Colson Cays, Belize

We have left Middle Long Cay our 3 mile long mangrove island and have anchored in the Colson Cays a collection of 5 mangrove islands still giving us good protection from the predicated strong S-SE winds that should of hit Sunday - Wednesday. So far the winds have not been bad so we decided to move south in search of coral, palm trees and beaches. Our stay at Middle Long Cay was very sedate, the highlights of our day yesterday was a swim off the boat to clean the prop, of course Kim strayed :)..I have to keep a watch out for sharks I keep telling Mike..he isn't buying it. Oh well, I returned to check on him and seeing he was doing okay and no sharks around I started to swim away when I found something attached to my upper left arm. I tried to pull it off and it was like attached, finally I get it off and it starts swimming towards me. I screamed!! Zombie miniature flesh eating crabs! Mike looks up with a WTF look...what is it he says. I tell him it's a flesh eating crab and he tells me he had one on him too, guess who was the first one to the swim ladder...Mike of course. We get out of the water and since we are all alone in this anchorage our big highlight was showering naked on deck. As I was showering we notice the 5 foot resident barracuda coming to visit. The boat turned a bit and blocked the wind and Mike looked down and saw a crystal clear image of the Barracuda staring at him and baring his teeth. Mike asked me later, how come you are not afraid of sharks but you can't handle a 1/4 inch crab hanging on to your flesh. I told him I'm afraid of spiders too :)

We are not sure what is going on but for the past 3 days there has been a heavy smoke covering the area from Honduras to the top of the Yucatan Peninsula. This morning and today it has been really bad, the visibility is 1 - 1.5 miles and my throat hurts and eyes burn. If anybody knows what is going on we would love to know we don't have much news information out here. We think that it is probably coming from the Honduras coast as the winds have been E-SE which would make it originate from that area, we are on the outer reef at about the central part of Belize.

So far Colson Cays are nice but it is just ugly out, depending on the weather we will head to Tobacco Cay tomorrow which is where we will find our coral, palm trees and beaches. Tobacco Cay sits right on top of the outer reef. We will continue south to South Water Cay and then turn right and start heading to Placencia to stock up on provisions and check out of the country. We will make a stop between here and Placencia at Pelican Cays to see what is there. I heard, from my friend Juuuulie, that there is a couple from the Marathon area that bought an island there and opened a restaurant so we will see if we can find them. When we check out of Placencia we may head down to Sapodilla Cay area until we make a run to the Rio Dulce entrance at Livingston, Guatemala where we will head up the river to El Tortugal Marina for hurricane season.

There is only one other boat in the anchorage and they are about a mile away, so our journey south has been very quiet.


Cheers Mike and Kim

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Middle Long Cay, Belize

We are anchored at Middle Long Cay, N 17.16.608, W 088.05.273. We are waiting for some high winds to hit and this island offers great protection from E-SE winds. We had been alone for a day and a half, now another boat has come in and anchored at the other end of the island. So far the wind has not hit it is supposed to pick up tonight and stay until Wednesday. The cold front that is coming off the US coast right now is pulling the air from down here and that causes us to have high winds. They could get up to 30 knots, but we are hoping they are only 20-25 knots.

We sailed from Cay Caulker to Water Cay and stayed overnight then made a short sail over here to Middle Long Cay. This island and Water Cay are a lot like the Florida Keys and the mangrove islands. The water is very clear and lots of star fish and a few coral heads. We have seen lots of large turtles while sailing in Mexico and Belize and we saw a smaller one in this anchorage. They were mostly Hawksbill turtles. We are very close to a fishing camp and yesterday as we were checking out the shore line we saw a fishing boat with what I thought was ten guys slowing down and coming close. It is very normal to have these fishing boats approach you and offer to sell fish, but there are usually 2-3 not ten, so I got a little nervous and we headed back towards the boat. As they approached the boat we saw that it was a family, three adults and about 5-6 children...boy was I relieved. I waved at the kids and they were very excited, they just wanted to sell us fish of course. While in Water Cay we also had the guardian of the fish camp and self appointed Harbor Master approach us to sell some fish and lobster, but we told him no lobster it is out of season. He said okay and did we have some rum to quench his thirst.

As soon as weather permits we will start traveling south to some more tropical islands and snorkeling and diving we hope. We don't have much time left before we have to head up the Rio Dulce for Hurricane season so we are trying to make the most of it. The islands out here are deserted except for fishermen and a few resorts so not much in the way of supplies. We also have not had internet for quite awhile so we will be catching up on emails as soon as we can. We will also have lots of pictures to post!

We are happy, healthy and living well! Cheers Mike and Kim

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Beautiful Belize

We are still hanging in Cay Caulker in Belize. We were able to check in on Tuesday and it was a very easy process. The Immigration and Customs people were extremely nice and it only took about 30 minutes. San Pedro and Cay Caulker are both nice islands and we have enjoyed being here. We are trying to provision the boat, get fuel, propane and laundry done before we leave Cay Caulker. We also have some winds coming in so not sure how long we will be here. We have to pay for internet here and wanted to let you know we received a few emails and will respond when we have internet.

The islands of Belize are beautiful. We are inside a reef that stretches along the entire east coast of Belize. We found the people here to be very friendly and helpful. When we brought our dinghy into the dock at San Pedro the owner of the night club "Big Daddy's Disco", Lazer, came out and says 'Come on in, come in closer, you can lock up and tie up here'. When we asked him where Customs and Immigration was he told us, then called his friend Marnie, in Customs, and told her we were coming. Nice guy, he wanted us to bring our sailboat closer to his docks but we said we were leaving that afternoon.

