I know it’s been a very long time since I posted but with
all that has happened between December and January it’s taken the fun out of
writing. The last thing I posted was
about Conan’s passing. So I’ve been
trying to get myself back on track and not doing a very good job of it. I’ve taken some trips, done a lot of fishing,
but spent far too much time alone in my trailer. I’ve had to force myself to do anything fun
because I just haven’t had the heart for it.
I’m thinking though that blogging may be helpful, putting my hopes and
fears into it and maybe when I read it I’ll say to myself, “WTF are you
doing! Time to get back your life and
enjoy retirement again.” This won’t be a
soul searcher though. I’ll just recount
some of the things I’ve been doing.
We’re trying to sell Conan’s van, boat, and dive equipment,
all of which the family has donated to us.
It’s possible that we now have a buyer for the boat and engine but at ½
of what Conan paid for it. There are so many boats for sale here in better
shape than Conan’s and for less money so we’ll take what we can get. The guy
has been here a number of times to work on the engine and tonight (4/15) he
finally got it running. We bought a
green ’99 Honda Passport o 4/14 that is in very good condition with money that
we really don’t have yet but we plan to call it the “Conan-mobile”. Of course Tricia will use her artistic skills
to identify the Conan-mobile to all somehow.
I’ll post pictures whenever that happens…
Now to get back track. On Saturday January 28th
our Dutch friends Gaston and Britt, who spend 9 months a year traveling the
world on their 100 year old, 42ft sail boat, returned again to Kismet to
celebrate Gaston’s 50th birthday.
Besides inviting his Hopkins friends he also invited friends from
Guatemala and Mexico to join him here for a BBQ. It was nice to finally celebrate something
joyous again. Dinner was BBQ pork ribs,
pasta salad, munchies, and copious amounts of soda, beer, and rum. A wonderful time was had by all!
February 4th was my 2nd anniversary
of living in Belize and the 9th of living at Kismet in Hopkins. How time flies! It seems like only a short while ago my
cousin Kevin and I were leaving Brownsville TX to pull my trailer down. Seven days after we left we pulled into
Dangriga in southern Belize. I can’t
thank Kevin enough for making the trip with me.
Settling into Hopkins was the best decision I could have made.
On February 16th I was headed to the lagoon to
fish around 4:30pm and as I was walking under Kismet I passed Mark and said
that I hear a big fish calling my name.
Little did I realize what the future held! I’d been bringing 2 rods to the lagoon
lately. One rod I set up with a 7/0 hook
(pretty big one) and a 5-8 inch catfish for bait. The other I rig with a 2/0
hook and fish with shrimp for snapper and catfish. About an hour after I put my catfish bait in
the water my rod was being pulled into the lagoon. Twenty minutes later I was pulling in a 27lb
Jewfish, the largest fish I’ve caught since moving here. I had no idea what kind of fish I’d hooked
because it stayed deep and kept making long runs, reel sizzling runs until it
finally got tired and I was able to pull it to the beach. As I pulled it literally within inches of the
shore I had my 1st look at it.
It was too big to pull up onto the bank so I dropped my rod and went in
after it, grabbing it by both gills. It
was pretty tired from the long fight so it was easy to grab and throw on shore. I was in heaven!!! I
packed up and then tried to put it into my
fish bag (I use a 50lb flour sack) but it was too big to fit. So I began walking back to Kismet holding it
by a gill and dragging it. Jewfish have
a bony ridge inside under the gill flap and it kept closing in my hand,
crushing my 4 fingers. My normal 10
minute walk turned in to 20 because I had to keep stopping to rest and to
change hands. By the time I got home all
8 of my finger knuckles were a bloody mess but I got it there. I yelled up to Tricia for the camera and the
crowd from the kitchen came down to gawk at the size of the fish I’d dragged
home. I was leaving the next day on a 9
day trip and my freezer was already full I’d never cleaned a fish that big so I
knew I’d need help so I offered up the fish head to Elvis if he would fillet it
for me. One of the female guests wanted
to help fillet it so we let her join in.
Tricia offered to call Driftwood Bar and Pizza to see if they would buy
it and they jumped on it. Besides the
head that would make yummy fish head soup I got 8-1/2 pounds of fillet that
netted me US$37.50 to use on my trip.
And Cindy (the guest) got her chance to help fillet. She was a mess but loved every minute of it
On Friday February 17th I boarded Gaston and
Britt’s sail boat, De Rob (The Seal) along with Cindy the fillet queen and Alexandra (another
guest) and we headed out to TurneffeAtoll Marine Reserve for a 5 day cruise.
