Belize: Blue Water- Green Jungle

Belize: Blue Water, Green Jungle

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I’m kind of macho. I’d like to think that I’m a sensitive nineties guy who can gush at a Meryl Streep movie without feeling like a complete boob. But, no, I’m the guy who, when aground on a reef in a force 10 storm, would emphatically decline any offers of assistance, because, by God, I can do it myself! Thus, my friends found themselves wondering if the body snatchers had swapped my brain for the Alan Alda model when I booked a crewed charter aboard a 45 foot cruising cat in Belize. "What? You’re not skippering the boat? Are you taking estrogen pills? Is this a mid-life crisis?" I politely informed them that it was none of their darned business if I was taking estrogen pills, and that doing a crewed charter, instead of renting a bare boat, was definitely "the ticket" in the special case of Belize. As it turns out, I was absolutely right!

Belize is a wondrous place. It is full of uninhabited islands, virgin reefs, deep jungles, exotic animals, and a history that dates back to the dawn of civilization. This part of the world has fascinated me for years and I was eager to explore the islands and jungles of the ancient Mayas. When I looked into doing a bare boat in Belize I discovered that I would be restricted to sailing inside the barrier reef. Although the Belizian barrier reef is the second largest in the world, this limited cruising ground just wouldn’t cut it, since the world class sailing is amongst the atolls outside the barrier reef. Fortunately, a quick check of the charter companies on the Multihulls Magazine web site (www.hypermax.com /multihullsmag) yielded Fantasea Charters and the crewed 45 foot custom catamaran Stingray. The crew of Mike and Donna Hill would be most pleased to take us to the atolls and would even arrange for jungle accommodations and jeep rentals. Macho man that I am, I was sold.

Belize is off the beaten path, and only Continental and TACA airlines fly there. My wife, Erinann, and I took TACA. The following week our charter buddies Mark and Arlene Magallanes took Continental. Based upon our collective experience, if you value amenities take TACA. TACA is a Central American airline that treats you like royalty, with free booze, free movies, great food. On Continental you were lucky if you got a Fresca and a bag of peanuts. I’m beginning to wonder if the deregulation of the airlines was a good idea.

I am very well aware that this is a sailing magazine, but, please forgive me for taking you on a tour of the land and culture of Belize for a moment. To visit Belize and not experience the jungles and Mayan ruins would be like going to bed just before a gorgeous sunset. With that in mind, upon our arrival we rented a four-wheel drive from Crystal Auto Rentals. Esoteric that it may seem, this is important data, since Crystal is the only auto rental company in Belize that will allow you to drive into Guatemala, and you will most definitely want to drive into Guatemala. Oh, one other thing, bring a flash light. (Trust me.)

Driving the jungle tracks of Belize is tantamount to flying a spinnaker in a 25 knot wind. It is thrilling, dangerous, and full of adventure. Within a day of our arrival we found ourselves zooming along a rutted jungle track to a lost Mayan city. We discovered that maintaining a speed of forty miles and hour allowed us to fly completely over the two foot deep ruts and only occasionally resulted in skidding sideways on the seemingly impassable curves. I must now credit my wife with being the bravest person I know, for quietly accepting that her juvenile husband was acting rationally by keeping us airborne half the time while giggling like a school girl. (In keeping with my macho image and all.) Her tolerance is especially noteworthy, since she was five months pregnant and only barely avoided doing back flips into the rear seat on the big bumps. After traveling fifty miles through the rain forest we arrived at the ancient ruins of Caracol and discovered that we were the only two people in a city that once held 150,000 Mayans. (Did I mention that Belize was off the beaten track?)

There are scholars that claim the ancient Mayans are descendants of Atlantis. Perhaps, it is so. It is indisputably the case that massive pyramids rose hundreds of feet above the Belizian jungles at the same time that the Pharoes of Egypt were in their formative years. Did the Mayans and Egyptians share the secrets of pyramid building via a transatlantic trade route in ancient sailing craft? One can only speculate, but it is certainly an odd coincidence that two civilizations half a world away should begin building pyramids at roughly the same time in history.

Safe to say, we felt like Indiana Jones as we wandered about the partially excavated city of Caracol. The jungle was so thick that you could only see small parts of the city at any one time. Climbing to the top of the highest pyramid, we looked out over the jungle valley to the west, as parrots screamed at us from the tree tops. We watched the sun setting low over the lush green canopy that stretched across rugged hills and imagined ourselves to be high priests performing a sacrifice. (In truth, I only squashed a smallish bug with a stick. Hey, we were the only humans there and my wife would have been quite cranky had I sacrificed her so early in the trip.) Just before departing, we discovered some recently excavated burial tombs. Our trusty flashlight came in handy as we wandered the musty chambers searching for mummies, but found only bats. (They do have Vampire bats though. Cool.)

