Trying Hard to be Anonymous

A couple of fun days on yet another uninhabited speck in the sea called Colson Cay, it’s quite a thing, when you are travelling around isolated places on a sailing boat, the days blur and clocks become useless, which to be truthful I really enjoy. You sleep when you are tired and wake around sunrise, due to the heat and not because you need to relieve your bladder. 😜

One of the many beauties about sailing is that generally there is no rush, and our timetable is written in the sky, guided by the wind and the ocean, but when the weather suddenly demands that it is time to go, to change course, or to lift anchor,  that is when you find the chaos in the calm, this might be some of the adrenaline that we unwillingly seek and crave, maybe the reason we choose to be at sea, there is a strange pleasure in the uncertainty of being at the mercy of the ocean every single day, the reason we boycott regular life, maybe we have an unknowing need for something bigger than ourselves to control us, or maybe we have the desire to outwit and outsmart mother nature.  Who knows! We are still trying to figure that one out. Although at this stage I believe I have learnt that mother nature is way more powerful than us, and we should play carefully in her playground.

Now that we have decided to leave Intle Breeze in Rio Dulce, Guatemala, we can relax on this journey and not worry about the 1000 nautical mile sail down to Panama and dodging the weather which certainly has started to change in the Caribbean Sea. 1 June is officially the start of Hurricane season which runs until 30 November. We know we are still safe, as we keep a real beady eye on the weather especially at this time of the year. We are gradually working our way to Guatemala and we have definitely noticed how both the weather and the sea have started to change, the humidity is thick and the sky often stormy, certainly time to keep moving south.

If you have been following our salty stories you may have realised by now, we are 3 buddy boats Dilly Dally, Happinez and Intle Breeze, travelling together to Guatemala to hide from hurricane season.  Where we anchor, we are pretty much alone so just us 3 sail boats, we have been ghosting the mainland because we have not cleared customs and immigration so we are pirates right now, we may as well fly our Jolly Roger. 🏴‍☠️😏  The penalties would be rather large should we be discovered hanging around here for this length of time, never mind the nasty stamp we may find in our passports.

At the time of writing this, it has been more than 10 days since we have been in Punta Allen which was very marginally inhabited, with zero infrastructure, no grocery stores and pretty much nothing, so I am not sure that even counts, realistically it has been more like 15 days since civilisation. Of course, we made the decision to get ourselves to some human life in Belize, although still all 3 boats illegal 😩 yikes stressful…. life is no fun without pushing it to the edge sometimes and taking a little risk.

We all needed a break from preparing food in a constantly bouncing galley, as well as the never-ending boat tasks. Just to enjoy some terra firm, and a drink poured by an actual barman with a glass that we do not need to wash with our limited supply of water.

Placencia (Belize)….HERE WE COME……..

We spent a fun 3 days enjoying Placencia, weirdly there is something  thrilling about being under the radar, this little bit of stress is worth the pleasure of the freedom of land, all the while dodging the police. Us girls had a little grocery rendezvous for fresh produce, after which we joined the guys for some well-deserved cocktails.

I could easily have spent a whole lot more time on this very quaint little piece of earth, the people are extremely friendly and kind, the beauty of this place is that it is not overrun with tourists, mostly locals and a few sailors.

Eric and Evert from one of our buddy boats SV Happinez, found themselves in a bit of a rubbish situation…pun intended. After what might have been one too many rum cocktails, the garbage on board both our boats were reaching rather critical levels, so it was time to take out the trash….Easy enough one would think.

Since we hadn’t been on land in ages, and the bin fairy doesn’t service remote anchorages, it was operation garbage drop. In the dead of night, like two tipsy tarts, the boys loaded up four massive black bags into the dinghy. Us girls, wisely, stayed on the boat sipping whatever was left of the wine.

The plan, sneak ashore, dump the garbage, sneak back. Simple.

Reality……...As they step off the dinghy and start heading toward the bins… BAM! A full-blown welcome party of heavily armed police.

What do these two men do. They freeze, spin on their flip-flopped heels, and sprint back to the dinghy, trash in tow, like guilty drunken bums that should legally not be on land.

Back onboard Intle Breeze, they’re panting, sweaty, and looking like they just escaped from Alcatraz 😂

Best part…. THEY STILL HAD THE GARBAGE. 😂

Honestly, wouldn’t it have been way less suspicious to just stroll past the cops, say “Good evening!” and pretend the bags were full of regular garbage and not body parts 😂 What do you think? Should we let them plan the next covert mission? I think not.

Well after that little show we kinda started to think we should probably lift anchor and move on, as between us 3 boats it is becoming increasingly hard to hide.🫣 Especially since we simply do not have the ability to behave, hanging out in bars and running from cops is not really the way to stay out of the spotlight.

Anchor up and off to the next little hide out all the while working our way to Guatemala