Mango Sushi – dan

Last night I made sushi. The beautiful local mangos happened to be on the counter and a surprising thought popped into my head: mango sushi, why not give it a try? So I did. Cruising tends to encourage a daring, playful and whimsical approach to life.

Our friends the Hills have departed and it’s time for us to be leaving too. It’s bug season in Belize, very hot and getting hotter. It’s not just bugs and the heat that’s driving us on. The big driver is the hurricane season. We don’t want to mess with any of those bad boys.

Our long-term plans have been changing and evolving as we go. We were originally planning on leaving Gypsy on the Rio Dulce for hurricane season but have decided to head for North Carolina (a beautiful area with lots of relatively inexpensive marinas) where we’ll haul Gypsy for routine maintenance. Once Gypsy is squared away we plan on taking a long road trip around the country visiting the national parks as we go, at the same time seeking out a new home base. We’d like to continue to travel and we both feel a strong need to have some kind of a permanent, land based home. We’re not exactly sure what that will look like or where it will be but at present Oregon seems to be calling us.

Our plans are written in sand, not concrete but that’s where we stand right now. There is a lot of water between us and North Carolina and a big nasty oil slick too. Our current thinking it to head back up the coast of Belize to San Pedro where we’ll check out of the country. From there we’re thinking about proceeding straight to Key West Florida. That way we’ll skip the Yucatan coast of Mexico, which is mostly poor holding and high entrance fees. That would also be quicker and the sooner we get past all that oil the better.

By the way; the mango sushi was as delicious as it was unique.

Growing friendship…

You probably don’t really know someone until you spend a week with him/her on a sailboat. Gypsy is a small 42’ vessel. There is a dance that Dan and I have worked out to pass each other between the nav station and the galley. We cannot walk side by side! So, add two adults and the intricacy increases. Elaine and Tom Hills are accomplished sailors and they know the challenges. Last Saturday Dan and I haled a taxi and headed out to the airport to meet our friends. We were 40+ minutes early but as we rounded the entrance we saw Tom and Elaine walking back from the beach. Did we mix up the time? The airlines fills the planes and the Hills were put on an earlier flight; because they were there and because the flight was not full, the Hills made it early; not so their luggage. A cool beer on the beach allowed us to get caught up; the luggage came on the next flight.
Dan had done his homework and he had a proposal for a 3-5 day sailing adventure starting the next morning. So we were off! Sailboats need wind and we had it!
With a reef in the main we tacked our way around the cays and made our revised destination in time for lunch. We had intended to land at Rendezvous Cay but as we approached it we saw the backhoe and the rooftops and it was obvious that development had taken over this spot. Our revised anchorage, North Long Coca Cay, provided calm and aquamarine waters and some snorkeling. We circled the cay in our dinghy but landing was not allowed. Elaine had a lengthy conversation with a raptor and random calls continued throughout the evening. We drank cool beers and ate the appreciated repast of outdoor living. What is it about being out in the air that makes the food, however meager, taste so delicious?
I think it is safe to say that the card tournament got started the first night. We were able to remember the rules for poker and popcorn served as chips. As the week went on and the competitive spirit livened up we resurrected the rules for pitch, and so it began. Teams rotated from couple versus couple, men versus women and odds versus ends! The laughter and the joking rounded out in the end so that each one of us had been on a winning team!
On day two we sailed to Queen Cays, a series of three cays that make up a preserve. The snorkeling revealed several new species of fish and coral and even squid were observed undulating through the water by the acutely observant. (Dan and Elaine).
One Cay was a bird nesting sanctuary that we did not disturb. The surprise of the evening was the 35nph winds that kept us rolling all night long. Dinner was abbreviated to Ramen and leeboards and cockpit sleeping kept us all content.
After breakfast we sailed off the mooring to Ramguana Cay; another beautiful location along the Barrier Reef. Pat and Ernest were our hosts at the open-air restaurant & bar located on this small cay. We enjoyed fresh snapper cooked on a wood fire, conch, coleslaw and coconut rice. We swam and snorkeled, had a violin lesson, played with the local dogs and even got in some beach raking.
We wobbled off our mooring and barely made a ripple in the water. Dan had hoped for a spinnaker sail as Tom had expressed interest in a spinnaker lesson some many months ago in Connecticut. Under Dan’s patient direction we all worked together to fly the spinnaker and slowly, ever so slowly, the wind began to build. We had a delightful sail back to Placencia and for an added “challenge” we set our anchor without the engine. Since it was Dan’s birthday the cake had been baked underway. After a harbor swim to cool down we made our way to our new favorite restaurant: RumFish. Tooti Fruiti gelato was closed or we would have over- indulged in one of their confections as well!

Our Captain held a meeting for us to decide our next move and we decided to come back to Placencia to take in a few more activities there. The winds were very slight – what a contrast!

