Sailors of the Caribbean 2

So we went through hell to get to paradise. After our madly run south together with waves, we had to make a sharp turn right to get to Belize. But the wind did not die down as we expected, and the waves were just the same.

I really worried about sailing parallel with waves while heeling on one side because we also have wind on “the beam” (blowing perpendicular to our boat). I worried that one of those giant waves will roll us over. So I suggested to John to turn very slowly and cautiously and overshoot our destination if necessary.

But John got one of those sudden strikes of confidence and just turned our boat southwest. It was dark already and we couldn’t even see the waves coming at us. That was too much for me so I just went down below and tried to sleep until my shift comes. Again, I had my phone ready in zip-lock baggies.

As we came closer to the land the waves got smaller, but we were now going too fast. At this pace we would’ve come to San Pedro before dawn which would make it hard to navigate through the coral reef that stretches in front of San Pedro.

So, we took the sails down and started motoring. The next morning was beautiful, the waves were gone and we found the passage through the corals. We anchored at San Pedro at 7:45am. After that we set up our dingy, took a shower and made ourselves presentable since we were about to visit the customs office.

The customs officer was the friendliest customs officer I’ve ever seen in my life (and I’ve visited a few countries so far). He was almost ready to leave his office and go have a beer with us after he cleared our papers, if only there wasn’t a line in front of his office.

San Pedro is just an awesome place. Lots of activity on the beach, yet completely relaxed. Tourist crowd is international: Germans, Mexicans, and of course, a whole bunch of Americans. Locals are incredibly friendly, relaxed and cool. They themselves are very mixed culturally: ancestors of Mayans, Brits, Africans and Spanish people. I read somewhere that the whole country was started by pirates!

Since John’s son is flying to Belize to join us, and we thought that we would be late at arriving here, John reserved a hotel room for his son. At the same time his son changed his plane ticket and he will be arriving a day later.

But, we decided to check in to the hotel room anyway. The hotel is a small two stories house on the beach and I’m sitting on the porch in front of our room and writing this. People are walking down on the beach below--there are numerous bars and restaurants there so the beach is more like a promenade.

Last night we were scared for our lives… and now this! My vacation can finally begin.