While I was glad to see Placencia again, I found myself in a strange funk about the place. I think I knew why, but I didn’t want it to be. See, this is where I was 2 years ago to this day. That was when Pop died, and I received the inevitable but nonetheless devastating news. Things went black for me in Placencia after that. Yeah, I knew for weeks Pop was on his deathbed, and ready to let go at any time. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier.
After getting back to Placencia after going to Belize City with Sjelle, I felt the urgency even more to try to get out of there as soon as possible. The plan was to put out some flyers to line up some crew and passengers who wanted a ride to Livingston or the Bay Islands. But the weather was simply atrocious, and it set me back almost a week. One front after another passed, and it just became more and more frustrating.
Luckily, the last few days there, I was able to meet up with a nice group of people who kind of intermingled together in Placencia. There was Ailbhe and Becky who had been traveling together for a few days. Ailbhe hails from Dublin, and Becky from my old turf, SoCal. Which was nice, because we were able to talk about our familiar locales, sushi places, etc. Then there was Tony and Tina, a newlywed couple from Colorado. Tina was one of those few people who left me in absolute stitches. And there was Kathy, from Canada. She has been backpacking solo all over Belize and Costa Rica, looking for a future “home”. One of the potential “gringo invaders” I so cringe about? Perhaps but still, nice enough…
Anyways, we all had a great sunday night over drinks at the bar at the Tipsy Tuna, a local beachside joint. There was live reggae, and a very festive crowd. We had some good fun that night, first at the Tuna, then on the back of someone’s SUV that gave us a lift down the road to another joint after the Tuna shut down. Then we ended up hanging out on the beach. Amidst the many drinks we had that night, Ailbhe and Becky tried to push forward the idea of doing a daysail on Andiamo the next day. I checked the skies that night, and despite my severely clouded judgement, I sensed that we’d have a good full day for a change. So I was all for it. Tony and Tina signed on, as well as Kathy.
The original idea was to meet up at 8am the next day. But I interjected that due to the vast quantities of liquor we collectively consumed that night, maybe a little later would be better. So we made it 9:30, which was definitely better for me. Since I was still feeling all the cuba libres from the night before!
The weather did turn out to be outstanding that morning. After making a quick run for provisioning, we all met at the dock and headed to Andiamo. Shortly after, we set sail for Laughing Bird Cay, about 10 miles away. The weather was indeed perfect. Almost too perfect. Everyone was on deck, taking it all in. It was a first time on a sailboat for most of them. It was a nice upwind sail to the cay. We swam and snorkeled, and had lunch in the cockpit. We only had a couple hours there before having to head back before dark. So after a couple hours, we untied from the mooring, and headed back to Placencia on what was an almost perfect broad reach sail back. Unfortunately, we got shaken down by some Belizean “park rangers” who demanded that we pay $10 US PER PERSON for our stay at the cay, which amounted to about 2 hours total. It was pretty outrageous, and I got a little pissed off that they waited until we left the mooring to come shake us down. Why didn’t they come to us when we were tied up? Idiots. Oh well, I made my feelings clear, we begrudgingly paid the money, and kept sailing.
Anyways, with that little snafu behind us, we made it back to Placencia in time for dusk. After setting anchor, we all headed in and got some dinner at a nice little creole restaurant in town. Tony and Tina bid their goodbyes since they had to go retrieve some luggage. Kathy left the next day. Ailbhe and Becky were around the next day, and since the weather was crappy all day, we opted to head to Andiamo and watch dvd’s. Then Becky left the next day, and it was Ailbhe and me slamming down Cuba Libres before, during and after dinner.
The next day, the weather started looking up. Mitzy (of the world-famous GC gang) emailed me to let me know that she would be in Belize City and can come crew with me back to Honduras over the weekend. It worked out nicely, because the weather was set to open up starting last friday. So I told her the green light to come over. She landed in Placencia on Thursday. The next day, Andiamo set sail.
We set off on an excellent night sail after a ridiculous checkout process in Big Creek. Turns out the customs officer just decided to go home early (like 2:00 PM early) and wouldn’t be back until the following Monday. So we couldn’t check out with customs, and immigration was also a painful wait. After getting stamped with just immigration. I opted to just leave Belize. I wasn’t going to wait all weekend just to be stamped out by customs and lose the weather.
Bureaucracy annoyances notwithstanding, we made it to Puerto Escondido the next morning. It’s one of my favorite spots. While entering the harbor, I noticed the throttle lever was sticking pretty badly. After turning the boat away from the rocky entrance, we pulled out the jib, so we can move away from the rocky cliffs. After opening up the throttle lever, I found the problem. The control cable that controls the engine’s gears was bent. It had seized up and the force of me trying to get the boat out of reverse bent it big time. And I didn’t have a replacement, which I usually carry.
I figured it was ok to enter Puerto Escondido. The anchorage was wide open, no other boats there. So we went ahead and went in, and dropped the hook. I just had to run down to the engine compartment to manually put the boat in reverse or neutral. It worked out fine. We spent one beautiful night there under the stars and among the howler monkeys and toucans. It’s truly a special place. The next morning, we pulled up the anchor and headed out.
While we had an absolutely clear and sunny day, there was little if any wind. Then when the wind finally came, it was right on our nose as we tried to make way for La Ceiba. So we had to motorsail most of the way in because I wanted to get in well before sunset, considering I was going to have to finagle Andiamo to the dock. We made it to La Ceiba and docked with no problems, with Mitzy manning the transmission controls in lieu of the cables.
So today, I’m in La Ceiba, and I’m thinking about Pop. I’m glad I made it out of Placencia before today. I just didn’t want to be in the same place I was when I got the news of his passing 2 years ago. I’m not sure if it made the day any easier for me or not, I just know I’m glad I didn’t have to spend it there.
