After our brief visit at St. George, we headed south to Mapps Caye. This is a collection of mangroves crossed by glowing blue "rivers" which slice it into pieces. We anchored in one of the rivers and used it as our base for exploring Swallow Caye to the west, another mangrove island which is a manatee preserve. We dinghied across, then puttered and paddled around the caye for 90 minutes, hoping to have a sighting. Alas, all me managed to see was a brief surfacing of one of the old beasts; he poked his head out for a breath, but that was all.
Our chartered Fountaine Pajot "Tobago" 35 catamaran, Smilin' Wide, at anchor in Mapps Caye.
We had a lunch of BLT wraps underway and set our sights for Goff's Cay, a tiny palm-fringed sand spit right on the barrier reef. However, it was already 3:00 by the time we approached, which wouldn't give us enough time to have a bit of beach fun AND then safely find a secure anchorage for the night before it got too dark to do so, so we turned to Water Caye instead. Water Caye is yet another mangrove island, uninhabited. Because of the silty mud and grass on the bottom, it took us about 40 minutes to anchor here, so we were glad we'd decided to delay our visit to Goff's.
At the south end of Water Caye is a sandy beach. We dinked over to explore, but there wasn't much to see. Some sand, mangroves, coconuts, conchs and lots of no-see-ums, whose ravenous hunger ultimately drove us away. We returned to our boat, alone in the anchorage, and had a long nekkid swim before taking saltwater baths.
Barefoot Man sings that "It's just another sunset, just another starry night..." Maybe for him it is, but each sunset on this trip was a celebration, each moment lovelier than the last.
For sundowners, I made cocktails of "Lime Squash," seltzer water and rum to accompany brie and apple slices. The green drinks portended the green flash we observed as the sun set. For dinner, I'd planned to sauté potatoes to go with salad and grilled pork chops, but our propane tanks failed us and I had to cook the potatoes on the grill with the chops. After much fiddling around and making-do, I finally put together a creditable dinner.
Just as we were sitting down to eat, a sailboat motored behind us, dropped its sails, and dropped an anchor much too close to us for comfort. It was a local
boat with no running lights and we freaked
out a bit, envisioning pirates and ill deeds. This is, after all Central America, and the region is rife with tales of piracy, notwithstanding our own experiences with the lovely Belizean people. I lost my appetite and we all prepared for the worst, stowing our stuff, closing ports and doors, and keeping a vigilant watch. Jeff went so far as to ready the flare gun, as instructed by David, for self-defense.
We slept badly, with every creak of the anchor chain or thump on deck potentially being an evil boarding party. By morning, to add to our misery, the wind had died down and the hungry no-see-ums boarded us like marauding pirates. So, with the sun barely peeking over the eastern horizon, we took off for Goff's Caye to get away from the scourge of flying teeth, and not-so-incidentally, the "pirates." Of course, in daylight, the evil pirate ship revealed itself to be a local fishing boat, with it's distinctive gaff rig and accompaniment of dugout canoes trailing behind it and lashed to its topsides. We laughed at the absurdity of imagining ourselves the potential targets of Pirates in Sailboats.
Our "pirates" -- local fishermen -- in their gaff-rigged boats dragging dugout canoes behind them. Much worse were the marauding no-see-ums that drove us to leave our bunks and set off just as the sun was rising. Goff's Caye at sunrise was our compensation for the rude awakening.