For the next several days we enjoyed the jungles of Belize while staying at wonderfully rustic lodges like Five Sisters and DuPloys. Being a former British colony, the official language is English, so getting directions to remote lodges is pretty easy. The jungle lodges in the mountains of Belize are generally on rivers. They offer the adventurous traveler spectacular birds, rare plants, exotic jungle swimming holes, and the chance to sleep in a comfortable bed under a ceiling fan and a mosquito net. One thing they usually don’t have is lots of electricity. As a rule, the power goes off at night to give the generator a rest. No room lights, no path lights, no nothing. It’s dark; it’s a jungle. In case you don’t own a pair of night vision goggles, you just might want a flashlight. Oh yeah, there are caves, lots of really neat caves, with stalactites and underground rivers. Make it a good flashlight!

Our next stop was in Guatemala at the mystic Mayan city of Tikal. Now, the guide books insist that the frontier road from Belize to Guatemala is pretty bad and that bandits are a real problem. Chrystal auto rental, on the other hand, assured us that the road was just fine and that bandits were rare. Heck, there hadn’t been a holdup in weeks. They were absolutely right, the road was better than most and not a bandit in sight.

With our new jeep buddies, James and Jetta Wilder, we checked into a jungle lodge at the edge of the ancient city. Tikal is much more commercialized than Caracol, but it is also very thoroughly excavated and ranks as one of the most spectacular ruins in the world. This vast city is now home to jillions of intriguing animals like Jaguars, Toucans, Green parrots, Howler monkeys, Spider monkeys, Kuatamudis, and (my favorite) Vampire bats. When we first explored Tikal, we roamed the well marked paths excitedly pointing out the lost world pyramids, birds, and monkeys. By the second day we were almost jaded by the absolute profusion of exotica. Yea, yea, yea, another Toucan, seen tons of ‘em. Monkeys, got ‘em in the trees above my cabana. A 200 foot pyramid? We’ve already climbed five of those. Show me a Jaguar. Now that would be worth getting out the binoculars! (I told you that you’d want to go to Guatemala.)

After returning from Guatemala we met up with our fellow charter mates, Mark and Arlene, and jumped aboard Stingray, the charter catamaran owned and crewed by Mike and Donna Hill. (Remember, this is an article about a sailing charter.) Stingray charters out of Moho Cay in Belize City. If you find yourself looking for a marina in Belize you really should pop in, because, yep, you guessed it, there’s no where else to go. Moho Cay is the only real marina in all of Belize. The only other boat accommodations are on private docks exposed to the ocean or just plain anchored out. (Hey, Belize is not Miami, okay?) Moho Cay is a small island with water taxi service to Belize city. The marina is quite small by US standards, but sports a pleasant little hotel and one of the better restaurants in Belize.

Now, I’ve done lots of cruising in my own boat, and a fair bit of bare boating, so I’m used to the idea of taking a little time to get underway on a week long cruise. That was not the case with Stingray. We showed up, tossed our bags in the two double cabins, stowed our remaining gear in the two single cabins and were underway inside of ten minutes. About five minutes later Donna was getting me a cold Belikan beer (the local brew) and Mike was navigating us to our first night’s anchorage. Both Mike and Donna were very relaxed, friendly, and competent sailors; three required qualities in the charter business. I was starting to like this crewed chartered thing already; it was like being on a friend’s boat, only you didn’t have to help with the dishes.

Mike and Donna got into the charter business like many people, they jumped in feet first. They started in Colorado, where Mike owned a liquor store and Donna owned an Italian restaurant. Then, in 1990 they decided to pitch it all for a sailing charter business. Never mind the fact that they didn’t know the first thing about cruising catamarans, much less chartering. (Come on now, how many of you have dreamed of doing that, but just couldn’t leave the paycheck?) They went to Florida and purchased a 45 foot Swedish built custom cat named "Scilla", and re-christened her "Stingray". Since Colorado is noted more for its snow bunnies than its sailing schools, they pretty much learned which part of the boat is supposed to point forward, as they sailed to their new home in Belize. Many moons and lots of charters later, we were enjoying their intimate knowledge of every cubby hole and snorkeling spot in the far western Caribbean.

Stingray is a very fine racer/cruiser design. She was successfully raced by her previous owners in England during the 80’s and was considered one of the flag ships of her class. With the three quarters bridge deck, she slices nicely through the Caribbean waves, providing a fast but smooth sail. As the cruise progressed I began to see that boat speed was important for the charter business. Speed helps you expand your potential charter area and still make for a leisurely day. Thus, the beauty of charter catamarans, lots of amenities and plenty of speed.

