We are hauling ass and pretty soon we are in the channel, George and I write a sailing song with all the little happenings. My Dad, everytime he comes up from below a wave always breaks over his head. Every time he pitches something over the side, it hangs on the shroud. One afternoon he comes up to take a nap on deck and lays his sleeping bag on the lee rail. I tell him he is going to get wet, he says naw! But sure enough soon he is engulfed by a big huge wave. George is below one afternoon crashed out in the main cabin, the port light is open and a huge wave breaks over the boat. The wave hits the table and travels down it and empties itself right over George, a nice way to wake up.

Tragedy almost happens one afternoon in a middle of a squall as we are shortning sail. Doreen is up on the cabin top bringing down the foresail, when the boat heels unexpectedly and her feet slip out from under her. Faster than you can think she is on her butt and headed over the side. My Dad using just reflexes manages to grab the back of her harness and as she falls on past him, he tries to arc her back on deck. George who is on the wheel sees all of this happening in slow motion and thinking that Doreen is clipped in with her safety harness calmly asks Suzy to take over the wheel and then helps my Dad get her back over the rail and back on board. It is only then that we see her tether streaming out in the water behind the boat. It seems she had clipped on the the sheet and it just slipped on out the end. If Doreen had been swept over the side I don’t know if we would have been able to recover her, with our inexperience and in 8 to 10 ft seas she would have soon be lost from sight. It wasn’t until later that reaction set in and we all realized just what had happened. Bad things can happen in a blink of an eye and I still thank god my Dad just knew how to react, he has always been that way, always known what to do.

We joke about being out of beer, here we are in the Yucatan Channel and nothing to drink, Later I have a friend make me a T-shirt about making the Yucatan Straight, a pun in that we did steer a straight course to our destination and we did it sober.

It is nice to have a Sat Nav and most of the time it does tell you where you are. Suzy and I are the navigators and enjoy plotting out our position. We have been flying and in less than 6 days out of Mobil we are approaching the outermost reefs off of Belize. There are a group of them laying of the main and famous barrier reef and between them is a channel that is at its widest 6 miles. As night is approaching we calculate our speed and determine that we will arrive at the English Cay Ship channel around 1 am. We do not relish the option of traveling such a small channel in the middle of the night and we know we won’t be able to make an entrance until daylight so we opt to come about and travel back into open water until daybreak. For 6 days straight we have been running on a port tack and although my Dad anticipated having enough fuel to make the crossing under power, we had 2 50 gallon drums strapped to the foredeck, we had not even turned the engine on the whole trip. I turn the engine on to come about because the Norther had finally petered out and we were in very light air, it runs for about 10 mins and then stops. We try and try to get it going again but no avail. The current is taking us and although now I feel that we should have tried to sail northward into clear water we didn’t and continued on south under jib alone trying to go as slow as we could. All of this happened at once, the engine died, I went down below to read a new Sat Nav position and plotted it on the chart. According to the Sat Nav we were right in the middle of Lighthouse Reef! Expecting at any moment to hear coral scraping on the hull I think caused me to plot the heading of greatest safety away and then forgot about any other options we might have. A few minutes later another new position puts us out about 3 miles and more in line with our current condition. From then on I give all readings at least 2 miles of error.

It turns out that our diesel tanks are full of sea water, we had been heeled over so far that water had been siphoning in thru the air vents to the tanks which are covered with fine mesh supposedly keeping the water out. Dad and I spend the rest of the night, heads upside down in the bilge pumping out sea water. To this day the smell of diesel does not agree with me, we have had no sleep in 24 hours and many more to go before we do. Topside George, not letting anyone relieve him caustiouly steers under jib in the pitch black listening for waves breaking on a reef, inside the channel there might not be any waves it is so calm. Finally as the sky is lightening in the east we are ready to try to start the engine again. Still unwilling to trust our tanks we fill a bucket with diesel and run it in from there. We call Belize Port for final instructions on how to enter the reef channel and we squeeze on in.

