You got to belize it!

In Mexico I met a lot of people who had come from Belize and had really enjoyed there time there so I decided to go even though it wasn't a country that I had been planning on visiting. I took a 5 hour bus to Chetumal in the south of Mexico and from there a 2 hour boat taxi to Belize. First stop was San Pedro for imigration and then onto Caye Caulker.

Belize Immigration

Caye Caulker met my expectations on what I thought a caribbean island would be like although I was a little surprised to find that they had a local credit union.

Belize Credit Union

The hostel we stayed in was probably the most chilled out and relaxed hostel I've stayed in to date. They didn't do reservations. We were told that we had to pay for our first night and until we decided to leave the bed was ours. We'd pay the balance when we leave. There was 2 kayaks and about 8 bicycles that you were free to use.

View from the kayak

Strangely all the showers, taps, and toilets used salt water, very strange but seemed to be the case in most places on the island. Here's the view from the back door of the hostel.

View from the back door!

The sailing trip that almost didn't happen and then didn't happen

After Cuba I returned to Cancun and took a ferry to Isla Mujeres. The reason was to meet up with Ivo, an Austrian guy that I met through couchsurfing. He has been sailing around the Caribbean for over 2 years and 6 months ago he bought his own boat, 'Imago'. He sailed solo from Miami to Cuba and then onto Mexico. Now he was planning a 2-3 week trip from Mexico to Belize and finishing in Rio Dulce in Guatemala. He was looking for some crew for this trip, well i think more so for some company as he was perfectly capable of doing the trip solo. I randomly met a welsh guy from couchsurfing in Cancun so both of us went to meet Ivo to see if he thought we were suitable candidates for crew. After a few days getting to know each other and Imago we decided we'd make the trip together. The next few days we spent preparing for the trip, getting to know Imago, cooking dinner on board and generally just hanging out.

Dinner on Imago

Sailing 101

There were 3 other boats at the marina planning a similar trip so the plan was to sail south together. Then we encountered a problem, the weather forecast predicted a change in the winds over the next few days. Generally this wouldn't be a problem but we only had a 3 week time slot to make this trip. Ivo was due to fly to Cuba in April where he would sail another boat to Guatemala for its owner. He couldn't risk being stuck at sea and missing this flight so to our disappointment we had to cancel the trip.

Sunset at the Marina

Two days later I was on the ferry to Cancun from where I planned to go north to Holbox when I got an email from Ivo saying that the trip was back on if I was still interested. So back to Isla Mujeres, more preparations, checking maps, checking GPS, checking the weather forecast and buying supplies.

Map Time

On the morning the March 22nd we set sail hoping to reach Cozumel that night. Sailing was smooth even though we were going against the tide and against the wind but the problem was we were going at about 3 knots where we needed to be at 4-5. Otherwise we'd be night sailing to Cozumel. Then disaster struck, our sail ripped. This sounds worse that it was, it wasn't that bad more so the consequences for our trip were bad. There was a part of the sail that had previously been repaired and now it had ripped. The problem for us was that now we couldn't use the full sail so we were now down to 2 knots which meant we'd never make it to Guatemala in time, plus not a great omen for a sailing trip to rip the sail 3 hours into a 3 week trip!


So once again we decided to abandon the trip and make our way back to Isla Mujeres. We cooked some burgers and played the German version of settlers. My sailing career had ended before it started. Yo no soy marinero.

Imago minus her sail