Snow and a Christmas Rabbit

We are spending Christmas in Kansas with our only child on his little farm and a long ways from our life on our old sail boat. Pam and I married when she was just 15 and I was 17. We lied and said we were 21. When her parents said they were going to get it annulled, Pam told them, they best be up for the run because we were going to run “again”. A year and a month later we had Tim Jr. The adventure was on from the day we met and it has been evolving ever sense. We tried the “working for a life time jobs” and that wasn’t what we wanted. Built a real log cabin and practiced living there with less instead of making more. I wanted to go to Alaska and set up a home stead, Pam wanted to travel. The best we could do in the early years was truck driving cross country. Even from the early years we wanted a sailboat. When Tim Jr left home, a truck was for the most part where we lived crisscrossing the US as a team seeing what we could. You own your own home but drive a big rig over the road, you’re living in a truck. Mid life we bought our first live aboard sailboat and stared doing a little cruising. We found out that any time out cruising less than 3 months at a time was more like a vacation than a cruise but how do you live on as little as we make and do more. This is why we have logged in so many miles from New England to New Orleans over the years and not ever left to sail around the world. In the last years, our living on the cheap has helped us live and travel on our little social security check outside the US but maybe what has been our best defense for what it cost to live and travel has been how we lived in the first part of our life “down on the farm.” This bring us to being out here and loving this being back on the farm for the holidays. One of Tim Jr’s friends needed help making sausage and we were in. Most people that make there own sausage make it to please there taste. Our recipe is what our family liked back on the farm I was raised on.

 Morris and Butch grinding meat

Making sausage

We have and do make our on sausage a lot on our boat. If we can get pork as we travel, we can make sausage. We carry a meat grinder along with a corn grinder to make our on grits. When our son found out we were coming he bought a fresh ham and cured it with the old family recipe. Real sugar cured ham. This may be the last of our family to carry on the tradition the way it was done for centuries in the deep south. Along with being here with our son and it being Christmas. Living this life even if it’s just for a few weeks, I did something I miss terribly today. We went hunting. This too was for years a big part of our lives. I only hunt for what we like to eat. Pam is not a strong swimmer but a crack shot with a gun. Life can be strange that way sometimes. We walked out in the field and kicked up a rabbit.

Great White Hunter. “Christmas Rabbit”

For years Christmas was not complete until Pam cooked me a peace of rabbit before we went to bed. This bothered her mother a lot saying with all the good food we had all day, why would I want a peace of rabbit. We will be back on our old home built sail boat in the Caribbean soon but for now, Merry Christmas from us in the Kansas heart land. We hope all that read this is as happy as we are and if your not,

“Eat More Rabbit.”

