We had a lovely beach wedding at Kismet this morning! The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the fish were swimming, well you get the picture… Luke (son of Tricia’s girlfriend Lilly) and Jennifer (his girlfriend) have been living and working at Kismet for the past couple of weeks. They hail from the Yukon in Canada. Saturday (2/19) was Jen’s birthday and Luke proposed to her. Elvis performed the ceremony. He’s a boat captain so can legally marry them. For their honeymoon they are spending a couple days in Playa Del Carmen then its back to the cold, cold Yukon to live.
After a week’s wait we finally made the trip out to the reef for fishing and snorkeling on Wed 2/16 and a grand day was had by all! I did get a pretty good sunburn though, which is unusual for me since I’m pretty tanned. I guess it’s all that staying inside because of all the rain lately. Anyway…our crew included Frank (from The Netherlands), Bruce, Conan, Tricia, and, of course, the Fatboy. Frank had been putting off his leaving because he’s been itching to fish the reef. He’s been a real trooper too because he’s fished the lagoon almost every time I’ve gone since he arrived almost 2 weeks ago and hadn’t had the opportunity to catch anything. Well today he resolved that problem! He caught the most, 3, and the biggest fish of the 3 of us. I was really happy for him. He caught the 1st fish, a 4lb jewfish; followed by Bruce with a 6lb barracuda, and that was his 1st reef fish too. When he was here last February he hooked and lost 2 barracuda but now made up for it. I got the 3rd fish, a spanish mackerel. We took turns catching, and losing, fish. If I was a baseball player I’d be making $millions because I was 2 for 4 today. Bruce pulled in a 5lb crevalle jack and Frank got a 7lb barracuda and a Spanish mackerel. I finished off the day with a gar, which was Tricia’s favorite because, “It’s so pretty!” Patrick, out boat captain finally put a line in the water as we headed back to Kismet from Bread&Butter Caye and pulled in a barracuda. Conan, who we dropped off as soon as we got to Bread&Butter, spent the day alone, snorkeling and using his new spear. He came home with an angelfish, parrotfish, and a small spanish mackerel. So we all are providing something to that night’s post fishing dinner. We’ll Tricia says the gars taste good but I had my doubts. Post dinner comment: I have to admit the gar was good. It’s a real pain to fillet though because it has the longest chest cavity I’ve ever seen in a fish and plenty of small bones.
Frank is another of those guests we will hate to see leave. He’s headed to Punta Gorda (Belize) for a day or 2 and then to Guatemala and Honduras, and maybe Nicaragua for the next 6 weeks, before returning to Kismet for a week and then home to The Netherlands. We’ve had a lot of fun with him. Hopefully he will be back. Bruce, one of the first guests I met last February, is back for 3 weeks and slid right back into the swing of things. He drove Frank to Punta Gorda and he spent the night, arriving back at Kismet about noon on Friday. Nice to Bruce back to stay for 3 weeks.
It’s been raining off and on for the past 3 days now. Some of it light drizzles and sometimes torrential down pours. We’ve had some thunder storms as well. It makes it hard to plan anything. I’ve been trying to get out to the lagoon to fish since our last reef trip but it seems that each time I get ready to go down comes the rain. As a matter of fact I’m wring my update because I’m supposed to be on my way right now (Sat at 9:30am) because the tide is just right for snapper but here I sit because it started to rain again. But then I’ve fished in rain before, and caught fish, but those times I was already there. For some reason it’s harder to get my butt in gear and bike to the lagoon when it’s already raining. I don’t know why that is. Our internet was out for 2 of the days and Conan was having web withdrawals. Friday night around 8pm he asked if I wanted to go to Thong’s to use their internet but I mentioned that since ours is out theirs might be too since we have the same provider. Another problem with the rain and t-storms is that it’s ripped some of the metal eyes out of the tarps I put over my trailer and its sagging and collecting water in a couple of places. Yesterday I heard 1 let go and in the minute that it took for me to get out there I had a 3ft bubble of water hanging right over the vent over my table where I keep my laptop. In I ran to move it and turn off the electric right alongside the table in case the bubble burst and flooded my kitchen/sitting area and ruined my laptop. Then back out to pull the tarp to let the water safely out. During the night another let go but from the sound of it it was in a safe from inside damage area so I went back to sleep. This morning I emptied the bubble. What makes me not so concerned about my new roof is that I already talked to Elvis about another thatched roof and the leaves and extra hard-stick are already cut and waiting to be delivered. I figure that 3rds the charm with my palapa roof plus it looks so much better than the tarps, more tropical. He’s doing it for US$250. So far the frame is all in place. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow (Thurs 2/24).
