Now This Must Be What They Mean By Cruising!

Up with the sun as usual, we left behind our lapsed paradise island of Southeastern Cay on Glover’s Reef and headed back west to the mainland.

Heading almost downwind on the easterlies we surfed the waves and snuck behind Glover’s Reef in search of some illusive respite from the swells. 6.5 knots with just the jib!! Now that’s sailing… we eventually added in the mainsail and maintained our speed as we headed for gap in the reef between Southwater Cay and Carrie Bow Cay (who named these places?? I mean what was with the dive site off Ambergris – Victoria’s Canyon… are they kidding??).

Still trying to surf the somewhat erratic waves… pushing the bow this way then that… we spotted the tiny, low-lying cays and pointed the boat as best we could for the gap between them. It certainly wasn’t the scariest of cuts, but we kept a close eye on the breaking reef on either side and headed in. Even before we had passed through the cut the seas began to calm… got to love the shelter of the reef! We continued to follow the plotted course (from our trusty Rauscher guide) but started to get a little suspicious of the heading as we were instructed by the GPS to turn towards the pale green patch or water to the south that clearly indicated a sandbar… well she got us here… close enough!

Sailing inside the reef was so different… passing numerous tiny… and I mean tiny – just a matter of feet in length – cays, cruising gently through channels, while keeping a keen eye on the lightening waters that cover the nearby corals and shallow sands.



A few adjustments to the course here and there to avoid what could have been shifting sandbars or mis-directions and we continued to fly downwind, leaving behind cays and finally the coast of mainland Belize (a new thing for us!) until at only 2pm, instead of the predicted 5pm, we arrived at the skinny channel between the rustic, lazy beach town of Placencia and it’s Cay next door.

Some of the easiest anchoring so far in our trip, left us with plenty of daylight to head ashore and check our what was doing in our new temporary home.

Headed for Paradise...

Glover’s Cay

We woke up early, after a rough night, with two choices… to find a better spot and chill for the day, or head out into the rough, open sea for a couple of hours before reaching the shelter of another Cay… well, as Tadd put it, “it could get worse!”

That clinched it… keep moving! Rough? Yes, a little. But not a bad angle on the waves, so we weren’t shook around too much and the strong winds certainly make some fun sailing. And after all, from what we read in our guidebook, we were headed for paradise! A nice resort, with excellent facilities, amazing diving, kayaking, fishing and snorkeling… and most importantly the quintessential white sand beach, shaded by coconut palms that swish soporifically in the wind. We could spend the night… the next day… and if they had internet…. Perhaps even a couple of days!! It sounded like the perfect place to hang our hammocks and relax.

CRACK! “What was that??!!” I asked. “Just a wave hitting the dinghy,” Tadd replied calmly… “Really? Oh, Ok.” Followed a few moment later by… “oh crap”… not just a wave after all… one of the pulleys holding the dingy off the back of the boat on the davits had gone… luckily we had tied the dinghy securely with several lines to stop it swinging… one of the lines had stopped it dropping all the way to the sea, while the other end was still hoisted high on the back… now that could have been SO MUCH worse…. Feeeewww!!

Back on track until we could see the tiny cay from a long way off… unfortunately the it was almost directly to windward so, a few tacks, and we finally gave in and turned the engine on. It looked so wonderfully enticing!

Using our trusty sailing guidebook (I think we’re getting better at reading the hand drawn charts and translating them to what we can actually see!) we made our way through the gap in the reef and wiggled between coral heads and sand banks to get up close to Southeastern Cay of Glover’s Reef.

Awwww… well it still looked like the promised palm-fringed paradise… but a definitively out-of-season paradise…. No umbrella-ed cocktails for us.

We relaxed with cocktails on Third Aye after anchoring in the wonderfully calm lee of the cay and decided to chill on the boat for the night, leaving the exploring for the following day.

The morning was filled with repairs and domestic chores… so after lunch we stuffed books, glasses and hammocks in a dry bag, filled a flask and snorkeled our way to shore. The caretaker came down to say hello and we learned that the owner hadn’t opened the resort for 3 years and was supposedly going to do some rebuilding, but there was no sign of anything happening soon for the imminent Caribbean season…. What a shame… the island already had a slight neglected feel to it.

In any case, we found a few appropriately shading palm trees and slung our hammocks… a perfect spot! Well… almost… if it weren’t for the sand flies… strangely, they seemed to lose interest in us mostly once we were established in our hammocks, so we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon reading.