Plane Crash

This week there has been not a lot going on until the plane crash. It’s hard to get the truth second hand any where but down here there is always a slant to it but this is what we know. The runway is 2300 feet long here in Placencia and has humps in it you can see from the road. It runs from the lagoon side to the sea. Leave on the lagoon side and you fly out over the water in the lagoon and you fly the other way across a road and on out over the sea. It was high humility, hot and no wind. I got my pilot licenses at 19 and if you’re flying in air like I just described it takes more runway. A lot more than a cold dry day taking off in too a strong wind. Add to that a fully loaded plane with 16 people and luggage. On the sea side they have a barrier that goes down on the road when a plane is taking off. One side was not working and a truck went around the working side with out look to see if a plane was coming. The plane hit the truck and landed in the ocean. I guess we all do some back seat driving but would you go around a barrier and not look up the run way and if you are a pilot would you fly off the end of a runway out over water with the plane just 3 feet off the ground when you ran out of runway. The marina we are at they have barges and sky-lifts. They went yesterday and got it out of the water and brought it here on a barge. Today they stared to take it apart. Motor first and it’s gone, tomorrow they say the wings will go and then the rest some time this week to be shipped out some where. No one was hurt much and the plane is setting about a 100 feet from our boat. We have had monkeys,alligators and much much more beside our boat but this is a first. Here are some pictures:

Schooner

In our travels in the Western Caribbean to comply with their rules from country to country we have left Guatemala again and are back in Belize. You can only stay in Belize 90 days with your boat and you have to leave or import your boat. Big hassle and big money. It’s always the money. How hard a person will work and what they will do for money has always been in my world. Down here being on time and getting the job done right is not looked on the same way as let’s say it is in the US. You will see a few beggars here in the Caribbean. Some look so needy we try to give if we think it may help them eat. Mostly if they’re begging with a child in hand. I have always felt that if you are dirty and tired you may still be okay but hungry with a kid looking to you for something to eat is desperate. What I don’t like is them wanting beer money or getting conned. Going into Livingston the last time we went in I had every thing set up to go in, chart plotter, deep sounder and we had timed it for high tide. Been over the bar there 12 times now. Have a range we use too along with our electronic equipment if something fails when out from the town docks came a boat with two men waving there arms saying we were going to run aground. We had to follow them. I said “Leave us alone and go away.” All the way in they were out there in front of us and going all over the place. No way I would have followed them. As we came over the sand bar at the mouth of the river we had plenty of water. Me still telling them to go away. Inside they said I need to anchor in a place I would never anchor, right off the town dock so we anchored where we always anchor but here they came wanting money saying. We save you man. Save your boat too. You owe us man. I’m telling them to go away but they hassle us some more before they went away but the next day on shore they found us and Pam gave them 10 US bucks to just go away with them saying they needs a little more and me saying. “Why did you do that”? Later we found out they were doing it to a lot of cruisers the same way if they were coming in. Some of the dug-outs that come by when your anchored are very interesting but some can get annoying when they won’t go away and start to beg. Just wanting a cola or cookies or just give us something.

We were anchored in a beautiful place in Belize when the so called park rangers came by wanting money for being in their water. No uniforms just a boat with guys in it, but what can you do that to was just 10 US to them to make them go away. Made pictures and got a receipt any one can make with a printer.

We sailed a lot coming back up here and that takes planning to catch the right wind but you can do it and motoring a little some in of what makes people say “this is paradise” Sailing the warm waters of the Caribbean and on to Placencia. The water’s of Belize are spectacular and remember we are down here sailing an old home built fully rigged top mast schooner we built ourselves like the days of old. That to us makes it more fun.

Sailing in the seas with monsters it is still nice to sometimes to see the twist in a gaff headed sail of an old schooner.

A Day in the Rio Dulce

For all that are keeping up with our blog you know we had to leave Belize a couple of week ago to live by there rules and not stay over 90 days in their country with our boat. We are headed back Monday with the boat to finish the work I was doing on our boat there. It is so different here in Guatemala than Belize. Here is a really good looking girl loading a sack of something on her bike and taking off with it.

