Been in Placencia for a few days now. Only to encounter some really crazy weather since getting here. After our first day here, which was sunny and nice, there has been nothing but nasty squalls, heavy rain and gusting winds. While it’s been no problem on the boat, it’s been rather difficult to do anything ashore.
Last night, we had such a really bad squall. I think the wind gusts hit 40 knots. And one of the Moorings boats that were anchored in the harbor (they have a base here, so there are a lot of their charter boats anchored here) came LOOSE and careened through most of the anchorage, ending up smacking up to another Moorings catamaran.
It was kinda scary, because the boat moved through that anchorage like there was no anchor or chain whatsoever being dragged with it in the water. It was surreal. After the storm blew over, Sjelle and I dinghied over to the boats to see what happened. The boat that came loose appeared to have reset its anchor, but now it was right up next to the catamaran. It had a couple of fenders on it, so Sjelle climbed onboard and put them in between the two boats to keep them from chafing each others’ hulls too badly.
This morning, we had to make an early morning bus trip (Nooooo!) to Belize City. Alas, it was time for Sjelle to make her way to Cancun so she can catch her flight back to Denmark. Needless to say, it was a melancholy day and not just because of the weather. Even the cats know she’s gone, and they’re not happy about it either.
Sjelle has become a natural onboard Andiamo, and a wonderful partner in crime. She’s been on and off Andiamo over the past year, even a little more. We’ve had some crazy adventures and misadventures both with Andiamo and her own (now soon to be former) boat. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but somehow we’ve always managed to keep things fun and interesting.
I do suspect Andiamo has not seen the last of Sjelle yet, especially when you consider all the crap she left on the boat! Hopefully after she gets her yoga instructor career on track, there will be more adventures, and misadventures. In the meantime, I hope Sjelle has a safe journey in India this spring, where she will become some kind of “Yoga Guru”.
So now, the name of the game is get caught up on a little boatwork, and try to round up some passengers for the trip to Honduras and/or Guatemala. After that, try to keep with the schedule. If, that is, I decide to keep up with it.
And another tidbit of news I just got. I heard via a friend in La Ceiba that an attorney I talked to about the big bad bus robbery we experienced a month ago TODAY, found out some interesting news from the bus line. It appears, though I don’t have any real details yet, that they CAUGHT THE GUYS WHO HELD UP THE BUS! And, they even recovered some of the stolen goods. While this is welcome news, I will remain cautious until I get some more facts from the attorney. Hope to hear from him via email soon. I can only hope that this is indeed true, and maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get some of our stuff recovered.
We can only hope.