A yoga class, a walk around town eyeing the souvenirs, a dinghy ride up the lagoon in search of manatees and happy hour with the latest harbor arrivals rounded out our week. Tom and Elaine opted to take a jungle trip on Friday; Dan and I had lived the jungle life on the Rio Dulce so we passed.
No, I don’t think you know someone as well until you have spent a week on a small boat with him/her. We each added our special traits and unique contributions to the “group”. We meshed: we laughed and talked and talked and laughed. We each paid attention to tasks at hand: manning the helm, coiling the lines, tacking the boat, preparing dinner, cleaning up the boat, waiting in line for the head. Yes, Chuck at HSR, they really were here with us in Belize. Dan and I feel blessed to have grown our friendship with this great couple of people.

22 Hours from Rio Dulce to Placencia – dan

It was early when we left Rio Dulce, 5:50 and quiet. Only a few fishermen in their dugout canoes were stirring. We had spent the previous evening with our marina neighbors Lorraine & Dan of Zephyrus sitting in Gypsy’s cockpit drinking mimosas, swapping sea stories, past lives, future plans and possibilities. Wonderful people! Again it’s hard meeting and then so quickly letting go of friends. They’re leaving Zephyrus on the Rio and heading back to their home base; a 26’ sloop in San Francisco for the hurricane season. And us, we’re still writing and rewriting our plans.

The day before the marina staff had smoked a hive of bees out of a neighboring boat’s mast. A couple of hours afterwards Susan noticed bees mysteriously appearing in our saloon. I started killing them but replacements would appear as fast as I could knock them off. I then stuffed a lit citronella coil in the base of the mast. That put them off. We were also still dealing with a horde tiny ants that were relentless in their desire to board Gypsy, many of then successfully. This is after all, the jungle where billions of living things compete for space and resources. A nearby boat had two large birds nests aboard and air plants growing on its headstay. One thing I’m not going to miss about the Rio, in fact was very much looking forward to leaving behind, is the feeling that I was a walking buffet, 24/7 for all sorts of things that were feeding on me. Was coming here worth it? Definitely! I’ll just be glad when the swelling goes down, the puss dries and the itching stops.

So it wasn’t with complete regret that we untied our lines, drifted away from the dock and slowly built the engine rpms as we headed down the Rio. As wonderful as this place has been, it felt like time for us to be moving on. The unsettled skies over El Golfete was a good match for my mood that morning as we passed through this broad section of the river.

It has been said that one never steps into the same river twice and that is certainly true of our trip down this one. The river was every bit as magnificent as when we went up it but somehow it wasn’t nearly as powerful for us going down as it had been coming up it. There’s something special and charged about a first encounter.

Lately we’d developed an uncanny way of running into people we know. We pulled into Livingston to check out of Guatemala and called Raul on VHF ch16 to enlist his services as an agent. He answered immediately; he’s so personable it was like talking to an old friend. As soon as we got off the radio with Raul, Maggie of Sea Tryst called to say hi. She and Bob were working with Raul to check in. We had never met them in person but had spoken to them over a year ago on the phone having been introduced by a mutual friend. What a treat to finally meet them in person. Unfortunately we were literally two “ships passing” so we didn’t have a chance to really get to know them.

When we finally got to Raul’s office he greeted us like old friends. He’s an impressive businessman and seems to have the offices of immigration, customs, port captain, health and agriculture all working as smoothly as a symphony orchestra. He had all our business completed, stamped and duplicated by 11:00, unfortunately low tide was at 12:00. So we decided to hang in Livingston for a couple of hours to let the tide fill in some in order to give us a little extra margin when we went back over the bar. So we decided to wander about town spend the last of our Quetzales while the tide built.

As we wondered the streets we ran into Philip who we had met three weeks ago when we checked in. We was as engaging as ever. We talk about where we’d been and what he’d been up to recently; organizing local Garifunas to help balance social injustice. He also spoke with much angst about; deforestation, the war in Afghanistan, climate change, over fishing and Guatemalan youth issues. Philip has keen intellect but I fear that he makes himself unhappy with his own unrelenting focus on local and world issues. None-the-less our meeting with him did feel like more that just another coincidence and I paid keen attention to his words and reflected on the significance of our meeting.

Back out on the boat we up anchored and headed out to retake our bar exam. We passed again but this time with even less margin than before, 6.1’ being the shallowest water we experienced this time.

It’s 63 miles from the Rio Dulce to Placencia as he crow flies but Gypsy’s no crow. She flies over waves but can’t fly over mountains, cays or reefs. She also can’t go straight up wind without tacking and tack we did. After everything was said and done, we ended up traveling a total of 90 miles to get to Placencia and it took us 22 hours in total.