Okay, I’m now going to spare you the blow by blow of each pampered day aboard Stingray, because it would probably make you ill to see the depths of luxury to which, a supposedly macho guy, is capable of sinking. Suffice it say, that a typical day (in fact every day) started with fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh fruit, pancakes, eggs, that kind of stuff. Then, we’d go scuba diving and snorkeling. Lunch would usually come under sail, with Donna just whipping up some cheeseburgers, fresh pizza, whatever. (I swear on Jimmy Buffets guitar, it’s true.) Maybe a couple of Beliken beers would slip in there somehow. Next, we would anchor at some isolated little cove at one of the atolls, without another boat in sight and we’d go diving and snorkeling. (Again!) I think a couple more cold Beliken’s might have disappeared. About sunset Donna would treat us to the kind of dinner you would expect from the successful restauranteur that she is; fresh fish, shrimp, steaks, the works. Cases of Beliken would unexpectedly vanish. (I’m calling the X-Files first port we come to.) The evening would end with Mark, Mike, and me playing guitars on deck while Erinann and Arlene battled it out in a game of Scrabble. Wow, what a day in paradise!

At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, none of that indulgence was the reason we decided to take a crewed charter. The point of not bare boating was to get out to the atolls, and it was a wise call. During our seven day cruise, two days were spent inside the barrier reef and five were spent at the two Belize atolls,Terneffe Island and Light House Reef. The difference between the atolls and the barrier islands was like night and day.

Don’t get me wrong. Belize’s barrier islands were very nice and reminded me of Eluthera in the Bahamas. Lots of little islands in very sheltered water and mangroves everywhere. The snorkeling was typical of the Caribbean and Bahamas, the water was shallow; but mostly pretty clean, and there were nice sunsets. It is truly a wonderful place to sail, and, if we had bare boated, I’m quite confident that we would have been very satisfied with the barrier islands.

Belize’s atolls, on the other hand, tugged at my memories of the Tuomotos in the south Pacific. Deep turquoise water rises from a thousand feet to thirty feet in a dozen boat lengths. The water is so clear, as you glide over the underwater cliff face, you can watch it climb toward the surface from a hundred and fifty feet down. The diving is world class. The Red-footed booby birds outnumber the people a hundred to one, and the atoll’s lagoons offer protected anchorage in shallow sandy holding ground.

Both Mike and Donna are certified dive masters and Stingray carries sufficient scuba tanks for about five two-person dives. We also managed to get air refills at Turneffe Flats fishing and diving resort, one of the rare commercial enterprises in the atolls. Erinann and Arlene would snorkel while Mark and I would go diving at both Turneffe Island and Long Cay at Light House Reef. The diving alone was more than worth the price of admission. We would dive the atoll walls, which start at thirty feet and go down as deep as you dare. Visibility approached an amazing 200 feet. It was honestly the most spectacular condensation of corals, sponges, and reef fish I have ever experienced in my 23 years of diving. The diversity and density of coral and sponge types astounded me. I saw things I had never seen before; like free swimming moray eels (not the trained kind), Logger Head turtles as big as a man, and clown crabs smaller than your finger nail. (I was afraid to let my wife know how spectacular the diving really was since she missed out due to her pregnancy!) The snorkeling was also fabulous. Erinann, however, declared that next time I could have the kid and she would go diving. (Amazing, spectacular, astounding, fabulous - sounds more like Hollywood hype than an actual place. But it’s real all right!)

The islands in the atolls are your typical palm and mangrove islands of the Caribbean. One of their more unusual features is the distinct lack of people. The most interesting of the bunch is Half Moon Cay at the south end of Light House Reef. It is a real "Gilligans Island" kind of place and is one of only two nesting grounds for Red-footed boobies in the world. The island is a bird sanctuary for thousands of boobies, frigates, and ninety-eight other bird species. We spent an afternoon traipsing about the island and stared at nesting boobies just a few feet away. They had absolutely no fear of us, since the sanctuary is carefully protected by the very environmentally conscious Belize government. On the whole, I would say that Belize is the most environmentally savvy country I have ever visited. Almost everyone we met was acutely aware that the future of Belize was in its unspoiled natural beauty and they were determined to keep it as pristine as possible. This is a rare attitude in a third world country and the Belizians could teach us Americans a thing or two.

Our trip ended just as the last of the Beliken beer disappeared under suspicious circumstances. (Burp.) Inevitably we said our good-byes and trundled back to our ordinary little workaday worlds, with our little business meetings, and our big traffic jams. But this macho guy will go back to Belize someday and you can bet that I’ll be carrying a mighty fine flashlight.

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