So what’s the (K’s) obsession w/the Green Bay Packers? One of my fondest memories as a small child was Sunday afternoon Packers games. My dad seated in his Lazyboy & my uncle on the rocking chair; each sipping a beer. I, 4-8 yrs old, would be seated on the floor between them sipping a 7-Up and eating popcorn. I believe I learned some adult language during those games. I also learned to ‘hate’ the color purple (Vikings) and ‘hate’ the Dallas Cowboys (Tom Landry & the perception they played ‘dirty’). People in WI ate, slept, drank the Packers and in most part still do; since it’s a community owned team of over 500,000 shareholders. To top that off I went to college at UW Green Bay and was further immersed in the Packer culture. My college roommate/soulmate Chris put in for season tickets when she was 16. She received them 41 years later and only due to the fact that Lambeau Field expanded its seating. One more step after moving to the Twin Cities was to meet a fellow Packer enthusiast, RobinO. We’d go watch the games at his house and there would be Packer paraphernalia EVERYWHERE! I contributed a bunch that I had from my parents, Packer cookies were baked, pizza had the GB symbol, the moon-dip was green & gold, I could go on & on. The very fuzzy picture at the top was a cake that I baked for Robin’s Bday a few years back. Including an edible cheesehead, yep, that’s how bad Packer fever is. So when they beat the Cowboys yesterday it stirred a bit of the childhood memory and is henceforth in the blog.
D? He’s a Packers fan ONLY if they are not playing the Vikings, then he’s a flipflopper. However if the Packers beat the Vikings; “My team won”. Insert rolled eyes emoji!
So now I have to keep the ‘Aurora Borealis’ on my toenails for the duration. Note: it can also be used as a paint chip filler on Rory in an emergency 😉
15 Jan, 2024
12 Jan, 2024
The Journey…
Musing – Françoise
Scenario: K sent newly met friends Françoise & Jean a WhatsApp msg in regards to getting together later in the afternoon. D stops by their boat unaware of my msg and gives a vaguely similar but yet dissimilar msg.
Françoise responds to D, “You had better go and check w/your government” and claimed “haven’t you learned over the years that this is better”?
Now I’m (K) the govt! 😉
12 Jan, 2024
10 Jan, 2024
The Journey…
One Month in Belize; Already?!?And we’ve gone a whole 146 NM!!!
Time sure flies when you’re having fun! The above picture was taken 2 days ago-and believe it or not it is the first time this entire season that the mainsail has been up and w/enough wind to make a whopping 4 kts! We took it and reveled in the silence. Rory’s motor has been getting used entirely too much. The kicker is that to get to some of the smaller islands (and I mean teeny tiny) on the barrier reef and specifically to anchor there one needs calm winds. Sailing & calm winds=nope! Unless you take into account the time we were coming back from Ranguana Cay and the ‘calm’ winds picked up to 25-28kts; with 3/4 of the headsail out only, going downwind, we were doing 6-8 kts in steep waves; a lot like Lake Michigan on a windy day.
So, let’s catch up. So in the last posts we’ve introduced Ken, Sheila & Jenna on Silver Lining; we’ve been pretty much hanging out w/them since Dec 14. Caught music @BubaWubas, traveled to Ranguana, Laughing Bird & South Long Cocoa Cays, celebrated Xmas Day & New Year’s Eve, traveled to Pelican Cays and are now back in Placencia. It’s a real treat to share experiences w/like minded souls. Being w/Jenna makes one feel young again (think her thoughts are different 🙂 )
Ranguana Cay, w/an awesome beach bar.
D’s first attempt at free diving and taking pictures w/the GoPro on South Long Cocoa Cay
New Year’s Eve back in Placencia, where subsequently all the women in the group caught awesome colds 🙁 Yes, I’m the geek.
Motored north to the Pelican Cays and stayed on a mooring ball in 60′ of water. The meals at Hideaway Caye in the Pelicans were wonderful; Dustin & his 11 yr old daughter Ama dive for & spear all the fish and lobster and ‘grab’ all the conch. Kim does all the cooking, they’ve been on the island 20 years now.