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” from all of us

In Kansas, USA

Today we are in the US and I’m stilling eating. It stared as soon as we got out of the airport with a stop at a Waffle House for an All Star Breakfast. Country ham, waffles, hash browns, food you dream about if you’re where we have been and they have never seen food like this. If you see the world as good or bad, the flight up here was bad. If you see things not going your way as an adventure as we try to do, I was getting to where I was ready for that adventure of flying up here to be over and this made breakfast at Waffle House even better. After living and complaining “every day” about how hot it is in the Caribbean, stepping off that plane and it in the teens with the wind blowing snow every where. I knew a new adventure was starting. Even the car ride back from the airport to our son’s house felt different riding on the interstate at 80mph plus. In the Western Caribbean where we were when we left Guatemala, there is no interstates roads between towns only 2 lanes where if your riding on a bus they have curtains so you can’t see how crazy the driver is driving or where you’re going. Where if you see tree limbs laying in the road it means, stop we are moving cattle up the road or something. We have had a great adventure in the Caribbean but as I say all the time, the food is bad, the music worse and it’s hot. We went there for the adventure and “it’s is there” not for the food or music but you can’t get past it being hot. It feels good wearing clothes and not sweating. I spend most of my day now deciding where to eat next, that is if were in town and Pam is not cooking. It’s like we need to eat at all the places we miss being away from the US before we go back.  We did the buffet the other night at KFC. There is no food for sell in all off the Caribbean, that comes close to that good and if you do find something good, it will cost you big time down there. Are we going back ? Of-course we are, Our boat is there and if you read our blog you know we need to go shopping after we were robbed in Belize. They took everything. If you think it’s hard to find good food in a 3^rd world country, try shopping for things like tools or a generator. What are our plans in the near further? Go back after the first of the year and then go on with the adventure of life as a cruiser on our old home built sail boat. We plan to out-fit it again and go on. Maybe back to the US this spring to get the boat back in good shape and fight the credit card problem after being robbed and this trip. We can’t make any money in the Caribbean. We are still looking at a trip to Europe or maybe on south to Columbia. This will take good planning if we make Europe and not so much if we go back south. What has the adventure been like scene we been back here. We missed a chance to skin a zebra that belong to a privet zoo where it died and they were looking for some one to get the hide. They decided to get a meat processing company to do it. I was bombed. How many times do you get a chance in life to skin a zebra? Our son is friends with the owner of the dead zebra that was not only died now but was frozen. Nothing so far has surpassed that but seeing the wild life out here has been great deer, pheasant, jack rabbits, hawks, ducks and wild geese everywhere and it go’s on. We are in Kansas and it’s prairie land out here. Rolling land with few trees and large farms.

Prairie with an early morning rainbow

This is our first Christmas in the US in years. Celebrating a winter holiday where it always hot is different along with winter holidays are best shared with family and food. This is good being here. I still wish we could have skint that zebra. We will try to do another blog Christmas, who knows what this adventure will bring.

Wild geese flying over

Snow on the ground when we got here.

Steaks for supper

Enjoying Guatemala

When we came back into the Rio as I have said we had said goodbye to this place. Now we were back. It was as we had hardly left with people coming by to say hi. Our first night back at the same dock we left even the same slip, we went to a local event in Guatemala on December the 7th called “Burn the Devil. This is how it is all over Guatemala on that night. For weeks some one collects fireworks and fireworks is a staple of life down here. All year long you are woke up to the sounds of fireworks. Maybe it’s someone’s birthday and at daylight someone will set of a roll maybe 20 feet long of fire crackers. New Year is the height of fireworks. We try to take in as much local stuff as we can where ever we go. Burn the devil is fun and loud. The devil is a red pinata packed as full as they can get with any kind of fireworks. Most of the time fireworks are brought in as the crowd is gathering and wrapped around the pinata devil. A little after dark a fire is built under the devil and it’s like a firework’s store is on fire. This in a way was good for us being back knowing we were still in the Caribbean and we do love it here. It’s like were part of the Caribbean now. When we left here, we were going back up through the Western Caribbean when we ran aground in Belize and in the event of that we were robbed. We were going back to the US to re-outfit our boat. Now with this it made it to much of a risk to go on the way we see it so we are back where we are safe doing repairs and trying to find and buy the equipment we lost we feel we need to sail safely. We had made big plans to spend Christmas with our only child in Kansas on a little farm he has out there before all this happen. We decided to just hit the sky and go do that anyway. It’s still really hot down here. We will try and let you know what cold feels like to some one that has complained for years about it being so hot down here. We will try and do a blog as soon as we can when out feet hit US soil.

Before the Fire

Some of the crowd

WOW!!!

