Winter in Belize 2009

At long last, we set sail on January 2 to head over to North Long Cocoa Cay, known for its spectacular snorkeling. We weren’t disappointed. We tried out our new underwater camera and were quite pleased with the results.

On the way there we were were hailed by the Port Captain who asked us to return to fill out some paperwork regarding the collision. We hastily returned, but then got underway in time to arrive at North Long Cocoa where we spent three wonderful days. We wended our way over to South Water Cay, met up with other cruisers who were heading up to Lighthouse Reef. We joined them for a rough ride against wind and current. Overcast skies and cool weather found us returning to South Water Cay, then Placencia to await the arrival of Tammy and Holly.

Wow -- even though the weather was grey and wet, we had a wonderful visit with Tammy and Holly. Here’s Tammy unpacking lots of stuff she brought for us, and Tammy and Holly celebrating their arrival.

Not to be undone by the bad weather, we played games, walked around town and every night we had happy hour, thanks to Roy’s famous Rum Punches. We dubbed ourselves, Roy’s Girls.

We took Damiana out to Rendezvous Cay where we observed Terry’s birthday. Using our ship’s radio we contacted John on sailing vessel Nakia which was in the Pacific. John and Terry observed the same birthday, and Terry’s passing last August affected all of us very deeply. We toasted both birthdays and then spent the evening watching the storm come our way.

In the morning we headed north, hoping to reach Ambergris Cay by the next day when Rob was due to join Holly, however rough conditions gave us pause, so we retreated to Placencia and Holly and Tammy flew up to Ambergris and met up with Rob.

Wouldn’t you know it -- the weather showed a rapid improvement the next day, so we headed north to meet up with everyone! On January 20 we pulled into Garbutt Cay and were greeted by a small boat filled with Belizeans celebrating President Obama’s inauguration at the time we were pulling in to the anchorage. We picked up Tammy at Ambergris the next day and sailed over to Cay Caulker. A few days later Holly and Rob ferried over and we all went out to lunch. Tammy flew out of Cay Calker a few days later -- yep, in the rain. We hope they all return next season -- hopefully with better weather.

A few days later we picked up Mai and Dave (sv Dolce Vita) at Ambergris. We sailed to Cay Colson and eventually to Placencia for provisions. We had planned to sail together to Roatan -- however once again, strong easterly winds prevented us from heading over to Roatan as early as we had hoped. Days went by without our even moving out of the anchorage. We kept busy doing boat projects, one of which was replacing fluid in the autopilot -- Dave helped Roy do that, and Mai prepared wonderful Vietnamese dishes, but stormy weather persisted. Luckily Mai and Dave had planned to visit Antigua and some Mayan sights while down in Belize and Guatemala, so rather than sit and wait for weather, they opted for an early start of their other travels. Lucky they did since weather didn’t improve enough for us to make the crossing to Rotan, Honduras until late the following week.