We spent a night at 4 different Cayes and had a great time. The snorkeling was spectacular! Following that the plan was to head for Caye
Caulker for a few days of fun in the sun.
I ended up staying 4 nights. Caulker
was the very 1st place my wife and I visited when we came to Belize
over 15 years ago. It was a very nice,
quiet, and quaint place with only 1 street and 6 places to stay. What I saw when we sailed into the harbor was
a much different place. All I could
think, and kept saying over and over was, “What the hell happened?” It had really been built up and was now
crowded with tourists. Nothing like what
we had found all those years ago. But it
turned out to still be a really nice place and we had a blast. Cindy, Al, and I
stayed in a small hotel and Gaston and Britt on their boat. Lots of reading on the beach, wandering the
small island and finding places to eat each night. One of my favorites was a place that did a
nightly pig roast. We also spent time in
a sports bar that actually had Belikan Beer on tap. That was a refreshing change from the bottled
stuff I’d been drinking for 15 years. I
was glad to be heading home though…or so I thought.
When I got home and opened my door I knew immediately that
the smell that came hit me hard in the face meant that my fridge had died
sometime while I was away, and probably right as I walked out the door. I opened the fridge and the entire inside of
the fridge and freezer was alive. I
never saw so many maggots in 1 place in my entire life. So I slammed it shut and left it for the
morning. I was able to knock down the
smell with bleach and by turning my 2 fans on and blowing out through the door
and a window. It took a full week to
kill all of the maggots. It seemed that
another thousand were born every day.
Lots of bleach did the trick. Now
I had to find someone in the area that knew how to fix a combo 12v battery/110 AC
electric/propane fridge. Confused? My fridge works off my 12 volt battery string
when the trailer is moving. When stopped
I can run it on 110 volt electric and when the power goes out it converts to
working off my propane tanks (actually butane here in Belize). So it’s a pretty nifty little appliance. I had no luck over the next 2 weeks trying to
find anyone to fix it. A friend and I determined
that the motherboard had burned out.
Because of the age of the fridge the manufacturer couldn’t find a
replacement. I was able to use some of
Tricia’s freezer space so I didn’t have to hit the market every day for my
dinner. After about 3 weeks I borrowed a
small cube fridge that she had bought from Mark, a long term guest. Five weeks later I found a straight electric fridge
in Dangriga that would fit in the hole that my fridge was built into. Or almost.
I had to cut out the base of the overhead cabinet (where I stored my
coffee, spices, and extra dishes). Good
thing was I could put all that on top of the fridge. So now I’m back in business. Just one more issue that kept eating away at
me but one that was resolvable.
I fished the full moon in March but bad weather put a quick
end to that. We had a lot of rain during
what normally is our dry season. I did
manage to catch an 11lb Jewfish though on March 14th.
I fished the full moon again beginning Wednesday April 4th
from 10pm to 1:30am and caught a 9lb Jewfish, 2 snappers that were 5 and
6lb, 2 smaller snappers that were both a
little over 3, a 2-1/2lb snook, a bunch
of small snappers, and 4 catfish that were big enough to eat but I used for
bait. All in all it was a very
productive night! The next night I
brought Matt, Angie, and their daughter Kelia.
Matt immediately hooked a tarpon that got off as did 3 or 4 others. He did catch his 1st ever snook
though. I caught a 5lb snapper and Kelia
and I took turns catching 2-3lb snappers.
They left earlier than I did and I added 3 more snappers in the same
weight range. The next night (Friday)
was dismal with only small snapper and catfish being caught. We did have a nice dinner Friday night and I
also supplied all of the snapper for the BBQ on Easter Sunday. One of the guests wrapped whole snapper in
aluminum foil with various veggies and threw them on the fire. We also had a big pot of red beans and rice. It was yummy!
Our friends Matt and Angie came on April 5th for
an almost month long stay. They rented a
local house called Blue Haven this time because they were bringing their
daughter Kelia and he boyfriend. When we
got to Dangriga Airport to pick them up we found that Kelia’s boyfriend
couldn’t make the trip due to work concerns.
So they settled into Blue Haven and were fishing the lagoon that
night. Since then they’ve toured the
village, rented motor bikes and rode out to do some zip lining and water fall
exploring. Kelia headed home to
Pikesville TN on 4/14 because she was homesick and it was sad to see her go.
Tricia, Matt and Angie had made plans with Gaston and Britt
to sail back to Hopkins on their boat and I planned to drive back with our new
car. Well they kidnapped me for the sail
back. They had anchored off Dangriga and
according to Gaston the winds picked up around 2am and the boat was tossing and
turning. So on the sail back (we were
taking the long way, headed out toward the reef) we got to talking about
options. Britt and Gaston can’t sleep
when their boat is tossing because you never know if the anchor will let
go. So we decided to head for either
Tobacco or Coco Plum Caye for the night.
