Sorry the end of the journey will appear after the beginning. Be sure to read Part I. This text is by Bill Eddy with illustrations and a few added comments by the captain.
Tuesday 2/1/11:
After a night of great sailing, we arrived in the Belize Harbor eastern entrance channel around 9:30am. The channel is quite long, narrow, and crooked, with steep sides of coral reefs so we had to really follow the guides and chart plotter carefully.
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| Channel 1/2 Mile Wide and Turns 6 Times in 12 Miles – We Short Jibed In & Short Tacked Out |
We had pancakes on the way in. We passed the giant new passenger liner Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas.
They were anchored along side the channel tendering passengers into Belize City. As we approached the city, Paul contacted the harbormaster of the Radisson Hotel Marina. The response was that mooring or docking there would be difficult and exposed to harsh wind and tidal conditions. More later on that. Captain Paul wisely decided to abort that marina in favor of Cucumber Cay Marina about 5 miles out of town. The depth and protection looked better in the guides. We side tied in the protected marina with the help of dock worker Mario at 11:30am, ending this leg of the trip. We relaxed with a cold Balboa Beer and waited for an endless string of officials to come to the boat for check in procedures.
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From 12:30pm-3:00pm we had a parade of officials from immigration, agriculture, health, customs and the port captain come aboard. (Captain’s Note: this was the only port where a stores list was required. I also saw three officials pile into a beat up old Honda for the ‘cab’ ride back to the city.) Besides their fees, each charged Paul $30 for travel costs from town to the Cay to see us. What a rip off. The Immigration guy Charlie Leslie talked our ears off about a Christmas trip he just took to California. He toured LA, Hollywood and San Francisco. He was crazed about the Hollywood stars he thought he saw, the snow at Big Bear, and the GG Bridge. What a character. All the reps that came spoke good English and the Belize dollar equaled one US dollar.
After the above ripoff, we took naps and called our wives to catch up. Up at 5pm for showers and dinner at their dockside restaurant. Good food, friendly staff and a view of their water park being rebuilt after a hurricane ruined it last year. They are trying hard to make this Cay a tourist destination park. There is even a gift shop and small museum there. Everything was pretty beat up including the shower room. It had no electricity and large holes in the floor. We used Virago’s showers after that.
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Wednesday 2/2/11:
Up at 7am for coffee and wait for the Port Captain’s rep who no showed yesterday to come and clear us in and out since we leave tomorrow. He came at 10am after many phone calls. The Customs guy came as well. After clearing us in and out, they offered to drive us in their own cars to the town government center for immigration check out.
 | Charles Leslie who had regaled us with his stories of visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles processed our immigration exit paperwork. He chastised the captain for not having a proper crew list. They crew restrained their natural tendency to leap to his defense by laughing. |
They patiently waited while we checked out, got our passport stamps then drove us to downtown Belize for the Port Captain fee payment and check out. The Port Captain’s rep Michael stopped his car short of the office and requested a “tip” of $30 before he drove us the rest of the way to the front door. After a 45 minute wait we cleared out by 2pm and $78.
We then walked downtown Belize City. We passed a big Catholic school and the crowded cruise ship tender dock. We visited the Radisson
Hotel Marina where we were supposed to stay. Indeed the docks were useless. Nothing but bare concrete pilings and seemingly no electric service or water.
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| The Closer You Get, the |
We had late lunch at the Radisson, then toured the Museum of Belize. A very interesting and well presented museum full of Mayan and pirate artifacts and history.
The museum doesn’t allow photographs in most galleries. I did get this picture in the pirates room. Appropriate don’t you think. It shows the rations on British naval vessels. I thought the gallon of beer a day was especially interesting.  The prison was the site of hangings and displays the following official “Table of Drops” to be used to ensure that the neck of the prisoner was broken by the fall. Too long a drop and the prisoner could be decapitated, |  The last person to be hanged in Belize was a woman who locked her abusive husband in the outhouse, poured gasoline over it, and ignited it. Despite an international outcry pleading for mercy she was hanged shortly after the child she was carrying at the time of her arrest was delivered. |
The museum building used to be the main prison for Belize. Next we walked the less than attractive downtown business district and provisioned at the recommended Bottom Dollar $ Supermarket.
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| Traditional Fishing Boats with the Newest Economic Center, Cruise Ships Viewed from Downtown |
We think that the nicer areas of Belize City lie outside the town proper but we had no time to tour that given the time we wasted with government officials. We and our bags of supplies hailed a cab back to Cucumber Cay for $15. The cab driver, Earl was friendly and talkative. He shared with us that the government is not listening to the people’s wishes and letting the country and city’s infrastructure deteriorate. We could see that clearly in town and on the outskirts that we traveled. They are however accommodating lots of cruise ships but nobody knows where that revenue is going. We had cocktails on board then dinner at the marina again. We watched 3 cruise ships leave the harbor in the early evening all lit up.
