Plans, What Plans

So, here’s the thing about this sailing lifestyle, nothing is ever written in stone. All plans are subject to change at any time, in any place and sometimes multiple times in a single day. We began the season with a plan to head north through Belize, up the eastern coast of Mexico down to Roatan, with a possible stop in Grand Caymen then back to the Rio Dulce for hurricane season again. That was the 40,000-foot-high overview.

Fairly early in the season we were hearing stories that Isla Mujeres, Mexico was no longer allowing boats to anchor in the bay and was requiring all boats to go to a rather pricey marina. Based on this and the cost to check into the country we elected to skip Mexico and sail from Belize to Roatan and the Bay Islands.

Then we had our engine / fuel issue. We got the Racor filter issue solved but decided we needed to clean up the root cause. Going back to 2018 when we were outfitting the boat to get ready to leave, we had an aluminum, auxiliary, fuel tank custom made to fit into the forward locker where we used to have a generator. We had a large inspection port placed on the top. This turned out to be a very good idea. The company knew it was a fuel tank; I assumed they would have cleaned the inside of all the welding and drilling bits, it was not. My mistake for not checking. Over the years the metal shavings worked their way through to the filters. 3 years ago, we really noticed all the metal debris in that tank and while it was empty, we sacrificed a wet/dry vac and using the inspection port, cleaned it all out. All was good until this year. We pump fuel from the auxiliary tank to our day tanks that feed the engines. The debris had made its way to our day tanks and now fouled them. We had to clean our two, day tanks, the access was not as easy. We enlisted the help of a guy that maintains the charter boats.  We weren’t sure if we should remove the tanks, that would have required cutting holes in the foot wells, not a simple fix. In the end we were able to pump the fuel, filter it into jerry cans and use his vacuum through the fuel sender port to clean the tanks. All of this held us in Belize a bit longer than planned.

By now we had run through our initial 30-day tourist visa and needed to renew it. Customs and Immigration have offices in Independence, since we were in Placencia it meant catching a 15-minute ride on the Hokie Pokie water taxi through the shallow mangrove channels to the town of Independence. When you arrive, there are taxies waiting to take you to the various officials. All was going according to plan until we discovered that when we checked into the country in Punta Gorda the officials forgot to stamp Barb’s passport. Fortunately, we had all our boat documents, including crew a list stamped, and Derick’s passport was stamped. After they made a call, they were able to confirm Barb was legally in the country and we could proceed with the extensions. We fill out forms, pay the fee of $200 Belize/$100 US each, get extensions into the passports as well as a handwritten explanation added to Barb’s. After Immigration it was a short walk to Customs and the Port Authority where they collected their fee of $160 Cdn for the boat for upcoming month. Our cab driver meet us there and took us back to the water taxi. Mission accomplished.

We also made plans for Sandy and Marc to come visit and spend a week sailing in Belize with us, so are staying a bit longer but will head to Roatan right after they leave.

Last night we learned that the Fantasy Island Resort and Marina, one of the places we planned on staying at in Roatan, suffered a devastating fire that consumed much of the resort buildings. Thankfully everyone escaped without incident. Now we are reconsidering Roatan and may just spend the balance of our season here in Belize and then back in the Rio Dulce. Cruising is just changing your mind in exotic locations.

With most things working as they should, there is always something broken, (we just don’t know what it is yet) we have been having fun exploring the Belizean coast. Coming from BC, we are used to deep water. It has taken some time to get used to sailing in waters less than 20 feet deep and sometimes barely deep enough to keep the boat off the bottom. Fortunately, sailors are happy to share information about locations and safe routes to and from anchorages. It helps keep the blood pressure in check when you know someone else has taken their boat through that pass in the reef.

We did run into a situation where the charts showed more than enough depth for us to pass only to have our depth sounder jump from 30 feet to 7. We stopped the boat and had a good look around. All we could see was shallows and reef ahead of us. The chart showed it should be 30 feet. We turned the boat around back tracked to the end of the island and went around the other side. Better safe than sorry.

We have visited several spots in the southern portion of the coast, and it has been very quiet and unpopulated. We are now up around Belize City, Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye. These are the popular tourist areas. We can tell because the music from the bars on shore travels over the water until the wee hours of the night.

Belize City has a reputation as a city with “rough edges” so we have not been there. We did anchor off of Caye Caulker and spent a couple days checking out what it has to offer as well as catching a water taxi from there to San Pedro on Ambergris Cay.

We had a fun day in San Pedro with Deek n Blews. At the San Pedro water taxi pier, you can rent a golf cart, so we spent the day touring the island.

One of the other boats we have buddy boated on and off with since Mexico is Ramble on Rose. They left us in Caye Caulker as they continue their travels through Mexico and towards the eastern USA. Its tough saying goodbye to good people but we wished them bon voyage as they sailed by us at anchor.

We have another week until we need to renew our visas again. We expect this time to be easier, and we will probably spend another month in Belize before heading back south towards the Rio Dulce.