Independence, Belize

September 16, 2010

We arrived at the marina to see Bryan's boat submerged.

I had the key to Steve's 40 foot Chris Craft and when bed time came I entered the cabin, moving stacks of fishing rods and stepping over 120 quart coolers that blocked the aisle in the main salon. The boat has no air conditioning or lights, you will understand when I get to the Steve posting. I returned to the Marina office, got a big fan, moved an extension cord through the salon door and powered on the fan. Not quite the air conditioned rooms with queen sized beds I have become accustomed to. Bryan, my travelling companion told me that we got the house back. The house is a duplex, each side having a single large bedroom, a bath and a closet. Our side has big comfortable beds and air conditioning. There is a TV but no antenna or cable and the DVD doesn't work. I laid up and read 'Give a Boy a Gun' all night long.

The wind howled, the skies opened up, the thunder crashed and the electricity went out a dozen times during the night.

September 17

Bryan ran down to the store and brought back eggs, bread, and black beans and we made breakfast accompanied by instant coffee.

Bryan sent Steve an email asking if Steve can bring his truck over and pull the boat out. We can't call, Bryan doesn't have a phone and the "Marina Phone", a majic jack on a notebook computer, doesn't work because the owner doesn't know his password.

The boat was bow first to shore, the stern was submerged and the outboard was completely under water. Attempt number one was to take a boat over and lift the sunken boat. I had to laugh, I computed the volume of the water in the boat but couldn't remember how many pounds a cubic foot of water weighed so I mentally did the math in metric absurdly using 1.05 grams per cubic centimeter for the salt water although my estimates of the dimensions used in computing the volume didn't have 3 digits of precision. "You have over 4,000 pounds of water in that boat, you are not going to lift that, I am not going to try." It failed miserably.

With nothing better to do we set off for Steve's house . Independence roads...the roads were initially sand with fist size chunks of rock that are hard to walk on. Soon the road degraded to a sharply crowned road made of clay. Walking on the apex of the crown resulted in one sliding down to the shoulder. Although it had ruts filled with water at least the road was flat and at low altitude. The son blared down, my shirt was completely soaked with sweat. School buses frequent the road and pedestrians have to straddle the crown to prevent sliding off the road. The buses honk as they nearly brush you accompanied by Belizean students hurling taunts in Creole from the open windows . The road was bordered by Savannah grass.

I observed "Belize must have the best real estate agents in the world." Which elicited the reply "He bought the place on line, site unseen."

We walked by large concrete block houses in various states of construction before work is abandoned. Finally we walked down a private road and Steve's house was evident. A six foot cyclone fence abutted the road behind which three Rhodesian Ridgebacks circled and barked excitedly. A large fifth wheel motor home ran parallel to the fence. This motor home serves as Steve's "temporary" quarters while he deals with the frustration of building in Belize. On the drive sits a Ford F350 pickup truck with a 6.5 liter 10 cylinder diesel engine. Behind the truck the garden appointments are completed by a 56 foot shipping container.

The house itself is a shrine dedicated to residential concrete. Massive concrete pillars support 14" concrete floors. I am reminded of an over engineered parking garage. The third floor is wood lapped cedar on dimensional 2 x 4's on 16" centers. The roof is made of cedar delivered the day the tree was cut down, wet and with no dimensional stability. Strewn around the room is every top end DeWalt non-cabinet making wood tool available. The floor is covered with sawdust and dog shit.

It does not appear that anybody is in a rush to finish this project.

The view over the inter-coastal to Placencia is not bad, but won't survive construction on the lot that stands between this lot and the water.

Steve called out "I replied to your email" of the fifth wheel but did not emerge. I stumbled on a piece of construction material laying on the ground which was met with aggressive barking from the dogs expressing their displeasure at my actions. "Let's get out of here." "Oh, he won't be much longer." Finally Steve emerged in his standard apparel, khaki shorts and a white oxford long sleeve shirt with epaulets, immaculately groomed, with a pipe in his left hand. Apparently he had to go to Placencia for some banking. Bryan wanted him to pull his boat out, a task of l hour. Instead we stared at his boat for an hour.

Steve is constructing rub rails for the boat. The design is interesting, veneer layers glued with gorilla glue. He started on this project when I came here two weeks ago. Coffee was consumed, pipe and cigarette smoke filled the air. The place was a testament to projects that won't get completed.

