Another Week IN Belize

Were still in Belize and it’s hot. Remember if you stay near the ocean it’s better but if it’s where you can’t feel the trade winds, it’s hard to deal with. We went to see a Garifuna celebration last week. I was disappointed. Pam and I were expecting to see African dress people and maybe a pig or two being cooked, maybe in a pit. What it was, it was just a lot of black people walking around drinking and talking loud.

Local Garifue event

Local event

To tell the truth it was a little intimating being the only white people there. Belize is made up of lot of races from the white Mennonites, Latinos, Mayans, Chinese to the US expats coming from the USA bringing their money down here. Garifunas are people that are the direct decedents of slaves off ship wrecks or ran away from farms. I talked to some people that live in the Garifue village after we came back and are Graifue themselves, they said, the Garifue speak a language of their own and they just like to talk loud and this was made louder by alcohol. We made a few pictures and left. This week too I built some trashcan covers for the marina here to help with the rent. Building something in fine wood is to me like listening to classical music, here it’s a challenge but I enjoyed it.

Thrash Can boxes under construction

Finished product

The wood is very heavy and called cabbage bark. Everything in Belize cost more than it does in the US, “Everything”. The locals make a lot less than the US and how do they make out? They just do without. We are using borrowed tools now after all ours were stole here in Belize and are enjoying being here waiting on a better time to leave to cross the Gulf. There is still lots of villages here tourist never see where they live with out power, we gave the guard here a Luci light for his house. It’s a blow up light, solar powered that gives off a lot of light. When you’re not using them you can deflate them and store them. They take up very little room, they’re cheap maybe 12 dollars in the US. He was amazed. Most sailors have them stored in their dinks. Most people that come here want to see the beach, have drinks at the bar, go do stuff in the beautiful water here and go back home telling people how wonderful Belize is. That is why most of this is so expensive here along the coast. We are now enjoying seeing the other part of Belize. We will show you more of that part of Belize next week. This is what Pam and I dreamed off when we built the Pamela Ann and now were living it. We are finding ways to mange our money to just make it here. It’s all “Just part of the Adventure.”

Grits And Sausage

This week has been busy and hot. Days after a hurricane are always hot. We did something I think we can share that I think was neat this week. We were invited to a breakfast club for breakfast. These people are living here now and are from all over the world. The deal was Pam and I would make home made sausage and grits on the spot. We have a meat grinder and a corn grinder. But where do we find pork like we need and where do we buy corn here? Belize is pocketed with different races of people. It’s not total black. Black people eat more like white people, even the Hispanic here don’t eat like the Hispanic people in Guatemala. Then you have the Mennonites, they all live here in their own little pockets together. We found a cab driver we like here and ask him, he took us to a fruit stand where a women buys corn for herself off a truck that delivers vegetables. Now for the pork, its all frozen here, the fat trimmed and will make you love the USA. People would not buy this long in the US and never at these prices. Always double or “more”. We paid one time over nine dollars US for a pound of bacon or maybe it was 12 oz I know it was in a pack. We set out to grind the corn for grits on our boat because it messy. We just carried the grinder to show them but never took it out. We thawed out the pork and cut it up in chunks, then sprinkled it with our own mixture of ingredients for sausage. Our old Pennington family farm recipe. This is it’s last generation to be used I guess. Our only child has no kids. It turned out dry with out enough fat but every one said it was great. Maybe number one they have never had it done right or they were just being kind. There was not a bite left. That always a good sign. It was Okay to us. To our surprise they eat most of the grits. We served them with butter. The grits were strong with a strong corn taste. The corn that grows down here is not the sweet corn grown in the US and a lot of Europeans won’t even taste any thing made from corn. The say its just for pigs. This maybe interesting to some of our readers, in a pinch, if you just want something with a sausage taste and where your at, there is nothing. In all our travels there has always been chicken. Dee-bone some chicken and with maybe one third more toasted white breads tore up in small chunks, run this through the grinder with every thing mixed up include your sausage ingredients. It’s better that nothing and it’s cheap. If you want to make your own sausage some times. try ground pork from the store, the fatter the better. Remember it takes one third belly fat to make really good sausage, Salt and pepper it with black pepper to your taste. Add sage to the mixture and crushed red pepper to taste. Don’t go crazy with the black pepper, red pepper you have more lee way. Want to start you own recipe start with. One teaspoon of sage, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, one teaspoon red crushed pepper, to a one pound of meat. You can not make sausage without sage. You just have peppered meat. Some people say they like the food where ever they go. I like trying it but it’s Pam’s cooking I love. Remember you carry a little of your world with you if you live on a boat. Our first week back last year when we flew back to the US to ride our motorcycle out west, all of our pictures were of us eating. To all our friends in the US, eat well, we are coming back to join you but until then, The adventure goes on and the search for good food continues.

Making Sausage with our meat grinder from the “Pamela Ann”

Everyone helping their plates.

One of our Canadian friends, Rick says  “Hey, These grits and sausage are  GOOOD!”

We  had hot biscuits,  grits ground fresh ( with lots of butter) sausage gravy, fresh made sausage and eggs. A good way to start the day.

