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!!