If they can load it they can haul it. A lot of girls here have bikes and you can almost tell if the bike belong to a girl or a boy. Boy’s bikes are rode hard and raged out, girl’s bike are clean and well taking care of. Here a women is carrying what she needs to carry on her head, you see this a lot here every where.

Here a women is making and cooking tortillas, they start early and cook them all day. This is a staple here and they eat them with everything.

Here this man is selling fresh turtle eggs. They eat them raw in orange juices and say it makes a man strong where it counts with a women.

Here is a common vegetable stand where the vegetables are stacked high.

If you look close you will find most of what is for sell is over runs from the large industrial farms here that grow for the northern markets in the states or they sent what they don’t want from the markets in the states where they can’t sell because they don’t make the grade.Here is apples sent down here that if you look as I put my hand on them you can cover and apple with just two fingers.

The last time we were in the US I had forgot how big apples are there and how small the ones they send down here are. Small Cabbage and round tomato are a find here where tomato are always Romas and cabbage is so big it won’t fit in a 5 gallon bucket sometimes. The one thing that is always good here is strawberries and they’re cheap, some times small but good. Here too they have something most gringos don’t care for but I just love is wild grapefruit. This is grapefruit that grows up from local seed mostly in people’s yards and is not altered in any way. Most every thing we eat today has been altered to grow big, have little or no seeds and tastes a certain way. This is not and has maybe 50 seeds in side and the cells are big and not so tart. I have all ready put in another blog how excited a very little women here will get when she is is trying to get my attention if she has either for sell on the street and sees me coming. There is something lovable about a women just over 4 foot tall with no front teeth and really big eyes that is excited to see me. Maybe we pay to much attention to the big things in life and not enough to the little things that I will miss when were gone from here. The little things that make me happy as we travel won’t make me go back and not go on but if we go back we always look forward to experience it again.

A Trip To Guatemala City

We are writhing this on the bus coming from Guatemala City where we went to buy me some shoes. Finding shoes is a big deal here where there are women way below 5 feet and most man are just over 5 feet. They say, gringo’s feet too big. We thought Walmart in Guatemala City would be our answer. So we left our boat at 7am in the morning to walk to the bus station and at 8am we were traveling. By 9 we were setting in traffic as far as you could see. Nothing moving. The two lane road from here to there is the only road from here to Guatemala City. The trip to the city most of the time less than 6 hours if you have a good driver. This time 13 hours and I don’t really know why we were stopped so much. Seen a few cops standing in the road but no accident, weather not bad. Maybe the police were protesting and stopping traffic. They protest a lot down here by blocking traffic, (as in everybody?). Guatemala City is on top of a mountain range and getting there you climb a lot to get up there. As you get near the city there is a place people here call the rock slide and there they are widening the road. Sat there a while. Signs say the Taiwan government is paying for that. I don’t understand why but it’s seems governments send money for projects from all over the world to here in Central America. Got to our hotel room after 9pm and went to Burger King for supper. Burger King down here is Burger King. Other franchises don’t even come close to the way they are in the states so eating at Burger King was like eating steak. Next day we caught a cab to Walmart and as I just said it doesn’t even come close to a US Walmart.

Inside Walmart

The store is big but all the shoes there would fit in a clothes basket. Found two pair of canvas shoes that look like they had been there for a while marked down to about 5 Us dollars that I could get my foot in. Biggest shoes they had and a extra large shirt. Big mistake on the shirt. Maybe extra large on a little Guatemalan man but extra small on me and Pam saying I told you to try it on didn’t help any. Spent the rest of the day just wondering around the streets near our hotel. We will be back in the Rio Dulce soon and back on our boat with some new shoes I bought at Payless Shoe store and the funny looking shoes we bought at Walmart for me to work in. As I always say shopping down here can be and adventure. I told Pam not to pack food to take with us on the way there because we were making a fast trip there and back and traveling light. On the way back we had a big family pack of crackers and a whole jar of peanut butter, water, soft drinks, candy and pastries. Remember you never go to sea with out lots of water and down here you never get on a bus with out survival food. I won’t break that rule again any time soon.

One of the pretty sites in Guatemala City.

Live statue scaring all the kids.