Belize Islands

The last 3 weeks we have been island hopping 120nm down the coast stopping in lots of different spots. The first 2 weeks we had plenty of wind and a fair amount of rain so most of the times we were hidden in the mangroves. The fishing has been mixed, not a lot of big fish around at all but still manage to always get a feed which is great and most of the time we can find lobsters so we have been eating pretty well for sure. Anchored at the Colson Cays for a few days and there were a lot of Blue Holes, just a big hole that has dropped right down with massive cracks running sometimes for 50m with lobsters wedged inside it was pretty cool.

We met a nice French family on Syrah and have hung out and fished a lot with which has been fun. Placencia was the last town we stopped in, well actually only the second town we had been to and was nice enough for a couple of days to have a look around and meet a few cruisers who like to hang there. There's not many yachts at all in this part of the world which is surprising although with the high fees, prices and not that many nice beaches maybe it's not all surprises. Maybe when the weather is better next month and you can hang out at the reef it would be perfect but December and January are probably not the best but it was still well worth it to finally eat fresh fish again!! Now we have just arrived in Guatemala and it's bloody amazing, completely different to be in the jungle😀

Belize!

We arrived in San Pedro After a pretty rough 5 day passage, the wind just didn't give in..Sunday night 50nm out from SP we dropped all sail to slow down and were still doing 4-5kts, bloody windy. The charts just show the barrier reef and no channel into San Pedro so luckily we had a 27year old guide book :) with the wind and swell right up and no sleep it wasn't really ideal to say the least and after going up and down to first find the channel and then radioing up for local knowledge and after getting no reply and seeing the yellow buoy it was time to commit or bash 30nm south, we committed. We literally surfed a bloody big wave in, with Julie up on the bow with complete horror on her face and I'd say mine was no better, only option to give it stick and surf and was happy we had the double ender stern but it was still by far the scariest situation we've had in Sunflower. Once you get to the yellow buoy it's a dog leg to starboard and then you're inside the shelter of the reef and all is well and was time to crack open the champagne !!
San Pedro is Belize's most touristy town but still isn't too crazy, just a few charter boats but no other cruising boats to be seen. We waited until Tuesday to check in as we found out Monday was a public holiday and didn't want to pay overtime fees as it's already expensive at $150us. Once the wind died down it's bloody beautiful crystal clear water in the sandy anchorage. We spent 3 days doing our things and having a few coldies in the local establishments but it's not cheap, almost the same as the US so it was time to head south and catch some fish