Dustin giving a conch cleaning tutorial.
And drum roll please!!! D’s first fish caught of the trip per Dustin’s guidance. They are Lane Snappers and were caught w/conch bait on the bottom @60′. Did they ever taste good! However, 6 days later and we’re still finding fish scales in the oddest parts of the boat.
Now we’re back in Placencia to do ‘chores’ as Sandy(HBDay!) put it. Us & Rory only get a 30 day ‘pass’ into Belize; you need to re-up every 30 days, and pay a whole bunch more $$$. It is not inexpensive to sail in Belize. Our day consisted of taking the Hokey Pokey water taxi (can’t make it up); getting a taxi ride w/Papi, a gentleman whose dreads are hip length and was a wealth of knowledge of his community; taxi was shared w/4 other cruisers, 2 Canadians, 2 French. They were initially checking into the country and needed to do immigration, port authority, customs, agricultural health and personal health stops. We only needed the first three. We waited for them; then Papi took us to his neighbors place for lunch, a true Belizian meal. Chore #1 done! D needed to procure some diesel fuel to feed Rory since her motor has been working so hard. Fuel is also needed for the generator to make electricity when the sun isn’t shining and equal in importance to make water. Chore #2 done! Taxes prep (D) and blog prep (K) round out chores #3 & #4. Chore #5, provisioning will take place in the next couple of days.
The French couple from taxi ride, Françoise & Jean moved their boat to the lagoon where we are anchored, too many boats out in the main anchorage and like us, they did not enjoy the roll. Had them & Ken and Sheila over for sundowner hour last nite and had a wonderful time. You remember what we always says ‘this traveling by sailboat is ALL about the people!’
Do we have any pictures of the above – nope. Why, cause we’re idiots?!? We will try to do better.
10 Jan, 2024
26 Dec, 2023
The Journey…
HappyMerryHappy – Holidays Xmas New Year!!!
Want to wish all of you a wonderful holiday season filled w/love, joy & laughter; family & friends; food & drink.
Never take anything for granted and seek joy in everything you do.
K & D
(Our Xmas w/new friends Ken, Sheila & Jenna)
PEACE…
26 Dec, 2023
15 Dec, 2023
The Journey…
December, 2023 – Welcome to Belize!
Whoa?!? What?!? Wait a minute; how the heck did Rory get to Belize? This blog crapped out last January in the Bahamas, and now in December we’re being told that Rory is in Belize?!? There needs to be some MAJOR explaining done here! Ok, ok, apology being made; SORRY for falling down on keeping you up to date on the high/low/in & hind sights of traveling on the sailboat Aurora! Not sure what happened last season but it seemed as if the intent to ‘just travel’ and not ‘document the travel’ was a bit too easy of a choice to make. Consequently since; there have been subtle hints, not so subtle hints, needling, prodding and out right blackmail (you know who you are MM) being used to get this ‘flow of information’ on Rory’s travels going again. Sigh; ok. A rejuvenated spirit is going to go for it and get the show on the road again. It maybe a bit less verbose (oh yes, please!!!) and more frequent (what???). This may make up for the feeling of completing a ‘novel’ each time and getting the ‘homework assignment’ done. A flow of info is the goal. Ok, w/some fun thrown in 😉
An attempt to briefly backfill from last January will be made, but will focus mostly on the timeline, locations and of course the most important thing of all – the people along the way.
More to come…
15 Dec, 2023
8 Dec, 2023
The Journey…
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…
Awesome place w/friendly bar owner
The beach
Great lunch spot
K’s got her Yellow Bird drink!
Ken, a true Bahamian, signaling sunset
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.
8 Dec, 2023
6 Dec, 2023
The Journey…
Hola, Buenas Dias! Chickens, Lizards, Parrots, Howler Monkeys and Semis.
