbing sight.  Plastic bottles and styrofoam take out dishes were regulars in the sea and lost and battered flipflops, plastic cigarette lighters and bottle tops scurry the beaches.  In Belize, there is a real effort to rake and tidy the beaches in front of the resorts and in town but once off the beaten tourist track, the litter plagues the beach.  I'm sure much of the garbage is from boats and far away islands.  There are signs, many hand painted, to keep the region clean but it does not yet seem to be part of the island culture.  Granted, the islands have a real challenge to dispose of garbage responsibly and a lack of funds to do so, but …..

We rented bikes on Ambergris to explore the island to the north of San Pedro, the only town.

This guy had found his very own mangrove island to fish from.

San Pedro on Ambergris with lovely shades of blue water.

We went on two tours: A snorkelling tour from Caye Caulker with a local young business owner.  He led us through beautiful patches of coral and wonderful schools of fish including nurse shark.  Definitely worthwhile.

Nurse shark.  We swam with many on this trip.  At first a little hesitant but they paid no attention to us at all so, although we kept a healthy distance, we followed them around with confidence.  Nurse sharks suck and slurp crustaceans, sea urchins and bony fish from crevices.  Felt pretty safe as we were a bit big to slurp.

Beautiful colours although this is fire coral which stings like crazy if you touch it.

Lettuce coral.  Very delicate looking.  One of my favourites.

Sea horse.  They always look like they have very stiff necks.

The fishermen consider pelicans pests, but this goofy one is hard not to like.

 A second tour was to the mainland by small boat to a fishing village, a bus ride inland, and a second river boat ride to a water access only Mayan ruin.  Fantastic.  Although we snorkelled almost daily, we did not dive which necessitated a tour and a voyage in a small boat outside the reef in the super rough waves.  We were sorry, though, not to dive at Lighthouse or Glover's.

Our inland trip was to Lamanai, a Mayan ruin.  After an hour small boat ride at 6:30 a.m. to the mainland and up a river, we were served a local pastry and egg breakfast in this village, population 68.  It had only recently had a road put in so now the children can go to school although high school students have to travel 2 hours one-way.

Unfortunately, our bus, that took us from one river boat ride to another, broke down in the middle of nowhere.  To get the spotty cell phone connection, our tour guide had to climb on top of the bus.  Another bus arrived about 20 minutes later.  All part of the adventure.  The next boat was a long, traditional river boat with an enormous engine.  We scooted along taking narrow turns and passing slower boats.  Not sure how we could go so fast without hitting oncoming traffic but there must be a system - there were no close calls.  Our driver had been on the river for years and new where to stop to view monkeys, iguanas and birds.  We also passed a Mennonite community where the best farming in the nation takes place.

Part of the charm of Lamanai was it's setting on the river in dense rainforest.  It was inhabited at least as early as 1500 BC reaching it's peak around 100 BC to AD 700 with a population of around 35,000 and continued being used until about 1500 BC when it was decimated by an epidemic, probably smallpox.   It boasted large temples,

Howler monkeys added to the aura of the ruins.

At the top of the first temple.  We were the only ones of our group who climbed!  Weird!  Peter and I always have to get to the highest peak around.

Most of the excavation began in 1974 by David Pendergast of the Royal Ontario Museum!  Strange for us to have a hint of home in the middle of the jungle.  Made us proud!

A little steep.

A ball court, no less.  Unknown how the game was played but indicates that there was time for fun and games.  A very sophisticated civilization.

The original sculptures on this temple were being ruined by the likes of us, shamefully.  These cement replicas covered them to keep the originals safe.

We explored Belize at a pace dictated by the weather.  We holed up in Caye Caulker during a strong “norther”, not leaving the boat for a couple of days and had to leave Glover’s atoll where we had planned to dive prematurely to find a sheltered anchorage for another high wind system.  At this time of year, northers from the North American continent seem to come through about once a week.  This became an important feature in finding a weather window to head north to Mexico.  

I would like to have spent more time exploring inland, especially the mountains, and gone for a dive or two.  So I guess it’s yet another country that we will have to return to.  Seems to be a growing list.