Like it is a dream the features of Belize City coleuses out of the heat haze like a mirage and soon we are anchoring off the city. The mud flats extend so far out we are quite a distance out but we don’t care, we haven’t had sleep for 36 hours and Suzy breaks out the champagne and we celebrate. We have done it.

The next morning we go in and check in with the authorities with no hassles. We pay a visit with our friends in town and provision. We have absolutely no idea what to do or where to go here, all our concerns were just to arrive. The next logical stop is to go down to Dangria where some more of our friends live and just take it from there.

Out first day out we don’t go very far, just 8 mile to Robinsion Cay where there is a really protected lagoon to be. We use this place time and time again to spend the night on our trips to and fro from Belize City. Down to Dangria is another 30 or 40 miles and we get there before dark and just anchor off the beach. Definitely not a good place in that it is just an open roadstead but for the moment not too rough. Doreen and I agree to stay onboard and watch the boat while the rest go on into shore. Soon it gets dark and they are not back. We don’t know exactly what to do but later on we hear a shout and a couple of locals show up in a small dugout. We invite them aboard and they explain that our crew! couldn’t get the dingy motor started and will be staying in town the night. I wish I could remember these guys names. Doreen and I spend the night on deck under a million stars, warm in each others arms, life could be worse.

The next morning Dad and crew arrive with 3 local rastafarian guys. I immediately take a dislike to them but they show us how to come around to the ships pier south of Dangria. We follow their direction and I get out in the dingy with a long rope and tie us onto the pier which rises way up out of the water and we just hang on trailing in the wind. If the wind shifts to the south we are in deep shit, Now I realize we should have put out a stern anchor in case of that happening. But now We all have a base and a means to wander into town. Ian’s dad is very generous and we explore the town. These rastafarian guys think they are musicians and are very terrible. They tell of us of a good place to go called Placencia and offer to guide us there. It is about 30 more miles south down the coast and supposedly has a protected harbor.

We set sail, one of the guys looks a little green but they seem to know where they are going. George is one crazy guy. We are towing Micro-dite from the stern along with the rastafarian’s little dugout. Strapped inside is the little British seagull engine. All of a sudden, as it is pretty rough a wave swamps it and it sinks. We are doing 4 to 5 knots and the dingy is diving down and then surfacing like a porpoise. Not being to smart, like coming into the wind and dropping the sails, George decides he will rescue the dingy. We tie a rope around his waist and over the stern he goes. He swims over to the dingy as it surfaces and using his weight in the stern he brings the bow up so it doesn’t take another nose dive. This seems to work okay until all of a sudden the dingy turns over and dives, with George trapped inside!!! And he doesn’t come up, finally a little sense comes into my head and I tell Suzy to come up into the wind and loosen the sheets. With the speed dropping George manages to untangle himself and appears on the surface. Soon the dingy is bailed out and we continue on.

When we arrive and seem to be heading for a little tini weeni opening between the shoreline and a cay I freak out a little and take over the wheel. I make it thou I think we hit bottom one time and we come into, yes a really nice little anchorage. There are a few sailboats at anchor and we find a place to settle. We set up the barbecue and eat, later it starts to rain a little but it is over soon. Doreen, George and I become a little restless and want to go into shore and explore a little. We haul out the dingy and into the night we head for the little light off the pier. We pull the boat up onto the sand and look around. Everything seems deserted, the air smells fresh from the rain and it is a warm night. We proceed into the darkness, into the unknown. We find a sidewalk, it is about 8 inches wide and uneven and broken but leads on into what appears to be the village. Not much sign of life and it is not late maybe 9 PM or so but finally we find a place called the Seabreeze and we go inside. It is deserted but open. We order a beer and drink it. Uncomfortable we decide to head back to the boat, what happened to the adventure this place seems to be made for the dead not the living. Little did we know, the living only come out in the wee hours when the dead should.

These rastafarian guys seem content to spend the rest of their lives with us. It seems that they are okay, the one guys says he is a great chef and makes johnny cakes for us which are delicious, made with coconut milk. But finally Suzy pays for their bus fare and packs them back off home.