Finally, Steve agreed to help. We drove back to the marina, chocked the wheels on the truck and put that 14,000 pound winch to work; pulled the bow up the steep slope and Steve departed. Bryan hooked up a pump and emptied the boat. It was God awful hot and bright.

Now it was time to put the boat back in the water. After half an hour of negotiating with Antonio, ropes were procured. Antonio understands Spanish but I don't understand a single word he says; he is an affable shrieker. Shuttling back between the dock and the sunken boat Bryan strung a double loop of line; I was about to get a demonstration of "Dutch Windmill". A stick was inserted between ropes and twisted with a large stick thus shortening, but it soon became evident that this was not going go without a risk of snapping the rope.

The next attempt was to pull the boat with the 40' Chris Craft. Only the starboard engine worked. This is Steve's boat. It was a miserable failure.

I couldn't take it any more. "Want to here my suggestion? Let's throw that four inch pipe under the boat 8 feet behind the bow and dig out the dirt from under the bow and roll the damn thing in." So we got some shovels and got the boat to fall on the pipe but it wasn't enough. "OK, now we have to get engine up." "No it pops up automatically." "Bryan, not in that direction." I came up with the idea, you get in the muck, unbury the prop and lift the engine. Once that was completed the boat still wouldn't budge.

I said, "That's it, I need 2 liters of water and a rest for an hour." He came in and asked me my next plan. "Wait an hour. That's my plan." The tide was coming in. It's not much, but it helps. An hour later, Phil came home, Bryan went to get him to hook up the truck and pull the boat. I walked over to the boat and pushed it off the bank down in to the water while they were setting up.

So the plugs were pulled and the oil drained but Bryan couldn't the oil filter off. I tried for 30 seconds and left, this thing isn't budging. I walked around, looking in trash cans and found a broken fan belt. Awesome. I walked back to the boat, wrapped a section of fan belt around the filter and took my trusty multi-tool out, wrapped the needle nose pliers around the overlapping sections, gave a twist, threw down the fan belt and walked off the boat. "Give up?" "No, I broke it loose, do the rest by hand."

I drank another two liters of water, washed all my clothes, except one pair of shorts and sat out for 10 minutes until the clothes dried in the tropical sun. More water, another shower.

The filter was flushed out, the plugs put back in and new oil was added. I went off to read a book, then got a report that the engine "tried to run". I guess that is success in Belize.

The kitten was no longer in the parrot cage. Antonio "Donde este gato?" "No mas aqui, la jungla". Another stray cat. I was wondering what the plan was, but it is weird here.

Bryan moored the boat with the stern to the shore so it probably won't sink again tonight.

Phil

Phil is a jack of all trades, he has farmed, driven trucks long haul, owned and operated a freighter and engaged in oil field drilling; now he buys fixes and then sells heavy equipment. A simple question such as "What is this tool for?" can elicit a ninety minute response on checking moisture content in plants and digressing into farming, soil composition. You don't have to say anything to keep it on, he talks, without a comma, in a Georgia drawl. He is a big guy, 6 foot 3 and must be over 300 pounds. He leaves at 6:30 in the morning in a truck with a staggering amount of material on the dash. He returns so covered in filth and grease one might believe he rolled in it. A few rum and cokes and he retires to his RV for the night to do it again then next day. Phil is the diametrical opposite of Steve. Phil built this marina, excavated the water with heavy equipment I am sure he maintains himself. Then he built the rec house, parking lot and kitchen. He probably did it in a few months.

Fred Sanford Marina

On the sides of the club house are three inoperable washing machines, three dead freezers, one dead refrigerator. Behind the club house is a television dish that is not hooked up, and four propane tanks. The car port sports a feltless pool table, chair parts, a gynecological examining table, six dead batteries and then some miscellaneous trash.

The main room to the club house has three tables situated at the edges piled with various debris. The dining table sits in the middle. A pair of speakers that are not connected to an amplifier and a non functioning TV compose the entertainment center.

Lodging for Antonio, the inscrutable, highly excitable and completely incomprehensible caretaker is a RV while a fifth wheel provides accommodations for the owner operator, Phil.