Ever since getting back onto Rory mid November on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala; there was time taken every morning to watch the sunrise while sipping our coffee. The sounds of the river and the routines of the wildlife had us mesmerized. If the sun were to come out, Izzy the Iguana would be perched on his branch in the tree to our left. The loving couple of Mangrove Swallows would bathe then snuggle; always watching us; we seemed to amuse them. The Green Heron would fly to our dock line and fish, dipping upside down to catch then right himself up to enjoy his meal. Raucous pairs of parrots would fly over. Chickens crowed from everywhere. Peacocks from the neighbors collections giving off their sounds. Every so often sounds of howler monkeys on the other bank of the river would haunt us. Then the noisy launcha traffic would pick up taking people to work, kids to school and tourists up/down the river. And the ever present sound of semis AIR-BRAKING on the bridge over the river would drown everything else out.
The bridge, no semis?!?
We had gotten back to Guatemala on November 7th spending 2 days in Guatemala City and 3 days in Antigua, a world heritage city, once the capital of Guatemala. Thoroughly enjoyed our time in both cities, both with very different vibes. GC is HUGE, ~4-5 million people and chaotic; we’d been there 4 days last spring on our way home. Cool place! Antigua was old, vibrant and also chaotic. The market amazing. We would SO NOT want to drive in Guatemala. Skinny roads, lots of trucks, and very aggressive drivers. GC would have been a bit more pleasant if we hadn’t had so much luggage (think boat parts, etc) AND if AA would not have dropped one of the bags, oh, probably from the plane to the tarmac. Spent way too much time cleaning up the suitcase in which a powder canister had exploded and 3 boat parts smashed. AA claimed that was standard procedure. Then finding out that a good college friend had died 5 months previously did not help.
Pictures below from Antiqua, GC’s will come later from 1st go round.
Govt bldg
Iconic arch
Intricate church
Tortilla making
Upscale brewery
Hard to walk on
AWESOME museum
Tamale makers
Tamales-yum
Market
Market
Market
View of Antigua
Active volcano
Cool buses
Getting back to the Rio we had some major projects to tackle while Rory was still on the hard: replace the dripless seal, rudder bearing and cutlass bearing. So, 2 of 3 accomplished. The cutlass bearing would NOT move; even after the boat yard ‘broke’ their hydraulic cutlass bearing puller-outer! Call it good. D got in some quality boat yoga to replace the other parts w/success. In order to try to get the cutlass bearing out the prop had to be removed, gulp!!! An intricate piece to take off & put back.
Attack
Dripless off
Old vs new
Rudder dropped
How rudder was dropped
Yoga I
Yoga II
Expensive piece of plastic, new rudder bearing
Innards of prop
Prop back in place
Then it was back into the water and to the marina to get other projects done and get Rory put back together. In October, unprecedented amounts of rain fell, raising the river level by at least 3 feet. Coming back to the marina, the following sequence occurred: 1) people waiting on dock and in a launcha to help secure boat 2) going as told straight into the slip 3) water levels higher, thus poles to tie to much lower 4) current in river much faster 5) poles capped w/a metal ring. Catch the drift here? Yep, current took Rory and slid her nicely along the metal ring putting an 8′ long, 1/8″deep scratch on her port side. Crap. (Not the word used). Deflated feelings at best. However the marina has a team of boat fixers and was able to mend the scratch, paint it after trying umpteen times to match Rory’s color, and buffed the whole boat out. She looked good again!
Prep for fill
Prep for paint
Also prep for paint
What are K’s projects? She’s the unpacker and putter away-er, cleaner of everything interior, maker of provisioning lists, cleaner/greaser of the thru hulls, and the go-getter of tools/parts/glasses/flashlights/’stuff’.
We were in the same marina, Tortugal, last spring and enjoyed it. It’s very laid back, rustic, has a great restaurant and a great staff. It was however, time for us to leave. We figured a weather window to depart on Dec 6, got all our paperwork ready to check out of Guatemala and the online forms filled out to check into Belize and we were ready.
