It's actually cool here today (Sunday 2/13) and, at 11:52am CST it's all of 73 and the temp earlier this morning reached down to 68. Great sleeping weather! But it looks like another day without fishing even in the lagoon. I'm starting to go through withdrawals now. My hands are shaking. Maybe I'll have to start drinking...
Our friend Kenny left on Friday, February 11, 2011, for Belize City to meet up with his wife and child and then to head for Caye Caulker for their holiday. I know he didn’t want to leave Hopkins though because he fell in love with the place, just as we have. We all mentioned to him that he should bring them back here to experience what he has over the past 9 days and maybe his wife will fall in love with our way of life here too. When he first arrived, and Conan and I were sitting in the kitchen with him, we talked about life in Hopkins and the way things were in this country. You could see the disbelief in his eyes, that he thought we were stringing him along, telling outlandish tales to see how gullible he was. He even gave up a few, “Oh come on!” gaffs. But, in the next day or 2, you could see that he saw and experienced more and more of what we told him. While the descriptions of the people and their way of life do seem outlandish they are true and that’s what made him fall in love with our Belize and with Hopkins. So, we know he will be back because he is as hooked as we are. He is as enamored with the peace and tranquility, the laid back life style, the friendly people, and the no B.S. stress that we all felt living in the states. Not that we don’t love being U.S. citizens, and aren’t thankful for all we had, but we’ve found a way of living that brings joy to our lives. We wake up every day thinking, “Another day in paradise!” and not of the stressors that we used to live with. I’m done preaching now and just want to say how much we will miss Kenny and look forward to the day we see him walking up the drive to Kismet again. It’s another loss for Kismet, as when Chris left last month. The good ones always leave and some of then do come back to visit. They all came as guests and left as family and we will always leave a light on for their return.
Bruce came back on the 8th and it was great to see him again. It was like he never left. And he brought a new activity with him…pony horse shoes. Instead of horse shoes these are smaller, for a pony, but the game is the same. On Friday, after dropping Kenny off at the Dangriga airport, Bruce and Conan used the 22 foot string to measure for the posts and then we started practicing. Bruce lost to Frank (a new guest from Oslo, Norway who has become another of my fishing buddies) by a narrow margin and I lost to Matthew (a new guest who arrived today from Germany) by a couple points. Then Matthew and his wife Elke began tossing. Oh she was good! She’d never done it before but she had the range and accuracy to make it known that we’d have some stiff competition. Maybe we’ll wait for them to leave to start the tourney…
Back to Frank. He’s from Oslo, Norway and arrived on Wednesday morning. He announced that he was ready to fish and that night found him at the lagoon with me. We didn’t catch anything but we did have a couple of bites though and he was hooked (no pun intended!). At 5am Thursday, and well before sun up, he was introduced to the crevalle jack run that starts at false dawn. He was there for my jewfish catch too and now he’s a firm believer that there are big fish to be had! He hasn’t caught anything yet but I know he will. There’s always the reef to look forward to too.
Saturday (2/12) was our planned snorkel/fishing trip to the reef but the weather didn’t cooperate so we rescheduled it for Sunday when the weather was supposed to clear. Sunday came and it rained even more today than yesterday. Maybe someone is telling us that we need and extra day of rest because we’re going to catch the REALLY BIG ONES when we finally get out there. Now we’re hoping that Monday is the day. We’ll see…
And so, life goes on for the Fatboy in Belize… And, as always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!