A duplex each with a bedroom, bathroom and closet provide the nicest quarters.
The dock is 200 feet long, currently boasting a broken rusting high volume water pump. Moored are the following boats

• 25 foot 90 hp 4 stroke panga
• 1966 40 foot Chris Craft with no air conditioning, no lights, and only one working engine.
• Thrice submerged 23 foot panga with a very abused and ill maintained 50 horsepower four stroke.
• Dingy
• Single masted 26 foot Sailboat

September 18

8:00 The Rotweiller that lives here decided to accompany me on my trek. Every one to three hundred yards a pack of snarling dogs leaped out from under houses, snapping, growling, sometimes chasing sometimes just sniffing ass. People sat on the porches and watched their dogs abuse pedestrians. I yelled "Call your damn dogs off." but if there was any response it was feeble and ineffective.

These people are the dogs caretakers, not their masters.

9:00 Bored out of my frigging head and hot. Bryan pulled the plugs which were fouled by the oil injected through the spark plug holes during the reconditioning. I finished my second liter of water for the day and went to offer my assistance or heckle depending on his mood.

9:30 The engine won't run. I'm sure the carburetors need a thorough cleaning.

10:30 We walked back into town. More dogs. I bought a can of carburetor cleaner. Then we stopped at a grocery store to buy some bags of water. They last 10 seconds so you may as well buy the 25 cent ones as the two dollar ones. Especially if you are drinking 12 liters of water a day.

10:40 I think I will go to Placencia to go snorkelling.

I arrived at the Hokey Pokey water taxi as the boat was pulling out. They saw me gesturing and returned to get me. Fifteen minutes later we were in Placencia. There were few tour companies open and those that were couldn't find enough people to put a tour together for the afternoon, but they had one scheduled for the next day. My morning walking had resulted in some serious chafing and I couldn't really walk around much. I had a lunch of gibnut, a local rodent, for $10 and killed time at an internet cafe while waiting for the next water taxi.

I returned to Independence and took a taxi to spare my sore legs. We agreed that he would come pick me up the following morning at 7:45 so that I could catch the 8:00 water taxi.

Bryan told me that Phil was upset because his ketchup bottle was missing. I had probably thrown out an empty bottle. At this time I learned that Phil refills his ketchup bottles from a mixture he prepares from dried ketchup and water. How was I to know? So.... sore as I was walked back to town again with the dog that had adopted me and had the usual abuse from the usual packs. Needed more urgently than the ketchup was some baby powder and baby oil. I didn't have enough money with me, so I hit the ATM. Independence doesn't have a bank but it does have an ATM that is emptied on Friday, payday. How was I to know? There was more money in my money clip so I returned to the Marina but by this time I was tired of walking and gave the money to Bryan and asked him to get the supplies.

Sunday, September 19

I was up at five. A fisherman came by around six, shot the shit over some coffee and offered me a ride to the water taxi at half past seven. Expressing my gratitude, I told him I had arranged for a taxi pickup and didn't want to screw over the poor working stiff. The guy never showed; I had missed my full day snorkelling trip because I was trying to do a good deed.

The oil had done wonders and my walk to catch the eleven o'clock water taxi was not a problem. I was able to withdraw funds from the ATM in Placencia.

At 12:00 I booked an afternoon snorkel trip and was told to return at 12:30. At 1:00 I inquired about our departure. At 1:30 I gave up. I booked a tour with the company next door, had lunch, killed time on the internet and took the 6:00 back.

Monday, September 20

I grabbed my spear gun. I had bought it a week before and it was a pain to travel with and I was heading out the next day. Time to sell this thing for whatever I could get. I whacked a few dogs with it. In front of one house I called out to the owner, as I had many times, to get his damn dogs only this time I threatened to kill one of them and had my spear gun pointed at the most aggressive of the pack. Amazing, the owner heard me this time and called his dogs, who ignored him. My legs were well healed and I walked to the Hokey Pokey and caught the 8:00. By 8:30 I was at the dive shop. I told the guy behind the desk that I wanted to put up a sign that I had a brand new spear gun for sale; less than a month old, never been used and I had the receipt in hand. They all lusted over its four foot spear and double bands. One guy offered by 50 bz. I had just paid $170 US for it I was sure not going to take the equivalent of $25. "I'll pay you a hundred on Friday." This wasn't going well. They stroked it, examined it, some explained to others how to use it.

