Gee I didn't realize how long it's been!

I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I posted anything. It’s been pretty quiet though. Not a lot of fishing because the lagoon is closed due to dry weather and the net-throwers aren’t getting anything either. Plus there isn’t a lot of work around here. Everyone is poor, poor, poor!

Well we finally made it out to the reef on Father’s Day (Sunday 6/19) after 3 days of pretty nasty t-storms and rain. The good thing about the rain is that it will start the lagoon opening up and we’re hoping it’s fishable in a week or so. It will probably take another week for the fish to figure out that it’s open again and that all the newly spawned fingerlings are in there for the taking. Anyway, back to the reef. The weather was still threatening so we brought a few things to make spending the night in the Cayes (we planned on B&B) a bit more comfortable and we didn’t bring anyone with us for just that reason. Ron and Tricia both wanted to come out but we felt it safer without them. No sense in stranding more than he and I. We spent the day more looking at likely fishing spots than actually fishing. I even took time out to spend about an hour snorkeling off Bread&Butter. The water was a bit murky bit we did see that there were very few fish around the coral heads. Not sure if that’s because of all the bad weather or what. We did do some trolling and got a few hit but didn’t catch anything. After tooling around for a couple hours we anchored off B&B to try a little bottom fishing where Conan had seen a couple boats parked during a trip or 2 while I was eating and shopping my way through Orlando. It wasn’t long before both of us were snagged in the coral so Conan donned his snorkel gear and rolled over the side. He unhooked me 1st and then headed for his. In a couple of seconds he popped back up and yelled for me to start reeling because his had a fish on it. It turned out to be a small dog toothed snapper which was the very 1st fish caught in his new boat. So we both got to take half a credit for it which I thought was apropos seeing as how we were semi-partners in his getting the boat.

Our 2nd and 3rd attempts at the reef were spoiled by bad weather and on Tuesday 6/21 we decided we better take the boat out of the water. The marine forecast called for medium/heavy seas and I was leaving on Wednesday so better to get it out while we were both there. Conan’s taken the boat out of the water by himself but it’s still a pretty arduous and time consuming task for just 2 people. We have a method but it’s hard to do in anything but calm water because the boards for under the wheels of the trailer, while you are backing it in/taking it out of the water, tend to float away pretty easily. So we spent the hour huffing and puffing, pulling and pushing, and chasing quickly floating (remember I said this wasn’t calm water?) boards before they reach Mexico (the drift lately has been to the north), or at least too far to chase. So that was the story for Thursday June 21…

My friend Sheila (well she’s Tricia’s and Conan’s friend too), who just retired from Continental Airlines, came down on Wednesday 6/22 and I met her in Punta Gorda airport so I could go with her to the house she’s renting. She’d asked me to come down to look at a used car with her, not that I know what the heck I’m looking at, but I can tell a clunker (by Belize standards) when I see one. She’s renting a REALLY nice house in a conclave called Coxlin Ha and what a nice house it is! Stone front with a nice porch on the back overlooking a river. Two bedrooms, 2 baths, and all tile. A/C in the open kitchen/dining/living room was a plus too. She’s having the porch screened in so she can sit out at night without the mosquitoes, which is a problem there. Anyway, we looked at the car shortly after we got to Punta Gorda, a '99 Isuzu Trooper with no a/c but a good engine, tires, shocks and springs. I test drove it over the local road (stones and potholes) and wasn’t able to drive over 15mph because of that. So I asked to drive it on the highway and, of course, he agreed. So Sheila and I took the Isuzu and he road with Dona (Sheila’s landlord who knew about the car and had brought us to see it). I turned onto Southern Highway, hit the gas, and the car almost chocked to death going up the hill. I flagged them down and we headed for a small repair shop with sadness in our hearts, thinking that the problem was transmission or something else major (my guess but, like I said, I know zip about cars). We dropped the car off and went for a nice lunch, returning about an hour later to find that the problem was the fuel pump. We left with an agreement that the owner would call us when it was fixed. Two days later we were calling him back to see what the outcome was. The fuel pump was replaced and a few other minor things we had pointed out were fixed too. Sheila agreed to pay the…now get this…US$35 repair cost. New pump installed and 3 problems fixed for $35. I wonder what it would have cost in the states??? We had a couple of nice days hanging out, going into Punta Gorda for meals, and generally doing nothing. She did make a list of things to bring down with her in 2 weeks to make life a little more enjoyable. She’s doing her final move to PG the end of July but will still be going back and forth for a while, bringing down more of her things plus a 4000+ book collection that she wants to donate to various libraries around the country. I’m sure that I will end up with a few from my favorite authors too but I’ll swap them with books from my collection that I’ve already read. Anyway, he dropped the car off Sunday morning (6/26) before we left for our homes.