What normally would have been a 1-1/2 hour sail took 3 hours. We decided on Coco Plum because none of us
had ever been there. They found a nice
beach to let the dogs run so Tricia, Angie, Ika, Britt and I took their dingy
and dragged the kayak to the beach with the dogs. Matt stayed onboard to fish and Gaston
snorkeled to try and spear some fish for dinner. Yes you read that right…I didn’t stay to
fish! Remember now I was kidnapped so I
didn’t have my fishing gear with me.
After exploring the small Caye for a bit I left the girls
and I took the kayak over to the resort to see if it was open for
non-guests. Turned out that the bar was
open to all. I happened to put US$20 in
my bathing suit pocket just in case and Tricia found US$35 in her dry bag so we
settled in for a few draught beers and talked to a few of the guest and staff. I looked across the bar and saw a guy marking
a hermit crab with colored markers. Now
you all remember what we do to chickens here at Kismet so I had to talk to
him. Seems they have nightly hermit crab
races and everyone gets to personalize theirs.
Too cool!! So I told him about
our chicken experiments and painting and he and I had a laugh over it. He invited me to join their search for more
crabs so off he, his party, and I went in search of more. While we were searching I asked him if he
knew the rates for the villas but he said only for the one he and his 5 family
members were staying in. Sitting
down??? US$15,000 for the week all
inclusive for the 6 of them!!! Theirs
came with a private chef and a private boat for fishing and diving. I almost choked! I looked at the Coco Plum Resort web page and
saw their prices. Nothing I could ever
afford! And it wasn’t as nice as some
resorts I’d seen that had better accommodations for cheaper rates. But they loved it and it was their 10th
year there. To each his own I
guess. Anyway the girls caught up to us
and we all headed back to the dingy and the boat for the night. Matt didn’t catch anything and Gaston
couldn’t find anything big enough to spear so we had a vegetarian dinner of
peanut sauce and mixed veggies. Very
tasty! Everyone turned in my 8pm because
it had been a long hot day. I chose to
sleep on deck in a hammock and made it to around 2am when it started to
rain. We were all up early and had a big
breakfast before heading back to Kismet. We arrived around 1pm. Plans were made for Matt and Angie to go back
out with them for 3 days of diving off Tobacco Caye, leaving around 3pm the
same day. They left right on time and the
seas out at Tobacco were just right. They
had a great time diving and snorkeling but didn’t catch a single fish. No idea why because they had every bait
imaginable, I guess the weather and seas
made them closed mouthed. Who knows.
I was sitting in my trailer around 6:05pm MST on Sunday 4/22 when the place started shaking. I thought someone was having some fun bouncing the trailer so I looked toward the door to see who it might be (I was too lazy to get my Faboy butt off the couch). No one showed and the shaking stopped after about 30 seconds. I forgot all about it until I read the news on Monday about the 5.1 earthquake in Guatemala. So I looked at the map and saw that the epicenter was only about 108 miles southwest of Hopkins. Mystery solved...
Headed out for some reef fishing tomorrow with Matt and
Angie. We’re also going to spread the
last of our bit of Conan’s ashes. They
will be taking the bulk of Conan to the states with them. Actually they will be smuggling his ashes in,
which Conan will certainly enjoy! His
ashes don’t look anything like the cremation ashes you get in the states. His are “chunky”, with bits of burned wood and
such and it looks more like bonfire remains.
So we’re repackaging them and marking them as different beach bonfires
and a date.
Tricia and I are joining Gaston on a 10 day sail to
Guatemala on Friday 4/27. Britt and Ika
(Britt’s friend) left for Holland, via Cancun, yesterday. Now it’s time for Gaston to head up the Rio Dulche to where
he moors his boat. He wants to varnish
the mast before he leaves for Holland and that it should take approximately a
month, depending on how fast the Guats work.
Everyone says it’s a beautiful trip up the Rio Dulce and I’ve never even
made it to Guatemala yet so I’ll probably go.
Gaston says he’ll take a leisurely tour and we’ll probably spend a night
in Placencia BZ, a day in Livingston GT clearing customs and immigration, and
then a few days going up the river, stopping at night at different towns along
the way until we hit his home port.
Hopefully this will be another adventure that will help me out of my
depression…
And so, life goes on for the Fatboy in Belize. As always, stay well, keep happy, and
practice peace. I am!!!
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