December 8-22, 2023

Leaving the Río Dulce was bittersweet; loved the vibe & people (also fresh water, no rust), but needed to move on. Our inability to speak Spanish was a major detriment and frustration as well. Very little English spoken unless by fellow cruisers. Taking off down river needed extra vigilance due to the amount of recent rains; floating trees, branches, coconuts and various other debris was rampant. And yes, it was raining. We staged to exit the Rio on Dec 7th, to coincide w/a high tide at 1530. Critically important since a mud/sand bar extended for about 1 mile reaching a minimum depth level of 6′-0″ (at mean low tide); ooooh, nearly the same depth as Rory’s keel (5′-6″). The path is well worn w/chart plotter tracks from ours and others boats. Made it over w/5″ under the keel, thanks to a 1′-1″ of tide! Good thing we waited for that tide to rise! Goodbye Rio! Crossed the bay after 10.5NM and anchored in calm winds for the evening. Or so we thought! Two hours into our peaceful evening the winds picked up to 25Kts, switched 180 degrees and had Rory’s behind pointing at the lee shore. We hobby horsed and it stayed that way all nite; not a whole lot of sleep was gained. Next morning left for Belize, a whopping passage of 16NM and yes Bruce E, the wind was coming from where we were going, IE no sailing possible. (yes possible, but improbable; a tacking nightmare). Anchored off the port of Punta Gorda to clear in and grab some lunch. Immigration & customs was a one stop shop; needing to go to 5 various ‘stations’ to clear in, including one for paying for dinghy tie up.

Now being legal in Belize we hustled to get to an anchorage before it got dark; winter temps are great but it still gets dark at 1730. South-central Belize is like a place that chart drawer-uppers and weather prognosticators forgot completely about. There is a book by Freya Rauscher published in 1991, 3rd edition in 2007 that is the ‘bible’ of how to sail around Belize. It has coordinates, depths, hand drawn maps and info on where to go, anchor, and in what types of winds. We approached the first set of Cays recommended in her book and freaked out! Where is the ‘line’, the depths are different, where do we go, how do we get around that, the water up there looks shallow, we can’t anchor there, why would we anchor there, etc. We ended up pulling up our big person panties and adhered to her coordinates, turned when her coordinates said to and we did just fine. Ended up anchoring in Mangrove Cays at a depth of 43′, the deepest ever. D devised a wonderful prototype based after a MarkM design and we enjoyed 2 nites of the place all to ourselves. Ahhhhhhh! And yes, you get the 1st sunset pic of the season…

The weather for the next 2 weeks was to be very unsettled, based off of the system in the Gulf of Mexico. It drove the nasty storms in Florida all the way up the US east coast. In Belize, thanks in part to Chris Parker and his forecasts, we were able to adjust accordingly. However not even he could predict the winds for the next few days. Wherever the forecast direction was from the actual winds were opposite & at a different speed. We found New Haven Cove that was protected from all winds but the south. Where did the wind come from; yep, the south. Still protected enough that we remained for 2 wonderful nites. The next ‘protected’ anchorage was off the town of Placencia; access to groceries, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and hardware stores; a cruisers dream. Headed there in hopes of settled waters. NOPE; the 1st two nites the winds & swell were coming from opposite directions and Rory rocked back & forth like a possessed baby bouncer. Hanging on to the shelves in the VBerth helped, kinda. Then a light bulb went on; some other boaters were picking up anchor as yet another squall was blowing in, and moved into Placencia lagoon. Tricky to get into, somewhat shallow yet very protected. YES PLEASE!!! Entered the lagoon and managed to find a spot that registered 0.0 on our depth gauge, yet didn’t hit ground – weeds??? Anchored successfully w/5 other boats in 14′ of water and have been here ever since.

Where we were blue anchor symbol, where we are, boat symbol. And yet another sunset picture.

Fun around town…

What’s next? Wish we had a crystal ball. Ultimate goal is to get to many of the barrier reef cays and atolls where the snorkeling is wonderful and the water colors spectacular. However, the cays are low if not at water level and only mostly protected from the consistent trade winds (E-NE) of which we ain’t had none (sorry Ma).

So time will tell and we’ll hang out in Placencia and continue to have fun just ‘living’ on a boat vs ‘traveling’ on a boat.