Belize Log

Cruising Log in Belize

Belize December 2003 - Provided and written by Ken Lubben

Day 1

It is only a short flight from Belize City to a very small runway in Placencia. We arrived about 2 PM on December 3, 2003. We were met by a taxi ready to take us to the Moorings base. It’s about a 15-minute ride to the base. It’s much smaller than any of the other Moorings bases that we have been too. The dock only allows about 6 boats to be tied up, the rest are anchored in the harbor area. We were on an evening start and got on our boat, “Dutch Treat” a Moorings 4500 Cat, at 6 PM.

We had the Moorings provision us as we had heard that there weren’t many other options. We found this to be a good decision. There was a small store that did have some additional supplies. We described it as a large convenience store rather that a grocery store. There are several restaurants with in a short walk or taxi ride. The Purple Space Monkey is about a 3-minute walk. It is an open-air building with a thatched roof. We found it good for appetizers and beer. We had previously made arrangements with Vance Cabral of Advanced Diving to do rendezvous dives with us and also set up a land based tour for later in the week. We took a short walk into town to confirm our arrangements. We found him to be very dependable and accommodating to our needs. I would highly recommend him. His web site is www.beautifulbelize.com/advanceddiving and his email is advancedive@btl.net . His phone number is 501-523-4037 . We found his prices were among the best too. That night we went to the Cozy Corner restaurant, about a 15-minute walk. Food, service and prices were good.

The next morning we went to Brenda’s restaurant, located right next to the Moorings. It is a very small veranda. The food was good but the service a little slow, more like Island time. There is Freddy’s Fishing rental shack right behind the Moorings base if you need to rent or purchases any fishing equipment. One of the crew spent $60 US on lures and Freddy didn’t charge for the use of the rod.

Day 2

We had the Captains briefing on Thursday morning. It was a little more detailed that one gets in the BVI’s and with good reason. That was followed by the boat briefing during which we discovered a few items that needed attention before we left the base. We finally got under way by 1:30 PM. Due to the late start off the dock, we chose to motor to our first anchorage. The normal trade winds blow out of the East.

We found nothing normal about the wind all week. Many of the anchorages are based on these Easterlies and this presented problems for us as we were experiencing several changes in wind direction throughout the day. We motored North of Lark Cay and turned toward South Long Cocoa Cay where the Moorings briefing said it would be a good overnight anchorage. It took approximately 1:45 to get here; it took another 2 hours to get an anchor set. There wasn’t very good holding. The bottom looked like a grassy sand area but we couldn’t get the anchor to bite. I snorkeled down and found the bottom to only have a few inches of sand over a hard coral bottom. I manually pushed the anchor in while the crew used the boat to help pull it to get a bite. We set a second anchor in the same manner. The winds were light and very little swells. We did swing about every direction while there but our anchors held. We did 2-hour anchor watches all night. We found most of the anchorages in this area have very little protection.

Day 3

We motored to Laughing Bird Cay. About a 20-minute trip. This is a protected park. We were told that there would be a mooring ball on the West side of the island. We did see a small red ball with a line on it. We picked it up but were informed it was not a mooring. It marks a wreck dive. The Rangers monitor Ch 16 on the VHF and can be very helpful. The real mooring ball was hit by another boat and had its line cut. They were waiting for a replacement line.

The wind was out of the west and we were told we could anchor on the East side in a sandy patch with good holding. We met our rendezvous dive boat here for a 2-tank dive. We didn’t finish diving until 3 PM. We originally had planned to overnight anchor at Ranguana Cay but we didn’t want to push our luck arriving there without good enough sunlight, so we chose to spend the night at Laughing Bird Cay. There is a $10 BZ ($5 us) per person park fee. On the little island we found cooking grills and a small shelter area with restrooms. There were 2 park rangers that stay on the Island for 2 weeks at a time. We invited them back to our boat for some cold beverages and some local information. One of the Rangers was named Elvis, after the King. We enjoyed their company for a couple of hours. They do have both VHF and telephone communication if you needed a message relayed back to Placencia.

Day 4

We set sail for Frank’s Cay in the Sapodilla region to the South. It was about 25NM away. The Moorings staff had told us this would be a nice overnight anchorage. We followed the guidebook instructions but never found the correct anchor spot. The water was much shallower than indicated on the chart. At one point we had only 6 inches under our keel even though the guidebook showed we should have had 6 feet. We decided to try Hunting Cay a little further south. Once again we followed the guidebook and found several inaccuracies. The bottom was a grassy sand area again, and again we had trouble getting the anchor to bite. We use the same method as earlier putting a snorkeler into the water to push down on the anchor as the boat pulled back. You can go ashore but there is not much there since Hurricane Iris a couple of years ago. There is a police officer and a military officer on the Island.

Day 5

Our dive boat showed up at 10:30 to take us over to the edge of the Barrier Reef for a 2-tank dive. By the time we finished it was too late to move the boat so we spent the night there.

Day 6

We left about 9 AM for a sail back to Placencia approximately 30NM. We were able to sail the first hour under light winds but as they dropped off we slowly motored while trolling a fishing line with our favorite lure “Pinky”. We caught a King fish large enough to feed the crew of 7 with leftovers. We also caught a couple of Yellow Tail Snappers, a small Mackerel and a very large Barracuda. The locals say it is OK to eat Barracuda here but we chose to carefully remove the lure and release him. We entered Placencia Harbor about 3PM and anchored across from the Moorings dock in 15 feet of water with good holding.