Nine o'clock rolled around and it was time to go snorkelling. I got in the truck and met Mark, a man who has the world by the tail, but as I have posted his pictures I am not at liberty to blog any information he disclosed. A few minutes later we were dropped off at the dock. I was shocked to see that our dive boat was a 38 foot cabo; I am accustomed to pangas and boats of their ilk.

Mark's dive master gave him a refresher on connecting the BCD and regulator to the tank. For you non divers a BCD is a Buoyancy Compensation Device, the inflatable vest one wears to regulate depth. I marvelled at the gear, the vests looked like they new. Two signalling devices were attached, a rattler, for use under water and a whistle when surfaced. The tanks had stickers certifying that they had been recently inspected. The hoses, regulator, octopus and gauges all looked like personal property. This was a dive operation unlike any I had ever encountered. Twenty minutes later two people came down to the boat, wearing T shirts with the dive company emblems. It was obvious that the the tall, bushy eyebrowed guy in his mid sixties was the owner of this fine craft. Was the woman his wife?

The boat cruised along at 26 mph at 2200 RPM, the big 455 house power Caterpillar diesels consuming fuel at the rate of 40 gallons per hour. Ralph, the owner of the boat and the dive company told me that Belizeans don't "get knots" so the instruments were set to terrestrial units of measure. When Ralph wants to go diving the tour is run off his fishing boat; I just got lucky.

The woman was Patricia Ramirez, the dive master. She and Mark sat in the Salon with Mark alternating between Spanish and French reviewing the fish of the reef. I chatted with Ralph, a Canadian from Saskatchewan, who had been national manager in Africa and Indonesia for twenties years for a Canadian oil company. I told him I couldn't live in Belize, there was too much crime; he replied that it was exaggerated. After an hour we stopped in front of a moored sloop and took aboard the two man crew, a man and his wife in their mid sixties. Fifteen minutes later we were at the coral heads near Laughing Bird Caye so named as it had been a nesting ground for laughing gulls before the increase in human activity.

The first dive was pretty good, the water was warm and clear, with no current. Brian pointed out and identified a wide variety of fish, which were plentiful. It is a lot easier to communicate when snorkelling than when diving. I retrieved a conch and Brian caught a big crab. When the divers had exhausted their air or bottom time we swam back to the boat.

Lunch was jerked chicken, potato salad, and of course, rice and beans. Hot dogs were provided for the kids. Ralph allows the kids of his employees to tag along for fun. I saw a big barracuda and threw my chicken bones overboard one by one and watch it eat them.

The second trip Brian bothered a nurse shark hiding in the reef, it brushed against me as it swum out of hiding. He then caught a big lobster and finally succeeded in finding a spiny starfish. As we neared Laughing Bird I had to swim through trash: bits of plastic, plastic bottle caps, plastic bottles, plastic grocery bags; it is a serious problem in Belize. There was a small sandy area that we walked on to get to the island. The island is tiny, about an acre. The trash is raked to the water's edge. The sand is white and coarse. Pathways are bordered with conch shells; interesting, considering that the entire area is a national preserve, no harvesting allowed and the only residents of the tiny island are park rangers. After five minutes I had covered every foot of the border and every foot of trail then I visited the visitor's center and signed the guest book; the previous entry was almost three weeks prior; it is the slow season.

Rather than wait for the divers to return and rush the half mile swim to the boat I suggested we leave and take our time on the half mile swim to the boat. We dropped of the sailors and returned to port. A couple of minutes later I realized I left my hat aboard and returned to the dive shop. Ralph very graciously offered to drive me to the marina to get my hat. We had a discussion about all of the security measures they either had in place or were instituting to keep people from stealing outboards: security guards, motion sensors, cameras, deputized armed locals with sirens and flashers for their cars. A crew of people were cleaning the pristine boat. Ralph took the three kids with us and we headed back to the dive shop.



The chicken nachos I ordered at Wendy's had to be eaten with a fork, the chicken was piled on so high.

At the Independence water taxi dock I inquired as to the location of the fish co-op to be advised that it didn't sell fish. A wiry little guy staggered over and told me that he could show me where to buy fish. We walked half a mile down the road, to the house of the manager of the Hokey Pokey. My self appointed procurement agent borrowed a phone and called one of the local guides. He confirmed that he had some snook for sale so we walked about a mile down the road and I bought a 10 pound snook. I tried to carry it to town but my procurement agent insisted on carrying it. This is never a good thing. Finally in town I took the fish and said, "I have to go in my own direction." The guy asked, "What about me? Aren't you going to take care of me?" "You are getting a cut from the guy who sold the fish, don't fish off both ends of the pier." Whatever the hell that means.