Like I said, I stayed and enjoyed her company until Sunday and had a really good time. It’s the 1st time I’ve been away with a woman in ever so long, well since my cousin Jodi and I toured the southwest visiting relatives almost 3 years ago and she doesn’t really count (well, because she’s my cousin not because she’s any less of a woman…). Women have a different perspective on life than a man does so it’s always interesting to see it through another pair of eyes. Anyway, I took the chicken bus back to Hopkins while she flew off to Belize City and Houston. At the bus stop I dropped my big bag and headed to Gracie’s for a beef burrito to take home with me for dinner. As I walked back up to the bus station I spotted a woman that looked a lot like Ella, who’s company we enjoyed 2ce before at Kismet (over a 3 month period). Sp I called her name and she turned around. Sheila and I had just talked the night before about how small a world it was and how I meet friends everywhere I go. Here again was proof! She told me she was supposed to take a 6am boat from Livingston Guatemala that would have put her on the 10am bus but it was late so here she was. Can you say Kismet?!? She was headed for Cancun for her 7/4 flight back to Australia. I told her to come and visit Kismet again for a couple of days and she agreed. So we enjoyed each other’s company on the 3-1/2 hour chicken bus ride. As we got close to the Hopkins Junction I called Tricia and asked for a ride but didn’t tell her about Ella. We were saving that for a surprise. Ella hid when Conan and Tricia drove up. I told them that I had met a woman in Punta Gorda and she was coming to stay a few days and could she ride with us. Out popped Ella and you could see the happiness in both their faces when they realized who it was. Remember, you come to Kismet as a guest and leave as family. One of our family members had come home to us again. It was like Ella never left. Our next stop was Rainbow Chinese for a fried chicken dinner before heading home.

Conan has been a busy boy since I left. He’s caught a small boa constrictor and a poisonous (?) unknown snake that stretched about 8 feet. And the weather has changed our plans about the keeping his boat on the Kismet beach. While I was gone 6 feet of beach eroded away leaving the back of the trailer almost hanging in the air. On Monday 6/27 we put the boat in the water and pulled the trailer through the surf to Driftwood pizza where he could drive the van down to the water’s edge and trailer it again. So it looks like the boat will live on the trailer and we’ll be using the boat ramp in Sittee River to launch it. It looks like we may lose the palapa that sat over the boat in the 1st major storm that hits Hopkins this hurricane season. It will probably lead to some pretty good flooding of the property too during a storm. That means immediately moving my trailer to higher ground at the mere threat of a storm rather than watching the path because it won’t take much of a surf during high tide to send water over what little berm is left, flooding the area around me further in front of any storm.

Oliver, from Driftwood Pizza, had a scare while I was in Punta Gorda. It seems he was woken up with 2 guns pointed at his head and a demand for money. He had the night’s receipts, which Denise said wasn’t much because they had just paid a distributor bill, and they took that and did a quick search of the house for whatever else they could find. Thankfully Denise was visiting Tricia here or she would have been involved too. Calls to the police resulted in 2 hang ups at 911 and voicemail of the village cop. So nothing was done until it was long over. Ollie has had some security measures installed since it happened but, had they already had them, they probably wouldn’t have been in use anyway because Denise wasn’t home yet. We’ve been using the wireless burglar alarms around Kismet and people know it and have heard the alarm scream at 100db (or REALLY loud). That, and the threats that we’ve made to local bad boys passing through Kismet about what will happen should we catch someone (such as their body will be feeding the crocs in the lagoon), had kept us safe. Conan and I have become the Kismet Vigilante Unit or KVU.

And so, life goes on for the Fatboy in Belize… As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!