NEW CREW MEMBER

The season we were cruising the San Blas, we had our son Greg aboard as crew.  Jeff and our Daughter-in-law Sarah joined us to go through the Canal and have a month aboard Fortuitous.  Well, we're sorry to say that they've all been replaced.  Meet our new crew member.

Here he is hiding behind the speaker in the cockpit.  We have yet to name him and are taking suggestions...so far, none has hit the mark.

This was the easy time....he stayed in the cockpit and the greatest annoyance was when he jumped on my leg when we were having sun-downers with fellow cruisers.  Amazingly, he didn't freak me out at all...not sure why.  There's something "personable" about geckos...maybe it's the insurance ads??  Maybe it's just that they eat the bugs, that LOVE to bite me...maybe it's just he's so tiny??

For those of you who know Fortuitous, this will give you a bit of scale.

He's a big, little problem now as he no longer stays in the cockpit...he's everywhere in the salon and who knows where else...on Mothers' Day, Ralph and I were watching a movie on the computer.  Something landed right on my head, in the dark!!!  Needless to say, he wasn't there very long!  I quickly brushed "whatever" off my head...he landed on Ralph!  Ralph transported him outside.

Here he is on the cupboard behind the sink.  We are so afraid, now, that we'll step on him or crush him somehow...what a pain!  I know another cruiser friend stepped on hers, by accident...that would be terrible!!!  Others have said that ones they've had aboard have made a big mess (if you know what I mean), but we've not found anything so far.  Does that mean he's discreet, or does that mean our boat is so messy that I haven't noticed??

We are presently in Placencia and have checked out of Belize and should be leaving the country tomorrow.  So, unless I give an update from the Rio, that is it for the season from Fortuitous.

Belizian Cays

We have spent most of time, in Belize, out in the Cays that are offshore of the mainland.  Some of these are very tricky to get to as there is coral reef everywhere.  Add to that the uncharted coral heads, ...well, you get the picture.  We've had some worrisome entrances to anchorages...OK, so Ralph worries....some, I worry A LOT!!

Some are quite beautiful, and much like the San Blas...coconut trees and sand.

Others are all mangroves...not so attractive, especially late afternoon and evening when the sand fleas and every other fricken bug comes looking for me!!!

Fortuitous at anchor in Belize.

One island that had been affected by one hurricane or other was busy starting their own coconut palm nursery.

After all my crabbing, whining, and complaining, I hesitated to include this photo.  This is what all of you think comprises every day of our cruising season.

We thought this was an interesting building concept (look toward the far end of the dock)...the post is in the way, so the wharf board is too long...well, we'll just let it stick out farther than all the rest.  No need to cut it off, even with the rest of the wharf boards.

As you can see, it's not a mirror calm anchorage...none of them have been.

This is a Belizean fishing boat.  It's amazing how many men are aboard.

Tied to the dock to get water or?? Can you believe all these guys (we counted 7+ of them) sleep aboard...apparently cheek by jowl!!

Either the last guy can't get aboard, or....

Or, he's steering with his foot!!

In one anchorage, we had a nurse shark underneath the boat for a few days.  A few days later, he/she was replaced with this guy!

This is a reasonably, or unreasonably large barracuda.  I guess it depends on your point of view.  We saw a few of these guys when we were snorkelling too...a few is too many in my books!!

I think this has been our first dolphin escort in the Caribbean.  These guys were just fabulous!!

The water was just so clear and they stayed with us a long time, twirling and swimming in the bow wake.

 

We do get some beautiful sunsets!!

BELIZE, UNDERWATER

Belize has not been one of our favourite countries for snorkelling. That being said, the camera has worked well and we have quite a few decent shots underwater.

We aren't sure what this purple-blue plant/animal is.  But it was gorgeous!

Spotted butterfly fish...in Belize, we saw some of the largest ones we have ever seen.

You don't see many starfish.

Although they don't look blue in this shot, these are blue tangs.  We see large schools of these almost every time we snorkel.

Sea fans or sea ferns???  OK, so it's not such an educational blog...

Lovely fan coral

I know, I know, I should know what all of these are...but there are sooooooo many fish and so little time!!!

I got this one...a ray!!!

He looks like he's about to eat that little fish, but I believe they eat mollusks and crustaceans.

This was sooooo funny...well, for me, not for Ralph.  This is a type of remora and, apparently, he thought Ralph was a big shark because he kept trying to suck onto Ralph's leg!! 

Ralph was very concerned it would go up into his bathing trunks...what's the problem with that...what a sissy!!??

 

Ralph eventually just gave up and got back into the dinghy...it just wouldn't leave him alone!!

 

This appears to be some sort of tube worm or...I'm open to suggestions...

This is it when all the "feelers" are pulled in.

A large angel fish, not too colourful, but very large!!!

