Chillin' at Caye Caulker

Caye Caulker, Belize

The tiny, scenic village of Caye Caulker is actually two islands since Hurricane Hattie split the island in two a few years back. It has only three main streets; Front St., Middle St. and Back St., all lined with Creole restaurants, bars and dive shops for the tourists. Everyone just chillin' on the beach to the Rasta beat. English is the Belize official language so we enjoyed being able to communicate and get to know the locals better.

 At the cafe our server/chef offers us, of all things, a Guinness. Apparently Belize has a Guinness factory that rivals the original back in Ireland. After the first sip, we had to agree! Conch and Lobster appear to be the main fishery here, served in any number of ways.Yum!  We spend our time exploring the island while we wait for a weather window to sail our way to Mexico.

Local Lingo

 During the night the winds pipe up even more to a choppy 20 knots plus and the next thing you know we are dragging our Rocna anchor across the grassy bottomed bay, out to sea! Daragh quickly deploys a second Danforth anchor, which also drags, but eventually stops skimming over the sea grass and takes hold in the sand. Whew! Another close call narrowly averted. After a sleepless night on anchor watch the wind drops and all is peaceful on Chantey  once again.

I must go down to the sea again,

to the lonely sea and sky

and all I ask is a tall ship,

and a star to steer her by,

I must go down to the sea again,

for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call,

that may not be denied.

John Masefield