Rolly nights.

It's been a rough week, literally. Every night we have had a pretty hefty squall blowing through the anchorage. Winds 25 plus knots and a massive display of thunder and lightning.

The night hours are punctuated by a new routine...

Put the computers, hand held instruments and telephone into the oven. It acts as a faraday cage and should protect them in case of another strike. Disconnect the boat VHF. Turn off all electrical systems. Tie down the blades of the wind generator, that does a good impersonation of a landing helicopter when wind speeds exceed 25k. I find the noise adds significantly to my stress level!

We then move from our usual at anchor berth in the bow of the boat into the salon and our sea berths.


It constantly amazes me how one minute the sea can be a roaring mass of waves and the air filled with the howling of wind through the rigging and then almost immediately all goes quiet, the wind drops and very quickly the sea calms... It's like magic!

Last night was one of the worst we have had. The winds came from the south for a while, the least protected part of this anchorage and we were subjected to a sizable swell. That's not too bad and we have a lot of chain out so hobby horsing is livable with. Then of course the wind moves into the East leaving us broadside to the waves, nasty!

We had a significant roll going last night, thankfully we always keep the boat in 'sea-going' mode and apart from the odd loose book and rattle of china there were no nasty surprises. A couple of hours after it began it was all over.

Coming ashore this morning though we realized, once again the power of the water, the fuel dock has now totally collapsed after the earthquake damage. Most of it is underwater. The diving school next to it is also fast disappearing beneath the water line despite the owners strenuous efforts to rebuild it faster than it's sinking!

Stress.

Hard to believe that it's almost 3 months since we left the Rio....

We have come ashore to use the internet and I have been taking the opportunity to catch up on the latest news. My goodness a lot seems to have happened; coup in Honduras, President of Guatemala accused from 'beyond the grave' of murder, and the death of Michael Jackson!

Our big news is that we have bought a fishfinder to act as a depth gauge. It's a wonderful bit of kit that we have now got up and working. It offers so much more than the plain old B&G kit. I can actually see the fish swimming under the boat!

We had bought a spare transducer for the boat system when we were in Florida last year. the existing one had gone a little 'deaf' with age and we thought it time to renew. Of course after the lightning strike, which took out that bit of kit too we set about replacing it. It was the wrong part number doh!

Well at least we tried...

It's been a trying time as we have faced a series of problems, I begin to see why folks get worn down by cruising. However TBH has helped by allowing me to let of steam verbally and understanding my frustrations and fears. On balance though we would far rather be doing this than anything else, so happy we remain, most of the time!

If you were not of a practical bent though I can see just how hard this lifestyle must be. There is an intreresting thread on the YBW liveaboard thread talking about the stress of the cruyising life. Sure, it's unrealistic to imagine that sailing is stress free. But to us this is 'real' strees. Dealing with problems and situations that have a limited time span and a real solution. Unlike the unquantifiable stress of a bad boss, uncertain job market etc.

No its not for all but it seems to continue to be the right lifestyle for us....

Older, wiser?

Ah well, life continues. We are a little older and a bit wiser...

Still here in Placencia we have the VHF working again. New lights on the compass, new bulbs in the interior that blew.

It has certainly made us reassess our future plans. Not, I hasten to add, in changing any of them, but in an understanding of how the' less is more' cruising has to be the path we follow...

If we do intend to voyage to remote areas we have to be able to fix any breakages on board OURSELVES. Now some of the modern electronics just isn't up for this! Even given TBH's extraordinary talents, and brains. rewiring circuit boards is not an easy skill to aquire at sea!


So the decisions we are currently leaning to are : No autopilots. We only ever used them when motoring in no wind, usually we rely on our Monitor self-steering gear. We will invest in a couple of tiller pilots to affix to the monitor. One to use and one as a spare.

NO LED lights ANYWHERE. They do not seem fit for purpose. they may save power but they cannot cope with the conditions. Both navigation units are sealed and impossible to repair. We could have repaired the old ones!

The big problem is the ssb. I cannot envisage living without it. Email and weather info I cannot live without... we are still thinking about that one. We do realise that we should have had a good back up short wave receiver, that's at the top of the new shopping list!


The weather here in Belize continues to be pretty unpleasant. Nightly squalls and storms. Last night we sat in the cockpit for a couple of hours watching the boats drag around us...

There is a charter boat base here and some of the 'sailors' skills are obviously in the novice stage. Nothing wrong with that, we all have to learn. But we felt safer watching them in case anyone came too close. My heart went out to one boat as it spent 2 hours or more trying to get an anchor on about 10 feet of chain to bite... I longed to tell them to let everything they had out but felt it would probably be misconstrued!

We are off to isolated anchorages again to spend a few weeks formulating plans...

Lightning strike

Ist June was the official start of the hurricane season and we were struck by lightning...