BLUE GROUND RANGE, BELIZE

OK, Campers...what the H!!!! are we doing out here???!!! Backing up a little, we left Glover's Reef Monday, April 29th, and headed to Southwater Cay. This place was quite pleasant, quiet water, but a little more humid than Glover's. However, that could just be a general change in the weather as the two anchorages aren't that far apart. The snorkelling was possibly the best we've seen this season.

Two days ago there was a warning for isolated thunderstorms posted, and this activity was to begin Thursday night and into Friday. The problem with Belize is that there is little protection from wind and wave in most of these anchorages as the islands and reefs are barely above water (there's only about a 2' max tide in the Caribbean). Add to that, that some of the anchorages are cramped and shallow (we were anchored in 8' of water in Southwater Cay), putting out a lot of chain is not possible without swinging into other boats or reef when there are storms. The best that can be offered is barely above water mangrove covered reef islets but, with those, come the bugs when the wind isn't blowing. So, you think long and hard about going there, for protection, when you aren't even sure if the thunderstorms are going to occur. It's not a lot of fun to be in 80 to 90 degree temperatures (with the same humidity) and have to be down below, in a screened up boat, with no wind to speak of. That being said, along with the possibility of 50 to 60 kt winds, the wind direction was also going to change. This meant that Southwater Cays were not going to be safe for us. We thought long and hard about where to go. We had three options within our range of travel. One was a tiny anchorage in the mangroves, good for 2 or 3 boats and already had two. Another would be on the mainland, but we chose not to go there because it was farther away, a shallower and more cramped anchorage, and it seemed there'd be quite a few boats in there. We always prefer lots of space, and deeper water, if there is this kind of unsettled weather, especially because there are lots of charter boats out here. It's hard to say how much experience these charterers have? Another of our thoughts was that maybe these thunderstorms might stay over the mainland area as we had seen thunderstorms out to that direction for several days already. This was not to be!! So, we decided to head to Blue Ground Range, a mangrove anchorage with 40' of water (a bit deep for our liking, but a large anchorage somewhat protected by an outside reef).

We dug ourselves in here yesterday afternoon, put out all 275' of chain and set about putting the boat in order in case we were hit. Things got very calm in the afternoon, so we thought we'd be OK. This lasted well into the evening, enough so that, after setting our anchor-drag alarms, we decided to watch "Lincoln" on the computer. At about 8:30 we saw some lightning in the distance. We could only see the lightning reflected off the clouds and couldn't hear thunder, so assumed it was pretty far off. At about 9pm, it was pretty intense lightning, but still no real visible forks and no thunder. By 9:15 the wind was building, so we put on the motor. At 9:30 all HELL broke loose and we were hit with up to 45 kts of wind (well above 50mph). Ralph decided to motor toward the anchor, to take the pressure off our ground tackle. We're thinking now we should maybe have first waited to see if we dragged and, if so, motored toward the anchor. Who knows?? At any rate, this storm...sideways rain and all...lasted for 2 hours. Ralph was soaked to the skin, and tired from trying to steer Fortuitous to keep her in line with the wind and away from another boat that we had travelled with. Two charter boats did drag with the cat ending up in the shallow water just outside the mangroves. We heard them on the radio last night, calling the home base. They knew they weren't going to sink, but were firmly stuck, broadside to wind and waves, because they'd dragged two anchors across the bay. They've just been pulled off this morning and, to their credit, they've re-anchored here. I'd be on the first flight back to Canada!!

So, this morning we are still firmly anchored and facing more strong winds tonight but, supposedly, no squalls (thunder clouds). Ask me if I'm having fun yet!!

Arrived

Hi all,

Sorry for the group email but knew you'd want to know that we arrived safe and sound in Glover's Reef, Belize. Sorry we didn't check in yesterday. We left Utila Cays at about 5 pm and arrived here at around 11 am yesterday after an overnight sail. We were supposed to have a GPS track out of the Utila Cays, but for some reason it was lost. However, the reef was more or less visible so, except for a bit of stress (on my part) we made it out OK. We had a "boisterous" sail with 15+ kts of wind. We had a double reefed main up, for stability, and a tiny bit of the headsail out and managed to keep it down to about 4 kts. You can pretty much walk that fast! The problem was that it was only a 60 mile trip, or so, which is too much to do in the daylight, but too short to do in an overnighter and not arrive before daybreak. You want to arrive, with good light, so you can see the reefs and coral heads. The wind and waves were on our beam, so it was not a comfortable ride. The wave height was in the 8 foot range...not comfortable either! We took a couple small hits, into the cockpit, complete with one flying fish on deck and one in the cockpit. Amazing little sea life. We saw nothing enroute, no dolphins or anything. One lonely freighter or fishboat, during the night, and one in the morning. We arrived, bagged, to Glover's Reef and all the small reefs, at the entrance, seemed very clear on the chart, but not so much in person. Take a look on Google Earth. We managed to weave our way into the south entrance and are anchored near South West Cays. A large barracuda was visible, at our bow, when we were coming in. I hope he stays out there!! Last night was windy, but the water was calm and we stayed put. There's a lot of reef to snorkel on here, so hopefully it will be good.

