Scott and I had talked about bringing the boat back to the U.S. at the end of the cruising season in Belize in 2021. We'd probably sail up to the Chesapeake and leave it there for the summer. We might put it up for sale at that time. This was our 17th year sailing her and she is now 30 years old. Scott rather enjoyed fixing things the first time and there was a satisfaction the second time, knowing what to do. But now the third and fourth times are cropping up and he's getting tired of it. And of course, we are now in our middle 70's and not as spry as we used to be.
So we were looking forward to an easy cruise in Belize this year, hopefully, back out to the atolls for some time. But the season was unexpectedly cut short due to the Covid 19 virus, as several of my previous blog posts testify. And during the two months, we were there, we had both more than usually predicted blustery weather and a number of "exciting misadventures" that all, thank goodness, turned out safely. It puts a lot of stress in our lives, particularly Scott's, as he usually heads up the rescue procedures.
The weather as I mentioned, was more predicted than experienced. At this point, when a cold front is expected we anchor in one of two safe locations: Placencia or Sapadilla Lagoon. Both provide secure anchoring and protection from wave action. But we never got a long enough weather window to enjoy more than a couple of days out on the barrier reef islands.
Our first accident occurred on our way out of the Pelican Cays. We often visit one of these islands where Dustin, Kim and their 7-year-old daughter Ama run the tiny resort, Hideaway Caye. We were in a narrow passage between the islands heading for the shallow passage over the reef to the deepwater when the engine quit. Scott went into the engine room to diagnose while I watched us drift towards the shallow sandy bar off the island (thank God it wasn't coral). We went aground, rather softly. I got on the radio to Dustin as we were only about 500 yards from them and he raced out in his launcha and pulled us off. Meanwhile, Scott had figured out the problem and was solving it. Really the whole incident only took about 15 minutes. And we were in no danger.
The next one was a longer process. We followed Emerald Seas, motor sailing in stiff wind and seas, over from Sapadilla to Blue Ground Range. It was rather exciting sailing but somewhat upwind. That's called tacking and we don't do it well. The engine was necessary to keep us in a reasonable direction. We were bashing into the waves nicely when again, the engine quit. It wasn't the same problem, we know that, but assumed it was a fuel problem exasperated by the wave action. He changed filters but no help. We called Emerald Seas and considered turning the boat south which would comfortably allow us to sail to Placencia (anchoring with sail alone is something we hardly ever do but we can do it). But after a half-hour in the hot smelly engine room Scott found the problem - a loose wire on the fuel pump. Great job Scott! And we resumed our trip up to anchoring with Emerald Seas. We invited them over for dinner to celebrate and then spent several lovely days at South Water Caye snorkeling, swimming and enjoying happy hours at the newly renovated IZE bar.
The third incident occurred a week later in basically the same place and again we were joining Emerald Seas. This time the engine alarm went off (very scary sound) and we had to turn it off. This time there was almost no wind so the sails wouldn't be much help. It was very hard for Scott to figure this one out and it took a while. Meanwhile we were well away from land so in no immediate danger. It was a low coolant error and after filling the coolant up we were able to slowly motor up to Blue Ground Range and through the narrow gap in the reef. Jim came over to help Scott and they found the leak.
The last incident happened again just off Hideaway Caye! Dustin has 3 buoys deployed off his bar as the anchorage is very deep for many boats - 65 feet. Jim & Renate and ourselves usually anchor as it isn't a problem for us. Every year some huge catamaran drags one of the buoys and breaks the line. Jim gets his scuba equipment and tries to find it. He's always successful but this year it took over 10 dives in murky water where you can't see more than 5 feet ahead! We watched the process from our boat and cheered when he finally located it. The next day we went to lift our anchor and found that the buoy line had tangled around our anchor chain. It was a mess! Our anchor and the buoy anchor together weighed 175 lbs, with another 75 pounds of chain. Dustin in his launch and Jim and Kevin from My Jo in a dinghy and Scott up on the bow, wrestled with the problem. There were two immediate dangers - someone could lose a finger or worse with this heavy mess and our boat was drifting towards the reef in the wind. Finally Jim put his dinghy up against the side of our boat and tried pushing us - it slowed the drift, but Dustin's launcha was necessary to pull us further off. When we were finally far enough away, they managed to untangle the lines and free us. Whew!
This gives you an idea of why we are starting to feel that maybe we should think about the ending of our wonderful time cruising. By the time we sell (assuming it doesn't take a LONG time), we'll have 20 years under our belt, so that will be enough. And when we sail the boat up from Belize to Florida, we'll have some crew with us (hopefully someone who knows diesel engines! That's the one thing we haven't replaced.)
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Hideaway Cay is one of our favorite places in Belize. Dustin, Kim and Ama run a wonderful tiny bar and restaurant. Dave
from Cordelia is a singer/songwriter and sometimes we can prevail upon him to entertain us here or at Yoli's in Placencia. |
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Fragments of Hope, an NGO dedicated to saving the coral
reefs of Belize is growing this coral in the Pelican Cayes. |
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| Scott after a successful diagnosis of our engines' problems. |
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| Jim pointing and Kevin driving diagnose the problem |
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| Lifting up the anchor chain and buoy lines |
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Notice how much further the other sailboat is
from our boat as the process unfolds. I start to
panic as we approach the reef., |
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We've been pulled into safer waters and
the lines are finally untangled. Yeh! |
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We enjoyed several lobster dinners before the end of the
season mid February. One great one was at Hideaway. |
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| Sunset at the newly renovated IZE bar. |
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| Here's a professional shot of the IZE dock and bar |
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| One of the two charming bartenders at IZE |