Day 7

We had arranged a land base trip for this day through Advanced Diving, the same people we had been using for the diving. They picked us up at 8AM by boat and took us to Independence, a small city across the Placencia Lagoon. Our guide today is Cerillo, a very knowledgeable man. At Independence we are met by Cornell, our taxi driver. He owns a newer model air-conditioned van. He takes us on a 2-hour ride to the Mayan Ruins of Nim Li Punit. The paved highway turns into a gravel road after about 45 minutes. The road is a little rough in spots. We spent about 2 hours on our guided tour of the Ruins. It is quite unbelievable what the Mayan’s accomplished.

After the tour we had lunch then back in the van for a bumpy ride to a river by the Blue Creek Resort. A small lodge with a few cabins about a 20-minute walk into the jungle. We stopped here for a cold drink and paid a $2BZ fee to continue up the trail another 20 minutes to a cave. We donned life vests and headlamps and jumped in to the “refreshingly”cool water. There is a current flowing out of the cave that in places moves swiftly. We swim upstream, occasionally climbing over submerged boulders. In some place we had to send the strongest swimmers first and then make human chains to pull the rest of the group thru the current. We were able to travel a little before it became impassable for us. We were told the cave runs about 7 miles long. This was one of the best parts of our trip. Everyone really enjoyed themselves, but it was a workout.

We returned back to the Moorings base about 6PM. They had moved us to the dock and refilled our fuel and water tanks. We had requested our provisioning with split delivery dates so we needed to get the second half of our supplies. This worked out very well. We could also use the shore side bathrooms and showers. We spent the night tied to the dock. This also allowed Moorings time to repair a few small items for us.

Day 8

We didn’t get as early a start as I would have liked. We left the base about 9:30 after a large breakfast. We motor sailed to Rendezvous Cay. We arrived about 2PM. The wind was out of the Southwest when we arrived. There is an anchorage on both North and South. We elected to take the Northern side with the southerly winds blowing at about 7 knots. The forecast was for calm winds. At 2AM we were indicating steady wind out of the North at 20 knots with gusts to 25 and three foot swells. This made this a very uncomfortable anchorage quickly. The 3800 cat next to us drug anchor and came within 15 feet of us before they were able to start their boat and attempt to re-anchor. They had a rough go of it, but I was amazed to watch them actually get it set again. I spoke with them later and they told me it took 2000 RPM’s just to keep from blowing backward while trying to set anchor. Our anchors held but we did anchor watches for the rest of the night.

Day 9

The wind continued to blow from the Northwest at 20 to 25 knots with 3 to 5 foot swells. We sailed east thru a small passage north of Rendezvous Cay and Spider Cay but stayed south of the Funk Cays. You must have good light and be able to read the water. We were sailing at 7 to 9 knots. We plotted a safety bearing and made a southerly turn toward the Queen Cays where we were supposed to meet the dive boat. When we arrived the wind was still blowing and the seas still choppy. We made several attempts to set our anchor but were unsuccessful; even if we got the anchor set it appeared this would be a very uncomfortable spot.

It is said that under better conditions, this is some of the best snorkeling and diving in the area. The crew was tired from the night before and the rough seas, so I elected to forget about diving and to try to find a better place to anchor.

As I have said before, there are not a lot of options for good anchorages. We headed south to Ranguana Cay, about 10 miles away. 
Ranguana Cay is a very beautiful spot. It reminds you of a place in the South Pacific, tall pine trees and a sandy beach. There is good holding ground here and also 2 moorings. The moorings are free to use but you need your own lines. At the time we were there one had an orange ball as a marker. Do not tie to this ball. It marks a metal post that has been screwed into the bottom. You need to snorkel down about 4 feet to an eyehook that you can pull your line through. Be careful that your line doesn’t chafe on the metal eyehole. The other mooring was marked with a white Styrofoam float. It has a very heavy rope attached to a very large chain that goes down to an old diesel engine block that must be at least 6 feet long and 3 feet thick. I think it could hold the entire Moorings fleet. On shore is a small resort, a covered barbeque area, some hammocks and a place to rent SCUBA tanks. They charge a small fee to use the land facilities. I think it was $10BZ. We were able to purchases 2 bags of much need ice for $10BZ, but I wouldn’t count on this always being available. We were told that they hold that on Saturday nights the Island holds a Barbeque.

Day 10

Our dive boat picked us up at 10:30 and took us out to the Barrier Reef. This was by far the best site that we got to dive. After diving we decided we like this place so much we stayed another night.

Day 11

We had planned a nice sail back toward the Moorings base but unfortunately there was almost no wind. We attempted to sail but could only make a knot or less. We motored slowly and enjoyed the ride. About 4 miles out of Placencia, near Colson Cay, we were met by a pod of dolphins. They circled the boat and they played along for about 20 minutes. Just what everyone needed as we were tired of motoring a sailboat.

We put into Placencia lagoon about 2 PM and began the task of packing up to come home. We found it cooler not to be on the dock during this time. I called ahead to the Moorings and asked if they could find dock space for us about 5 PM. This worked out very well for us. It gave us easy shore access for the night and since we had somewhat early flights in the morning we didn’t have worry about getting the staff to put us on the dock in the morning. The Moorings requires one of their staff on board to take the boat into the small dock area.
Since this was to be our last night in Belize and everyone refused to wash any more dishes, we chose to go to town for dinner. Vance Cabral, of Advanced Diving, who had been our dive guide all week, also owns a restaurant call Jungle Juice. He picked us up in his boat and drove us to his restaurant. The place is accessible by taxi also but he was nice enough to give us a free ride. The food and service here was great. Everyone had a terrific time, at least the parts they can remember.

Day 12

Taxies were set up by the Moorings for the ride back to the airport. We were all sorry to leave such a wonderful place. I already can’t wait for the next trip.