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.

Utila, Honduras

After an overnight motor, from Rio Dulce, we arrived at the entrance to the Puerto Este, or East Harbour on Isla Utila, Honduras.  We had a guide book, but the way point and instructions just didn't seem right to us.  We called to boats inside the harbour, but no answer. We finally called the port captain and followed his instructions, vague though they were. We had to pick our way through reef.  After arriving inside, the original instructions appeared to be correct.

Here we are finally at anchor.  We love our boom tent but it was not helpful, the first night in this anchorage.  The wind piped up to 20 to 25 kts, and with this "house" we were dragging anchor in the middle of the night.  We usually take this down or roll it back, but we just didn't think about it.  Lots of retraining required!  Thankfully, not too many boats here, but still not what you want to do in the black of night. We've ended up actually doing this twice.

This "ferry" comes through the anchorage 2 or 3 times a day...pretty big wake, but not so uncomfortable that we want to up-anchor.  It looks like a giant fork-lift!

This is our favourite restaurant so far, ashore, "El Picante".  Good food, good margaritas, and a very friendly owner. He just needs a bigger Canadian flag!

That yellow building is the restaurant, middle floor.  There are some shops below.  This is the view from our cockpit.

On Ralph's birthday, April 4th, we hired a tuk-tuk taxi to take us on a "tour" of the island...very small 't'.

He took us on some back roads to some caves, also with a very small 'c'! Here I am contemplating the descent. 

 

 As you can see, I WAS talked into it!

Here's Ralph looking suitably impressed!

Ralph finally had an opportunity to take the kayak out for a spin...I must try that some day!



Nothing like a cool one after all that exertion!!  We've obviously had too much to drink as we are sliding a little to the left!  That's Fortuitous in the distance.

Sunset, from the El Picante restaurant...a birthday well spent!