Love,
Mom and Dad xxox
or
Cheryl and Ralph

Utila & Utila Cays, Honduras

Since we, but more precisely "I" belong to the "chicken shzt" school of cruising, we have been in Utila for almost a month awaiting weather that would be conducive to sailing to, and being anchored in Roatan (another Bay Island of Honduras). We have dragged around the anchorage 3 times, in 25+kts of wind.  All three times, the wind changed direction almost 180 degrees and this, coupled with the fact that the bottom holding isn't good here, has made for 2 very exciting black of night re-anchoring, and one during the day. This is our pal, "chicken"...he has been with us, outdoors in the cockpit, since San Diego.  We found him in the parking lot of the Police dock, when we were moored there.  He has been though a lot with us.

This is at shore in Utila's main harbour.  As you can see the water is very clear here, but there seems to be remarkably little sea life, especially compared to Roatan.

The owners of the pangas and other boats, in these islands, seem to favour pulling their boats up out of the water.  Not sure the real reason, but we've heard that it's because of the swell and it seems that most don't seem to have any bottom paint (anti fouling), and this would save them some money for sure.

Since this is an island, off mainland Honduras, all supplies come in by boat.  Since we re-anchored 3 times, the last one at night, we weren't too fussy about where we ended up the last time. It was blowing 25 kts, the anchor windlass wasn't working properly and it was the black of night.  We ended up right in line with the main dock where these boats, and the local ferry, tied up.  We were well out from this dock, but in line with the route for these boats.  Suffice to say, we were knocked about a fair bit by their wakes.  However, we seemed to have been well dug in and weren't interested in up-anchoring and trying our luck somewhere else, so we stayed put!

Main street in Utila.  Very few cars, mostly bikes, quads, tuk-tuk taxis, and motorcycles.

It is a pretty big dive centre and one wonders how all the shops manage to make a living with that kind of competition.  Having snorkelled here, it doesn't seem to be the place I'd want to learn.  We've seen a lot of dead coral, and very little in the way of sea life.

The bikes, quads, tuk-tuks all come pretty close to you when you are walking.  The street isn't really wide enough for all the pedestrians, along with the vehicles.

Many of the houses are built on stilts, supposedly something to do with avoiding the insects.  We did see some pretty big spiders in webs, but didn't have the camera that day.  The worst problem seemed to be the tiny black sand flies.  They were quite prevalent when the wind died down...I guess that was the only good part about so much wind, it kept the bugs at bay!













Fortuitous at anchor in Utila Harbour.

 

You can tell, from the flags, that the wind is blowing pretty hard.  We have a yellow bucket, on the side deck, so we can dunk our feet before getting into the cockpit or going below.  Once the salt is below, everything feels damp.  With this wind, it has been impossible to avoid so dampness is pretty much the state of affairs, aboard Fortuitous, right now!

We had 2 or 3 resident remoras below Fortuitous.  They'd come out any time we threw veggies etc. overboard...they seem to like mango...who knew??

More traffic in Utila!

Beautiful hibiscus in Utila. 

 

 

More of the lovely vegetation.

There is money, in Utila, for sure!  However, I think the majority of the people don't have a lot.  Since it's a tourist stop, there's probably much less poverty than you'd find on the mainland.  Speaking of that, when we checked out of Honduras, we were charged $20.  Now, this doesn't sound like much unless you know that someone 2 days before was charged nothing, another charged $10, and several (a few days after us) were charged $30.  Guess where that money is going...

One of our favourite restaurants, El Picante.  Most of the restaurants were pretty "divey" not like this one.

As said before, the groceries and all goods come by boat.  When Ralph was in town, a herd of cattle came down the street, just offloaded from one of the supply ships.

Just like Pamplona, and running of the bulls!

Here I am taking my usual 3 hours to get ready to go in snorkelling.  Of course, Ralph always has the camera so I end up having these glamorous shots taken!

OK, ready now...maybe, almost...

A school of blue tangs, I think...  We had more shots, but Ralph had the camera on the wrong setting...hopefully more from Belize!

In Utila, we finally met up with Stan and Lynn Homer, on Homers' Odyssey.  They are friends of ours from Canada.  Here they are in Utila Cays, where we moved once the weather settled a bit.  They just left, today, to head back to Rio Dulce.  We will be leaving shortly to head to Belize.  Wish us luck and a safe trip!  It is a short over-nighter, so shouldn't be too bad.  Weather seems pretty benign.  Next posting from Belize.