I don’t remember if I mentioned that Conan bought Ron’s 76 Ford Econoline van a couple of months ago. It has a yellow/brown shag carpet in back and is a sick yellow color with a rusted roof. Ron took pretty good care of it bur Belize is taking its toll on it. Since Conan has gotten it FORD has turned into fix of repair daily though. All new tires because of the crappy roads, and the drive’s floor has rusted through. He’s having a starter problem as well as a leaky automatic steering pump hose (and can’t find one to replace it). And because of the bad roads his shocks need to be replaced. On Sunday the tie rod on the driver’s side lost its bushings and is out of commission until he can get new parts. But it usually gets us every where we want to go. Now he’s in the market for a 23ft boat and 50+hp motor, an air tank compressor and dive equipment, and then a house. He’s not sure where he wants to live around here, only that wherever it is it has to have access to the sea for his boat. He’s got a new Mayan girlfriend named Adela, from Silk Grass, who is very petite and very nice too. He met her in the new bar in the marina after one of our reef fishing expeditions. With the differences in culture, and with all he has done for her and her family, he may be either engaged or married now. We’re not sure! LOL
We had a crew of 4 English people the other day, who are living in Costa Rica and own a dive shop. Nice kids. Two of the 3 guys got excited about fishing in the lagoon and came with us twice. I couldn’t get them to make the 5am session though. They are on their way back home now. A visit to their place may be in our future…
Remember Bob who took us sailing a few weeks ago. He and his wife have been back in the states for a few weeks now and we heard that his caretaker here was robbed at machete-point and the thieves took Bob’s gas generator, 15 gallons of gas, and broke the door on the sailboat looking for more goodies. On Saturday 2/19 Tricia hired Patrick (our fishing guide) to get the sailboat into Hopkins to be repaired and to keep it safe from vandals until Bob can return. Conan, Tricia, Elvis and I went along to help Patrick tow the sailboat down the narrow channel leading from Bob’s house to the lagoon (where we fish) and to the dock (up another channel in the same lagoon). While Zeppi and I were fishing up the channel to Bob’s we watched him power the sailboat out to the lagoon (he said to see if he could so it with the mast up). It wasn’t a pretty sight because the mangrove trees on either side of the channel almost form a canopy in places and he and his man had to chop their way out every time the mast got stuck. Thank God they did that because it made our task so much easier. Patrick used his 23ft boat to tow the sailboat and Conan did an excellent job steering it all the way to its new berth. All in all it took about an hour and out of it we got a nice boat trip. Sunday we found out that someone sank Bob’s power boat at the dock where we left his sail boat. For some reason there was no night security at the dock, when there should have been. We’re also hearing that there may be another story to this. It seems Bob hired someone to paint his truck and wasn’t paid the correct amount and is taking his frustrations out on Bob. Bob supposedly left sufficient amount with someone who may, or may not have given the painter what was agreed on. Stories change here from day to day so we’ll just have to wait until the real one comes out. So anyway someone is going out to Bob’s to rescue his other smaller small sailboat and bring it where the other 2 are and security will be provided for the 3 boats.
And so, life goes on for the Fatboy in Belize… And, as always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!
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