Cay Caulker is not a very big Island it takes probably 15 minutes to walk from one end of the town to the other. Yesterday we met a man who takes care of cats and dogs on the island and has been doing it for 12 years. We were standing at his gate saying hi to the animals as we usually do and he said come on in! He has about a dozen cats, three new kittens and about 5-6 dogs. He takes care of them and then tries to adopt them out to foreigners. He does not like to adopt them out to the locals, because they keep them only as long as they want, then kick them out the door or try to breed them. It is very sad we saw lots of dogs wandering the streets. He does what he can. We are going to donate some food to him, it seems like all we can do for now. We are looking forward to Island hopping down to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. We will have plenty of pictures to post when we find some good internet.

Cheers Mike and Kim

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Easter in Belize

Yaaa we made it! We arrived yesterday after a 52 hour sail. It was somewhat bumpy but smoothed out to some beautiful wind and seas the last part of the journey. We came through the reef at San Pedro, Belize yesterday but since officials will not be working until Tuesday we came over to Cay Caulker to rest up in some beautiful waters. We can't really go ashore because we are quarantined until we check in. We had a good sleep last night, no rolly polly, until Mike woke me up and said it was my watch. Ha Ha real funny Mike :).

We will go over to San Pedro Tuesday morning and get the paperwork stuff done and get us some fresh fruits and vegetables. Not sure where we go from here there are lots of islands in Belize and they are all behind a reef, so we will have easy day sails as we hop around. Some friends of ours sailed into the Harbor yesterday afternoon Tom and Colleen on s/v Unplugged. We hope to go scuba diving with them after we get checked in.

We are living at this Latitude and Longitude for the moment N 17.44.780 W 088.02.022. I realized the next day that my last post only had our latitude and longitude, no wind direction, speed or course heading, I must of been in a hurry, it wouldn't of done us much good if we needed help. We have lots of beautiful pics but absolutely no internet so that will have to wait.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter, love to all our family.

Cheers Mike and Kim

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On the High Seas

We are currently at sea, our position is N19.50.601 W087.16.108. The wind is on our stern (butt) and the seas are 3-5 ft. Still heading for San Pedro, Belize. We saw big turtles and jumping 5-6 ft fish yesterday. We hit a squall at about 3:00 PM yesterday and had lots of rain. All is well. Cheers Mike and Kim

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Off to Belize

We are heading to Belize this morning, can't wait to get to the clear, cool water!  Time for some Scuba Diving.  Below are some pictures from Puerto Morelos.  Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi

Shrimp Enchiladas

Puerto Morelos Beach

Happy Camper

Old Lighthouse washed out by Hurricane

Launchas

El Cid Marina, Puerto Morelos, Mexico

Hanging out in El Cid Marina while this next cold front comes through.  The harbor is currently closed so no boats in or out.  This Marina is really well protected and we feel good being here.  We will take a picture of the anchorage we were going to stay in and post it later.  We will be here for about a week.  We have full use of the hotels pool, hot tub and beach and it's really a nice place :).  Ka'imi is safe and we are relaxing.

We walked about 2 miles into town yesterday and found it to be friendly and quiet.  It's a small resort and fishing town.  It was Sunday yesterday and the port was closed so we saw a lot of fishermen and their families hanging out at the beach and swimming.  We ate at a local restaurant and each had two shrimp tacos with an incredible delicious sauce and a bucket of 5 beers mue bueno!  The waitress was really nice and working on her English.  I (Kim) was working on my Spanish, but she had such a look of bewilderment on her face that we just laughed.  I need Spanish lessons!!!  LOL

We didn't take any pictures yesterday so we are heading back into town today and will post some more pics!

Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi

Puerto Morelos, Mexico

It is Sunday, April 5th and we are now in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. We arrived a few hours ago after spending yesterday and last night in Cancun. We will be staying here until this next cold front passes, not sure how long yet. It is a pretty town/beach we will check it out tomorrow. We had a pretty rough sail today and are very tired. The seas were bigger than the forecasted 4 ft, they were more like 6-8 ft...at one point they just got BIG! We are on a mooring ball, they won't allow you to anchor anymore much to our dismay. We are not sure of the security of the mooring ball, but they are trying to save the reef which is a very good thing! We haven't found any internet here so we may be out of touch for awhile.

Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi

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The Island of Isla Mujeres

Windward side of Isla Mujeres

Playing on the beach

 We rented a golf cart on Monday and toured the island.  We went around several times as it is not that big!  There is not much to see in the way of history and the island is so busy with tourist it almost reminds me of Tijuana.  We found some beautiful spots though and had a really fun day.

Mexican Iguana

The iguanas here do not look like the ones in Florida, they are missing the crown.

Restaurant on the Leeward Side of the Island

Wounded Duck

We stopped and had lunch at this restaurant/hotel on the leeward side of the island.  I had shrimp tostados and Mike had chicken tostados...what we got is 4 chips with a piece of shrimp or meat on it and some guacamole...LOL...I left hungry!  Afterwards we went to a street vendor and got some fish tacos.  The fish was so bad I almost lost it!  Oh well you don't always win.




The people at the restaurant/hotel saw this duck land on their property and it had an injured leg.  The gave it water and tortillas and letting it rest until it gets better.  Maybe the iguana is helping with moral support.

Swimming Hole

Swimming Hole

This is a very nice swimming hole that we found while touring the island.  We went back the next day by dinghy and enjoyed it again!  The water is just the right temperature.  We did some snorkling out by the reef (near our boat) but not much to see and the reef doesn't look that healthy unfortunately.

We are heading out tomorrow (Friday) to overnight off the coast of Cancun the sail south to Puerto Morelos.  We hang out there until the next cold front passes and then head south again!

Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi

Mike and Kim