In spite of the contrary wind direction we had a wonderful sail back to Placencia. Initially it was blowing 14-16 nmp out of the NE but soon built to 20-24 with 6’-8’ swells. We reefed Gypsy down and carried on. By late afternoon we got inside of Belize’s barrier reef and the seas settled right down and the sailing got very civilized. As the sun set behind the hills of Belize the wind settled down to pleasant 12-14 nmp range from the same direction. We then got a short rainstorm that had a remarkable clearing effect on the atmosphere. Once the clouds cleared we were treated to a crisp sky full of millions of stars with the Milkyway looking like a huge glowing mass above us.

It was extricating and challenging night sailing as we made our way past reefs, cays, unlit channel markers and ship traffic. It was even more exciting when we entered Placencia harbor in the dark. Fortunately the harbor has a wide entrance, no shoals and a generous and even depth of water throughout.

We pulled into Placencia at 4:30am and dropped our hook just south of a mixed group of sailboats; some with anchor lights, some without. The next day we checked in at Big Creek and enjoyed the friendliest and cheapest such session we had yet to experience in Belize. It had cost us only $25US to check in. When we originally checked in at San Pedro Belize it cost us $75US there and they messed up our paperwork. Checking out was the biggest difference. In Punta Gorda the port captain charged us $150US to check out, here we learned they charge just under $25US. Go figure. Clearly not all ports-of-entry are equal in Belize.

On our way back to Gypsy we were treated to two glimpses of manatees; one in the creek and the other right out in our anchorage. It was the first time that either of us had seen a manatee.

We had one more less-than-coincidental meeting when we got back to Gypsy. Gail and Lee came by in their newly repaired center console fishing boat. We had met them our last time in Placencia and Gail had gotten us started on the 100 wishes exercise, which we been having fun with ever since.

It’s good to be back in Placencia, it’s a lovely place, a meeting place and we have good friends that will be joining us on Saturday for a week of sailing.

Jungle life on the river -susan

Living on the river at a “jungle lodge” offers unique experiences. At 5 A M I woke and gazed out the opened hatch. The moon was framed there on its path across the sky. The sounds of the morning came into my awareness. There was the chirp of the tiny bird that was perched on the lifeline peeping into our cabin and the slurp of a paddle as it dipped rhythmically into the water close by. I ventured off the boat and into the canopy of vegetation that makes up our “home”. That was when it really hit me: I am living in a jungle! The click of the insects in a nearby tree, the chatter of another species, a tweet and a twitter, a gulp and a caw- blending into the symphony of the morning. The walkways in our land “home” weave us through this lush foliage, over water lapping against the shore, and past cabanas where guests are retreating from the stresses of their “real” lives.

Dan and I have taken to doing our yoga practice in the dining room – a large open air space with a thatched roof – rarely used for meals in this low season. The other morning we were settling onto our mats, centering our minds when Dan pointed out a relatively small snake that had fallen from the ceiling and was making its way out of the space. Needless to say in some of the reading I have done the great gurus sit quietly in meditation with snakes crawling over them – I’m not there yet!
Tijax offers a jungle tour and although Dan and I have been doing a lot of our own exploring we decided to sign on to the tour with a knowledgeable guide. It was well worth it. We had access to places that on our own we could not access. Our guide was well versed on the local flora and fauna as well as the many medicinal uses of the wild vegetation. We ventured first into the new forest where the growth was younger and allowed more light onto the jungle floor. The guide pointed out that this light and lack of moisture affected what would grow and live in this space. There were petrified rock formations along with samples of the wood harvested from these parts in the informal museum we walked through on our way. Our trail took us on a detour around a termite nest that had been taken over by Africanized killer bees. Once into the old forest we experienced the immensity of the plants towering over us. The canopy walk carried us high over the jungle floor – as long as you could put one foot in front of the other. My breathing helped me move forward. It really was breathtaking.
Life on the river has its added bonuses. The net fisherman come by in their dug out boats to fish the waters around us. They are so very skilled at what they do. Just getting in and out of that tippy vessel makes me in awe. Sometimes they don their snorkel masks and dive into the water, I assume to free caught weights. The process of draping the net over the arm and shoulder of the caster to propel it out over the water in an even circle is an art form. Lovely to watch. Bird island houses many of the feathered creatures but this morning an egret poised itself on the bow of the boat next to us. We all get along harmoniously together. Dan has his pet fish here as in other harbors. He has this fancy for cultivating a mobile school of followers wherever we go. Leftover rice is a favorite of the fish and usually twice a day Dan and I perch ourselves on the rail watching the flurry of eating activity. These fish take on personalities that we embellish as we watch their antics. The day we gave them leftover spaghetti we imagined them playing tug of war. Maybe we have too much time on our hands!