Welding in Belize

This week has been mostly interacting with other cruisers. A few weeks ago we came in here white knuckled trying to get here with mechanical problems and dealing with the wind on our nose. Our blogs in the past explained how we over came our problems and got here okay. Some friends behind us had starter troubles but fixed it under way and they made it here too. Another friend showed up this week being towed in with out a rudder. Remember we are in the Caribbean where the going is normally easy. Its been this way most of our lives as we try to keep going how ever we are traveling and help if we can. When we drove trucks and ran the road pushing big rigs, you would hear of some one you knew with trouble some where on the other side of the US. Some times you were close enough to help and some times we did. It’s like coming up the highway one night and a driver’s heater quit and we took turns driving each other trucks to get warm but keep going. My truck had a good heater. That driver my be reading this and be laughing because he some times reads our blog and we keep up a little. That was the coldest truck I ever drove. I think we found out later it had a vent open or something. It was a cold night. As I have said it’s always been this way. If you choose to live this way where you are mostly on the move, friends come and go and you get use to them being there and then one of you heads in another direction and they are gone. That been happening here for a few weeks now. The friend that had starter troubles left us to go on and had troubles again, going to Mexico. The exhaust failed on their motor and they had to sail back, a normal good run but as luck would have it the wind was light. It took a while but they are sailor so they were back here safe. Our old home built sail boat is steel and I carry a small welder on board. We have people ask if we need it to weld up holes in our boat. Wouldn’t that be a horrible thing if we had to carry a welder to keep our boat afloat. I usually don’t say anything. What I usually do is weld up motor mounts, alternator brackets and array of things that break on all boats and our boat being steel has nothing to do with it. We welded up our friends exhaust and now we are connected even more. If it holds we will be proud and if it doesn’t we will put it in the “It happens” category. The boat with the missing rudder is here in the boat yard and we are helping him. In our life of sailing we have had motor troubles and had to sail where if we had a motor we would use it. Most of our troubles out to sea has just made the trip harder but we have never had our rudder to fall off as our friend said his did. We did break the main boom in the middle of the night between Cuba and Mexico. That was scary. Wind up, seas up and it totally dark, ships all around us as we were in the shipping channel, we were monitoring 8 different ships at the time and all of this in and old home built boat we built. When we finely dropped anchor in Mexico, I don’t think I have ever sleep any better. Some people ask us why we do it and I tell them, “I really don’t like being out there but the reward on the other side I guess is worth it because we keep doing it.” Other people’s stories always are more scary than ours. I hope its always that way. We made friends with a captain in Mexico that took people out fishing and whale shark watching. He left to go fishing with crew and never showed up again. Just vanished. Not a trace. A massive search was held. I tell people all the time it’s real out there but tonight we are safe and I hope all our friends, sailors, truckers drivers, motor bike bums, all the people that come in and out of our lives are the same. Safe in their travels where ever your are and how ever you are traveling.

Tim teaching Tig Welding to a young Belize man.

Can’t leave your tools laying around very long.

This is ” John the Baker Man.” He bakes fresh bread every day. A lot of the bread you buy here has already started to turn green.

Cashews

This is where we were two weeks ago getting ready to go to sea to come up here to Belize. We were anchored in the river in Guatemala at Livingston.

Livingston, Guatemala getting ready to cross the bar

Our boat is home built. Maybe the most home built boat we know of. We built most of it ourselves because of money problems and the fact a lot of what is there is not manufactured anywhere any more. We designed it ourselves to be simple and its looks older than it is maybe because it’s a schooner and built from what other people throw away. When it came to motors we did the best we could with our money problems and I put two small VW rabbit diesels out of old cars in for power. She is 61 feet over all if you measure all the parts hanging over the bow and the stern but she is just 46 feet on deck and as the Mexican say, “Cheese’s a little fat” being 14 feet wide. We built the hull out of steel, cheapest way to go and we have had her weighed once. We hauled out at a yard that had scales on their travel lift. She weighed 26 tons and change. With all her rigging and her being rigged as and old top sail, gaff schooner she is troubled some going to wind. She needs 55 degrees off the true wind to go and 60 degrees is better. Waves make the difference in how close she will point to windward and how tired you are going to be trying to hold her close. Remember when people set at the dock and talk about how close they can sail to wind, ask them in what condition the sea is in. This is real out here. With all of that we left to sail to Belize and we did it like the sailors of old did it. Taking advantage in where the wind is coming from in what part of the day as I said last week to get here this time was hard. Again as I said last week we were having trouble with one of our 40 year car old motors and the other developed a water pump problem under way but we made it. Here it’s not as hot as the river is this time of year and you can buy better meat. The big thing we did this week is cashew trees and the cashew fruit.

Cashew tree, they say some of them have red fruit but all we have seen has been yellow.