Back in the Rio Dulce

In our last blog we said we were leaving Belize with a lot wrong. First, we had to leave Belize. Each country has it’s on rules and in Belize our boat can’t stay over 90 days with out being imported. That’s not happening. In Mexico it’s 75 dollars for 10 years, we did that coming down. In Belize it’s just crazy with all you have to do and what you have to pay. We ask for an extension and got 30 more days saying we are old people, the boat is home built and getting old and there are hurricanes out there. After that, we ask for another one and they said the weather is fine, “go” Pam argued and said it’s still hurricane season and she got us 20 more days but were told if we didn’t leave buy the end of hurricane season. “The boat would be confiscated.” You can’t work in Belize with out getting a work permit. To do that it’s more money to the officials and more humps to jump through. We were working around the marina and hoping we wouldn’t get caught. We had a friend, a women that wanted to come and go back with us that we travel with her and her husband sometimes. They live on a boat here in the Caribbean. When she arrived by bus and then a cab, Pam and I had the commode out working on it trying to get it back in before she got there. It was working fine that morning but it decided it needed a new flapper valve and just simply quit. Luckily we had a used one. Pam has a vast array of stuff stored and this time it helped because its hard to shop in Belize unless your in Belize city and there you can get a few things if you are willing to pay for it . Some times 4 or 5 times what you would normally pay. In this case I doubt we could have found a flapper vale for a commode in all of Belize. I had not washed the bottom of the boat and we had a garden growing down there. We rebuilt one of our motors before we left Guatemala on our way to Belize and it wouldn’t start. We went to work doing things at the marina for a little money and never worked on our boat so heading back we only had one motor, this means 40 horse power pushing a 26 ton sail boat with a dirty bottom headed south and no wind. The alternator wire broke under way, fixed that, water pump came loose, fixed that and on we went at just over 3 knots. Absolutely no wind, flat calm. Maybe good, maybe not, ether way very slow. Any wind on the nose and we may have been in trouble, any wind from anywhere else would have helped. We went on, stopped in a safe harbor. As beautiful of a place as you see in any magazine anywhere. Anchored there all by ourselves. Next day the same, a little over 3 knots and we made the Tongue of Honduras before dark. Anchored there in the worm Caribbean sea with thatched huts on shore just like the pitcher you see in magazines published to get you to buy magazines and dream. Our batteries are shot and we thought we could make it back to the US buy using our little Honda generator to keep them up but as you know if you read our blog when we ran aground going to Belize and had to go for help, we were robbed and that went with the thieves along with most of everything we had on the boat. That’s the reason we were working hard around the marina there in Belize. The next day a little after day light we pulled anchor and headed across to the Guatemala side and now our problem besides the dirty bottom on the boat and the low power only making the 3 knots thing was the bar at the end of the river. We draw 6 feet. It’s 5.5 at low tide. Made it to the bar at high tide, used the green house on shore and the sea buoy as a range and over we went. Not a problem.  We didn’t see any depths below 8.2. At Livingston we were safe in the river.

One of the streets in Livingston

Being back has two sides. On one side it’s beautiful here and we are safe for now. On the other we had left this place to go on with our lives. We had said good by to all of this and thought we were moving on. With all that has happen to us in the last few months, thing have changed. I turned 70 while we were there in Belize. What does that really mean. I’m not sure? We were just managing to get by on our social security checks and then the event of running aground happened. We had to pay to get pulled off, a couple of months of all we get in social security checks going to pay that. Getting robbed of our necessary equipment. Maybe all we get in social security checks for the next year to pay that. Sounds bad in that way but we’re really happy and working it out. We did make some money in Belize and we owe less on our credit card than we did after paying to get towed off that sand bar. The little money we have now maybe we can stretch and get our boat back in good shape . Caring a balance on your credit card is not good but having the equipment you need is necessary. As a whole, like I said “We are happy and safe here among friends,” For years we wished for more adventure in our lives. As the old saying says. Be careful what you wish for. There is adventure here and we are here. December the 7th is “Burn the Devil night here in Guatemala, I’m wearing shoes and Pam and I are going to town. Let you know latter what happens.

Heading into the gorge.

Friends coming by to welcome us back.

Sunset in Texan Bay. Anchor down. Safe for the night.

Safe in Guatemala

Sorry I haven’t had time to do a blog. Leaving Belize was hard as in all we had to do to get ready and go south. We left with every thing wrong but we made it. Safe finely in Guatemala waters. Blog coming soon with details.

“Pamela Ann” safe in Guatemala. Made it across the Rio Dulce Bar without any problems.