Thursday 2/3/11:
Up at 7am to partly cloudy skies and light rain. We watered the tanks, organized supplies, paid the marina bill and left for Mexico at 10:30am. In this writer’s opinion, we couldn’t leave soon enough. The marina was a cut above Nene’s in San Andres but 5 miles from civilization so we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. At least in Columbia we could walk to town and had choices for food and supplies. By 10:40am, we cleared the marina breakwater and put up our sails. We spent until 3:30pm tacking out the ship channel. Good sailing and lots of small islets to see, but again we had to be careful with the coral depths at the side of the channel proper. At 3:30pm we made the final starboard tack for our 250 mile sail to Mexico. No rain, 9-12k ENE breeze, 2-3’swells and boat speeds of 5-7k. Ideal sailing night. We reefed the main for comfort and still hit 8.8k speeds. Before our watches we had a beef stew dinner, salad, green beans. Around 9pm the Carnival Legend passed us heading to Cozumel from Belize.
Friday 2/4/11:
We sailed solidly through all night watches, passing into Mexico from Belize around midnight. At 4am the Holland American liner Ryndome passed behind us headed for Punta Indico for what they call Puerto Costa Maya. On our charts it looks like a swamp area on shore, but inland was the Chetumal Mayan ruins where passengers were apparently going. The area had a pilot station as well.
Captain’s Note: I the rules of the road it is clearly stated that any overtaken vessel is a stand on vessel. It also states that any maneuvers to avoid collision should be made boldly enough to be clearly visible. Still, I was surprised to see a cruise ship that was gaining on our stern make about a thirty degree turn to port a mile behind us and then pass about a mile on our port side.
At 7am we were 8 miles off the Mexican coast on a direct bearing to the east side of Cozumel. We are doing 7.5k with beam wind of 12k. Beautiful sunrise with 115 miles to go to Isla Mujeres. Again we estimate that we will arrive too early in the morning (dark) at Isla Mujeres, but we said screw it as the sailing was perfect. We’ll decide about slowing down later. At 8 am another Holland American liner the Amsterdam passed us heading to Costa Maya like her earlier sistership. At the watch change we had French toast, sausage and Harry’s fried corn meal mush sticks for breakfast.
By mid afternoon, we decided to slow down for an ultimate daylight landing in Isla Mujeres. The wind abated to 6-10k so we left the reef in and spent the day in the 5k SOG range. Sloppy ride but effective. We had 16 hours to go. We kept the speed down as long as we could stand it, then by mutual agreement sped up to enjoy the final day and night of the trades. We sailed till midnight at 5-7k. Had a nice beef stew dinner and observed the Ryndome pass us heading home to Tampa Florida.
Saturday 2/5/11:
From 12-4am, Harry and I were on the “death watch”, in charge of slowing us down on main only. We made 20 miles at .1-1.5k boat speed but 3-5k SOG due to currents behind us. At 4am, we were converged on by 3 cruise ships at once, all heading to Cozumel from Florida. It is comforting to know that these ships’ bridges are staffed with awake, competent and well equipped folks. The Carnival Elation (involved earlier in a fire on the Pacific coast), the Carnival Inspiration and the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas all steamed by with all lights ablaze. On our port side horizon we could see the lights of Cozumel. With the wind abated to 4-5k, we decided to bag the sails for the last time and motor on to Isla Mujeres.
At 7am sunrise, Jim and Paul had us between Cancun high rises and beaches and the south western tip of Isla Mujeres. We carefully and slowly traversed the entire reef ridden western shore of the island with its hotels and beaches clearly visible. We entered the harbor channel at 9:20am at the north western end of the island. Paul contacted Marina Paraiso to let them know we had arrived. We had to kill a few minutes while they moved a boat out of our reserved slip. We berthed up at 10am, ending a spectacular sailing trip. There were lots of berth neighbors and marina crew to help us back into our semi med tie berth. With our bow thruster we really didn’t need help but great gestures and made it effortless.
At 11am customs and immigration came. Mario a dock assistant acted as our agent and we had all paperwork done easily in ½ hour, including getting all 4 Tourist Cards that would enable us to fly home. All this unlike the nightmare we experienced in Belize. At 11:30am we took our laundry to Elizabeth at the marina office, called home, relaxed and had a couple of our last Panamanian Balboa beers. After very long naps, we showered, had cocktails and cabbed to town ($3 per car load) for a beachside dinner at Picus Restaurant, as recommended by a boat neighbor. Back to the boat and crashed by 10:30pm.
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