Trees are covered with fruit here this time of year. Why would any one even try to sail and old home built boat with mostly what other people have thrown away for equipment? With wooden mast we built ourselves and car motors. It’s “cashew trees” and all the other things we have seen maybe going the hard way but going never the less. Cashew nuts grow outside the fruit. They make all kind of things out of the cashew fruit. Wine always comes up and jelly. I tried squeezing the fruit and making a drink like lemon aid and it was good. Remember most of what you can eat down here and you don’t see it in grocery stores shipped to the US. There is a reason, It’s not that good. Like bread fruit , you can live on it but why would you with better tasting food around. The cashew drink as I said was good. They say the sap around the nut will hurt you, the sap will burn your skin. You have to bake it to dry the sap up before you try to get the nut out. Like I have been saying, why would we even try to sail with very little money on a home built boat with us and the boat getting old. It’s the adventure of what you may see next. It has always lured us away from the work place, out there going and as people have said it would, it has left us old and poor but we are doing what we can to keep going. As we set here today we are safe and well fed. There is a festival going on down in the village and Pam is trying to find her big hat. Maybe tomorrow we will worry about money or maybe next week or some time. We have fresh caught fish for supper, the trade winds are blowing running the wind generator, keeping the fridge running and the drinks cold. Sailing and old schooner in the Caribbean may be hard but I’m glad we are here. Maybe if we had money and a fancy boat, life would be better. “ I guess we will never know.”

This is our home for now.

Angery Bees

We are late posting a blog because we have been out to sea. Out to sea sounds like we were crossing and ocean but it was far from that. Just a day run up the coast, maybe ten miles out, that turned in to an adventure. First we pulled the boat before we left to fix the rudder. The key was sheared from the grounding we had last year. Rained every day for two weeks. Paying to have the boat pulled we needed to paint the bottom so we painted between the rain drops. Left to go check out at Livingston. We were leaving from up the river in Guatemala at Fronteras. Got fuel, groceries and checked out. Saw some bees at the top of the mast and a few in side the boat. Sprayed bug spray on the floor with us checking the batteries and I’m guessing some went up the mast because in a few minutes the boat was full of angry bees. Spent about an hour spraying, running back outside, closing the hatches and back inside running the generator to power the vacuum cleaner to suck up bees. Decided to go back up the river and try to cross the bar the next day. We draw 6 feet and the sand bar at the mouth of the river is 5 ft something at low tide. Stayed up the river a couple of days even with us being now checked out of the country. Worked on the boat killed all the bees. Have a motor that just refuses to start. Haven’t had time to work on it. Left again, made the bar with out bumping bottom, still can’t find the problem with the other motor.

The  sea buoy at Livingston, Guatemala

By lunch time we were motoring with one motor hard on the wind. Maybe some where between 10 and 15 knots right on the nose. This would be no problem if we had both motors running but the wind blowing just ten to 15 can cause waves and with one motor and with wind and waves on the nose, it was slow going. Ran in to patches of floating grass floating in the ocean.

Pam looking out for patches of grass

large patches and sometimes there are tree limbs in there and other trash.

Slowed the motor down just in case and tried to slip through but rapped the propeller with grass. Pam would not let me go over the side with the waves hitting the boat so we sailed back to and anchorage at Tres Puntas and in the comb of the anchorage I got the grass off the prop. Stay there the next day and worked on the motor that won’t run. Could not fix it so at day light we sailed and ran the good motor back at high tied back in the river to get a new Zarpe and more fuel so we could get in Belize with out a hassle. It had been days now we were checked out and had not left. Spent the night and worked on the boat like we were going to cross a ocean. Left again, made the bar and motored back to Tres Puntas some 11 miles. Anchored there for the night, Next day up at 4 in the morning and motoring hard with one motor before the wind picked up. The wind blows most of the year form the same direction. It’s always coming from 60 degrees. Light in the morning and stronger in the afternoons. Made the anchorage at New Heaven that night. Next day up at 4am tried easing out in the dark with just the chart plotter to see by. Hopping we would not run in to grass floating around out there. Daylight starts here about 5 min after 5, you can see just a little. Made 19 miles the day before so 21 to go and we would be there. A light wind from the north and we were going 60 degrees so up with the sails. Motor sailing and all was good. Just about the time we were making a coarse correction the wind stopped and a little latter it came back light maybe 8 from 60 degrees. We needed to go north now so all was well sailing in the Caribbean in the early morning, how good is that. The good motor stared to make a racket. Went down to find the water pump on the motor, that the antifreeze side was the noises and it was loud. Bearings were going in the water pump and the vibration had got the seal. Now water was coming out. We decided to let it run until it quit or the motor run hot. Two hours of occasional loud screams from the motor and me steering with white knuckles while Pam watched the heat gauge and went to pour more of our drinking water in the leaking motor. We were there. Safe at the dock, Thunderbird’s Marina, Placencia, Belize. It had took us a week to make a one day trip but this is the Caribbean where you hear “tranquilo” a lot, roughly that means “Life is life so take it easy.” We are still taking it easy if we can with an occasional white knuckle adventure thrown in I guess just to keep it real.