 

 

After “Earl”

In our last blog we were facing another a hurricane. It came and during the night, the wind did blow hard but not much past minimal hurricane strength where we were, I try never to tell people how to do any thing because there is usually more ways to skin a cat than the way I do it. I like manual to go by, printed by engineers. Down here it is mostly the way Grandpa did it with every thing. I offered a ring squeezer to some people rebuilding a motor in Mexico. They were using three screw drivers, two people and an old carpenter’s hammer driving the piston in. Hitting the piston directly with the hammer leaving marks on the pistons. They said their way was the better way. Their Granddaddy had showed them this trick. Here in Belize at the marina where we are now, I did tell people what we think we know about hurricanes and how we prepare for them. Not how they needed to prepare, let them make up their own minds but maybe the people that read our blog would like to know how we “do” prepare for a Hurricane. This is the way we do it, remember Pam and I have road out number 14 now. We uses all the electronic information we can find to predict it’s track, how strong and how fast it’s moving. All low pressures turn counter clockwise. This is very important, with this we can see the direction the wind is going to hit us where ever we are in the path the hurricane takes. If you’re on the outside of the rotation you will only get the wind generally in one direction. Near the eye you can get the wind one way and as it passes it well come from the opposite direction. Very important. If the hurricane is moving fast you can add that to the north quarter and subtract it from the south quarter. If it moving very slow it about the same. If you can understand the direction the wind will take as the hurricane is coming in and leaving as to where you are at. You can get behind something sometimes. What we did here this time. We did this in Southport NC where we built our boat once. Caused a stir there. Chief of police had a little fit. Told us we had to evacuate and get off the boat, we wouldn’t. Lead to a shouting match. “Note this.” In the US,the police will go crazy if they find out your going to stay on your boat. Believe me, we know. Happens every time they know we are there. I told him he needed help taking us off, this didn’t make things any better. Pam told him to go talk to the city lawyer because any interference with the way we protected our only home and lived on full time, we were going to sue. He came back to tell us to wear dog tags to identify the bodies and not to touch the dock until the curfew was over. We would go to jail if we even touched the docks. Believe it or not we were friends with the chief and were after the hurricane, maybe still are if we ever see him again. We were in front of the ice house in the Yacht Basin. It came through and tore up the place,we were fine. Some boats that went down in the CPL canal to tie up were badly damaged. Luck or just staying out of most of the wind laying behind the block building. Every one said We were just lucky. Luck doses have a lot to do with hurricanes. If you are tied up and all predictions are good, your luck will certainty change when some one comes in to where you have prepared so carefully and anchors some big derelict boat out with a clothes line and a cement block, then leaves. The law is happy with them and mad at you because you’re staying trying to take care of your boat, mostly keeping people off your boat taking what they want after the hurricane because of the roads being closed by the police and you can’t get back. Suing anyone for what happens in a Hurricane, forget it. What is it like to be in the direct hit of a bad hurricane? First the bands start coming in with rain and wind. Steadily increasing until the rain is vertical and the wind is screaming. It always takes a long time, hour after hour of incredible wind and rain. When the wind hits about a hundred it make a different sound. Some people say it crackles. You can’t walk in that much wind, maybe you can crawl. I know it hurts and when I have been out checking on our lines for chaffing I do crawl with my back to the wind in a heavy rain coat wrapped with something to keep any thing from flapping. I have heard people say they wear under water glasses. I tried it, didn’t work, head away from the wind it blow them off some what and into the wind I couldn’t see for the rain hitting them at a hundred or more and did I say “it hurts”. I do what I can backward. What do we do during the hurricane? You double tie everything make all the preparation you can and then its wait it out , eat and sleep. You get some what used to it after a while. Pam says I would complain about being hungry with the devil chasing me. This time the devil let us alone and we are safe. As I say a lot, “The adventure goes on.”

This is not pictures of this hurricane. “This one came in the dark. Always makes it worse.” This is one in Southport North Carolina many years ago. It’s hard to see from this picture but the wind was over a hundred MPH here.

We were already living on our boat trying to finish it up, we had not built the rigging yet.

These pictures are from Hurricane Bonnie 1998

Leroy Potter washed the sand out from under the Pamela Ann with a small out board on a little wooden skiff, and got us off three days later. No one charged us anything.

Hurricane “EARL”

For all that follow our blog, “Can you believe this?” Were preparing the Pamela Ann for a hurricane to hit here in Belize. Maybe hitting here after midnight tonight. We are staying on our boat as we always do. This will be number14 for us in our life time. Maybe we can give every one and up date soon as we can. When your dreaming about sailing away, they never say anything about any of this in the magazines you read where its gentle breezes and sunsets. All I can say now is the adventure goes on.

Tying everything down

Hope we are “READY!”

Inland Trip

This week we went to Belize City. It was not what I thought it would be. First I have been in towns with more black people than Belize City has in the US. I have been told that it was a total black city and not friendly. Not true. Every one treated us great. Lot of Hispanics. Smaller than I thought. Cleaner, we enjoyed it. Stores have a Central American feel to it. Went to a cloth store,had a lot of seconds. In the US store owners order what they want to sale, down here they take what they can find to sale. Like I have said Central America, what they can’t sell in the US, a lot of it shows up down hear. Grocery stores had better meats than most of Belize and a lot better than most of Central America have. Finding good meats in Central America has always been a problem. Hard ware stores were a disappointment. Every thing much higher than the prices in the US and what you can buy is limited. Hummingbird highway is a two lane road winding through the country and beautiful but has a lot of small one lane bridges over beautiful small rivers. The Mennonite are interesting here with their horses and buggies. If Pam and I stay here long, we are working some on our boat making repairs. We hope to go back to Belize City and maybe on a bus riding with the locals and just be tourist around town. We want to go see more of the Mennonites and how they live too. Hadn’t had time to just be tourist much after our “Little Mishap” but the adventure goes on.

Vendors on the street selling stuff like all of Central America.

The swing bridge across the little river that separates Belize City.

The Supreme Court Building. The Judges and the Solicitors still wear long robes and power wigs when they have court.

One lane bridge. We are in a car and what is sticking out over the bridges is pipe were carrying back on top of the car.

Belize Country Side