Lost the ssb, hence no blogging, weather, emails. Radar dead, autopilot dead, all LED lights blown. VHF aerial vaporized...

Feeling pretty shocked. We were in a quiet lagoon in central Belize and sat with wide eyes in the early morning as the world seemed to be coming to an end around us. Not a pleasant experience. Anyway the boat survived as did we. We are slowly working our way through the problems and hope we can repair some parts.

Oh and to add insult to injury the depth gauge stopped working too. Huh!

Earthquake news...

We heard on the net this morning that the Shell dock in Placencia sustained serious damage in the earthquake the other day. It will be unable to deliver fuel for some time apparently, there is also no water in the town...That means that we will have to be careful with our water usage over the next few weeks, especially if it stays as calm as it is now.

Five houses collapsed in Monkey River Town and Mango Creek lost their water tower. Makes you realise what a fragile existence we live balanced on the crust of the earth.

We are keeping busy with a major varnishing project. The interior of the boat has not been touched since she was built so it's time to start touching her up! The first foray has begun with the companionway and the cabin sole. Small pieces at a time and TBH is doing a fantastic job of keeping the disruption to a minimum. We are using gloss varnish this time round and it looks stunning, that of course means that we will also have to renew the upholstery and soft furnishings to achieve the classic boat feel that we are hoping for.... a long job.

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Earthquake in Belize..

Earthquake Gerry - wake up! That was my rude awakening at 2.27am local time this morning. My beloved is prodding me awake as the boat shakes as though it is balanced on a particularly wobbly jelly. Almost as I woke it was over but too late, we were awake by then.

It's a strange feeling lying in our cocoon discussing what to do in case of a tsunami! My view is that there are two reefs between us and the open sea as well as a mangrove edge to this lagoon, and there is a nice muddy bottom if all the water gets sucked out, pleasant thoughts eh! We are in 8 feet of water and had a lot(!) over 120 feet of chain out so I should be relaxed.

Except I just downloaded the emails from the kids who tell me it was 7.1 on the Richter scale, centred 39 miles NE of Roatan, that's about 140 miles from here and that Belize is on a tsunami watch, Gulp!

So having a very overactive imagination, I have insisted that we shut the hatches for the next few hours and am making a nice cup of tea!

It used to be so simple when the earth moved in the UK, we just went back to sleep!

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...the livin' is easy!

I think you could fairly say that we have 'done' Placencia!

After mooching along the shelves of the assorted supermarkets, downing ice cold smoothie's at the beach bar and patronizing the laundry we were more than ready to leave. It's a nice place but sad in it's current emptiness. A place that has been developed to make the most of a high spending tourist trade it now has the appearance of becoming a little down at heel and desperate. Maybe it's just the end of the season but the folks we spoke to said the trade was dead and swine fever had stopped things totally. Must say I wouldn't want to have an investment here right now.

We decided to hang around another couple of days to renew our visas. Boy that was more expensive that we had thought. BZ$50 each for the passports, added to the water taxi ride to reach the port and a taxi to the customs office it was a pretty expensive morning out. We also found that we have to pay a US$45 charge to leave the country when we finally leave..bit steep that, more than they charge by plane. And there was me thinking that my carbon footprint must count for something.

So we have sailed north a little ways. Anchoring off some of the islands and playing Russian Roulette with the wind direction. There is nothing worse than going to bed and waking in the middle of the night to find that the wind has reversed and you are now on a lee shore anchored within feet of a coral reef. Man I hate that moment, sleep disappears and I spend the whole night maniacally watching the figures on the GPS changing and leaping up the companionway to assess our position.

The weather is somewhat strange here, we seem to be sandwiched between two competing weather systems, to the North and the South, so the forecasts have an air of unreality about them.

Should be blowing from the S/SE today but it's actually coming from the N....

So this morning we upped anchor and came over to a lovely spot on the mainland. A lagoon totally sheltered from everything. There is nobody here save us, a few pelicans and some magnificent mountains in the distance. The water is flat calm although the wind generator is busy pumping the amps into the batteries. we will take the opportunity to do some maintenance work whilst the weather sorts itself out and enjoy a few nights uninterrupted sleep.

..and finally, to the man who makes incomparable 'Rope Stripper'. I LOVE YOU! For the fourth time in eight years this marvelous bit of kit has extricated us from a potentially nasty moment out here on the ocean. Yesterday as we began to motor through some light winds the engine started to overheat there was a big bang and I woke TBH, switched the engine off and felt sick. Had we seized the engine? Must get the sail out. Where should we make for in amongst the reef to anchor safely? It became apparent that our marvelous rope cutter had once again done the business and cut it's way through a substantial line/and net. A few minutes checking everything and we were underway again released from the tentacles of the deep.

I will never again moan about the cost of the service kit that we have sent out from the UK, it's worth every penny.

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