Caye Caulker and sailing south to Placencia

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  Caye Caulker, Belize Cayes, Belize
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Belize

Greetings from the sunny beaches of Belize. I crossed the Belize border in a minibus that carried me to Belize City. I was planning on spending the night there, but the rest of the passengers convinced me that Caye Caulker was the place to go, and by that afternoon I found my self on the ¨Quiet Caye where the backpackers go.¨ The boat ride out was 30 minutes and cost $7.50.

Caye Caulker

Is indeed a restful place, with days spent doing water sports or lazing in the sun, and nights spent at restaurants and bars to keep it interesting. Prices weren't to bad, my cheap room was $15 per night with shared bath, and I ate fish one night and curry conch the next for about $10 each. The bad news is that drinks were expensive, beers costing $3-4 each and mixed drinks $5-8. Also the cost of going on excursions in the water adds up. My expenses shot up from $50 to $100 per day.

I had a few drinks at the Bar by the Split. This is a channel which divides Caye Caulker into a north and south island. Apparently there was always a channel there, but the last hurricane deepened it. Most people live on the south island. The north island is swampy with mangrove trees.

I looked at several cheap hotels before selecting Marians Place. It is your basic wood plank rooms set on stilts above the ground. It has a ceiling fan to keep me cool and a clean bed to sleep in.

Everyone has dinner at Willies Bar at least once. Free rum punches and your choice of conch, fish, chicken or pork.

Downtown Caye Caulker

All for less than $10, you can't go wrong. I arrived half way through happy hour and was worried I wouldn't get a drink. No worries, Willie brought a couple more pitchers out for me. We sat at picnic tables with the darkness softly lit by overhead lights. I had the curried conch with vegetables and rice, it was excellent. The fish looked good too,

Languages

People are laid back here. Belize time is a half hour later than scheduled. I had read that Belize was popular because English is the official language. That isn't quite true. While most people speak English, a lot of people on the coast also speak Garifuna with each other, and many of the inland people speak Spanish or Mayan. There is a large population of black people called Garifunas, and they speak their own language and have their own culture. Even the regular Caribbean speech patterns can be hard to understand. So now I have to master two more languages.

Snorkeling

I took a snorkeling excursion to Hol Chan in front of Ambergris Caye. This marine reserve is protected from fishing. It is one of the few places where I have seen boats chum fish for the tourists. As a result the fish are very friendly, as soon as the engine stops they swim around the boat. I saw lots of manta rays, groupers, a sea turtle, and two large nursery sharks.

In one spot I counted 10 rays. The guides would get into the water with the rays, and while feeding them a fish, grab their fins and gently hold them, while we touched the ray.

Caye Caulker - Are you ready to Party?

The rays would allow themselves to be held for over a minute.

The turtle was very friendly. He kept circling and swimming right past our group. After all the effort I went to in the Galapagos Islands to swim with turtles, now I had one that wanted to swim with me! The only other fish I wanted to swim with was a shark, but unfortunately the two nursery sharks ate our chum and swam away as soon as our fins hit the water.

This was the best snorkeling trip I have ever been on!

Raggamuffin Sail Tours

While I was walking around Caye Caulker I noticed that Raggamuffin had a three day sail down the Cayes to Placencia. We would sail, fish and snorkel during the day, and sleep in tents on a Caye at night. It was about $100 per day, and that was in my budget so I signed on.

This was the beginning of three pleasant, sunny days of sailing. It was so warm that I wore swim shorts and tee shirt the whole time. Our captain and crew (Jerome, Kevin and Adrian) spoke their own garifuna patter among themselves, even when I knew what they were doing I couldn't understand them (more to the right, now throw the anchor in). But they spoke English to us.

We camped on Pelican Caye (normally Rendezvous but we switched) and Tobacco Caye, and snorkeled at Goff Caye and South Water Caye.

On the first night we slept on a small secluded island. It was perhaps 100 yards long and wide, with a few small palm trees and a palapa hut. No bathroom, we were told to use the bushes or the ocean instead.

Raking seaweed for recycling

Kevin the first mate, had told us we shouldn't put the rain flys on the tent as it blocked ventilation and we would get to hot. We broke out the rum punch and had a nice dinner of fresh barracuda. As we lolled on the sand, or swam in the warm ocean, it was wonderful to imagine living here on your own island.

That night we were sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows (Fact: Central American marshmallows don't burn easily like American ones) and telling stories, when a few rain drops splashed down. Thus began a hilarious scramble to put our rain flys on in the dark. The tents were not symmetrical so even though you could try a half dozen different ways to put the rain fly on, it only fit one way. It was pitch black and the storm went from nothing to full intensity in one minute flat, then pounded on us for 10 minutes and stopped. By the time we got our rain flys on we were all soaked, and then we didn't need it anymore. Half of us regrouped at the fire and drank the last of the rum punch while the other half went to bed.

The next morning after breakfast we learned the truth about our small deserted island. A launch pulled up next to us and began unloading huge rock stadium speakers, amplifiers, and a generator to run the whole damn thing. The cruise ships would be sending 200 or 300 people over for a party. Apparently the island is heavily used every day by the tour industry, but we were able to slip one night in when they weren't using it. As the Ragga King pulled away, the amplified voice of Bob Marley could be heard singing ¨We be Jamming, Jamming,Jamming.¨

I can tell you now that we received great service from all the crew.

New and old

Yet one can not help notice that they gave the single gals special attention - and those gals loved it.

The second night was spent on Tobacco Caye, there were lots of cabins and people on it. Due to there being water and facilities we all got a shower, and we had an actual bathroom to use. The captain arranged a birthday party for a lady from Ireland. He found a garifuna band that played African drums and sang. After dinner and cake we all had a grand time dancing. The captain even did a special garifuna dance with lots of foot stomping as he moved quickly back and forth across the floor.

Our last day on the Ragga King was a time for reflection, or perhaps we were just hung over. We got to do two snorkels, and after lunch they broke out the remaining rum punch. They had run out of ice the night before and the warm punch was barely drinkable. Those people who braved a cup of it quickly fell asleep in the sun as we sailed to our finish at Placencia.

Overall this was a wonderful trip that I would recommend to anyone.

Placencia

Billed as the Caye you can drive to, it is a long sandy spit. There is a lot of small hotels and restaurants here. One side is white sandy beaches. The other side is mangroves that developers are filling and shaping into long fingers with houses, and water in between for boats and marinas. Everyone goes to Barefoot Bar and Tipsy Tuna at night. Maybe it is a little too small, but it seems like a fun place. Prices for food and beer are high, just like Alaska. My room was $35 for a double with private bath, I could have paid $30 for a single but the room was very small.

We met up with the crew of Raggamuffin for more rounds of drinks. Then they were off to bring the boat back to Caye Caulker, a 12-14 hour trip.

Corozal

I spent one night in Corozal, 8 km below the Mexican border. It is a quiet town that I liked, but no sand beaches there. It is a little to quiet for me, there was no one at the bar I stopped to have a drink at. Basically they don't have a tourist trade there. I had one cheap bar dinner of steak for $10, and another expensive lunch at a Chinese restaurant for $12. Hotel rooms can be found for around $20 per night.

Next stop Mexico!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Two nurse sharks	Our gaff rigged sailboat	Another sunny day	Camping in Paradise
Camping	Come on in, the water is warm	Jerome, Adrian and Kevin on the Ragga King	Time for a swim
Another hard day	Conch shell	Flowers along the path	Happy hour at Barefoot Bar and the Tipsy Tuna
Beach at Placencia	New developments on fingers of land	Space Monkey in Placencia	I counted 27 sailboats anchored in Placencia

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