I walked the final mile back to the marina and put the fish in the refrigerator. Bryan had the carburetor that Phil had fixed installed and took his boat out for a test run. It ran well but was inclined to idle fast.

I pulled out all of my stuff and compared it to my list. Somehow, somewhere, I had lost six high capacity nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries and I didn't have a clue. How the hell could this have happened? Everything was packed into ditty bags.

Phil came back; we drove to the store got potatoes, chips and the fixings for dip. We called Steve and we ate well beyond satiation and told bad jokes until it was time to go to bed.

Tuesday, September 21

I popped back over to Placencia, went to the dive shop and called Ralph, telling him that he could have the spear gun for 100 USD, but I wouldn't take anything less. He told me he would be by in an hour. I went to the coffee shop/internet cafe/computer repair shop and killed time on Facebook. Ralph came by and bought the gun. I grabbed a quick lunch and the 12:00 water taxi. Sirens wailed and horns blared down the road, an ambulance was followed by a firetruck behind which was an eighteen wheeler blaring its horn. Oh... it is Independence day.




All of ditty bags were stuffed into the back pack; the day pack contents were inventoried. Extraneous supplies included an extra snorkel, mosquito netting fine enough to keep out sand flies and a duffel bag. I looked around for Bryan and dropped them in the marina office. With 70 pounds of gear in two packs I set off down the road. A quarter of a mile later it occurred to me that I had left my padlock and keyring with two USB drives on it. I walked back to the marina, grabbed the aforementioned items and seeing Bryan said goodbye.

A mile later I was at the "bus stop", the corner at which the bus stops. There is no shelter from the rain or sun or a place to sit. Eight people were grilling and listening to extraordinarily loud music. I walked up to the restaurant and tried started to open the door. Some guy started yelling at me. I walked over to him and yelled "WHAT TIME IS THE NEXT BUS?" He yelled to a woman ten feet away and in creole yelled "WHAT TIME IS THE NEXT BUS?" "WHAT?" "WHAT TIME IS THE NEXT BUS?" "WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?" "TWO SEVENTEEN!" "TWO THIRTY!"

Excellent! Only a thirteen minute wait... the bus showed at nine minutes before four. I grabbed a bag of seasoned tortillas and two bottles of water at the store while I was waiting. On the bus I continued reading "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and snacked on my chips. I offered some chips to the old man next to me. He ate half of what was left and then graciously handed the bag to the six year old next to him and told him to keep it. What a generous guy. He then eyed my water and told me he was thirsty. My open water bottle had dropped to the floor and rolled to an unknown location. I have the guy with twenty teeth my unopened bottle and now had none. No good deed goes unpunished. A woman boarded the bus and stood in the aisle; the old man gave her his seat and went to the rear of the bus to sleep on my backpack.

At a quarter to seven we arrived in Belmopan. The bus to San Ignacio was scheduled to leave at seven. I bought a cold hamburger; they weren't allowed to use a microwave. The bus came on time. People squeezed past me in a very subtle manner such that it happened but I couldn't call them out on it without looking like an asshole. So was at the end of the line and eight people who exited the terminal behind me were ahead of me in line. The conductor told me I had to put my backpack in the rear of the bus. He opened the rear, I through in my backpack and boarded from the rear, taking the rearmost seat so that I could keep an eye on my bag.

I got out in San Ignacio and sought out a place to stay. It was still Independence Day and ironically many places were closed; I would have expected an influx into the provincial capital. A tall lanky guy called out from his plastic seat, "Hey buddy, looking for a room?" It wasn't much of a room but it had a bed and a fan and I could get rid of all of my stuff so that I could head down to the park to check out the festivities. The room was the only room that hadn't been refinished, it had probably been a storage closet and the door was secured with a hasp. This suited me fine as I had my own padlock and I knew that nobody would be rifling through my belongings. I wandered around the fairgrounds for a while came home and went to sleep within a few minutes.

Splash Dive Shop
Placencia Village, Belize
Telephone: 011-501-523-30548 / 523-3080 / 620-6649

email: patricia@splashbelize.com

www.splashbelize.com