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| Friendly Adele and the two of us. |
Adele, ex South African, recognised my typical Afrikaner English accent at the Placencia telephone shop. When hearing we are sailors from Namibia, she immediately invited Jaco and I (and the dogs) for a Ex-pats-South African BBQ.
Adele, Christo and Lee spoiled us with great wine, succulent pork chops and chicken marinated in Mrs. Balls chutney.(Best chutney from home.) Just the right medicine to kick us out of our depression after our friends left for home!
A curious wild Red-lored parrot also came for something to nibble on!
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| Canela on-board Nice Tri. |
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| A day on-board a tri-maran. |
Few days before we left Placencia, Jaco recovered an anchor (worth about 800 U$) with about 25 m of chain for a Turkish trimaran "Nice tri" with Celine(we enjoyed her and her excellent cooking a lot) and Denis on-board.
After a delicious lunch served by Celine, Jaco dove without bottles in murky water at 18 m unwinding the chain from an old shipwreck for about 2 hours. He then lifted all the chain and anchor alone while Denis supervised from the front of the dingy. At the end of the day, Jaco was rewarded by a slice of cake, no raki cause he could not manage getting a fish while recovering all!!!
When we arrived back to our anchorage at Placencia, Denis did not feel like putting the engine on his dingy, Jaco rowed to Songerie to fetch our dingy then bring the family back to Songerie!!!Ho? Ha!
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| Lodge at Drowned cays. |
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| Drowned cay anchorage. |
We slowly made our way north again direction Turneffe for a better angle to sail to Roatan.
When a vigorous Cold front approached Belize, we tugged close to mangroves at Drowned cays. Although the boat lays to the current and not the wind, its still a very safe and good sand holding anchorage for North winds.
The following day, the rain diminished, but the wind stayed strong NNE. We set sail under reefed main for Turneffe.
A few days later another strong Cold front passed our area. This time we tugged very close behind the private hotel on the South side, also very good sand holding for West to North winds.
Late afternoon when the weather settled down a bit, we set sail for Roatan, our aim to reach Jonesville before the next strong cold front reach Roatan. The night was pitch dark(dark moon), strong rain squills and steep seas. A horrible, dark, wet sail.
The following morning, approaching Roatan the wind and rain diminished, but the swell stayed huge. By midday in unsuspected (according to our weather guru Chris we should have benign conditions) 30 knots southwest winds we dropped anchor in Jonesville.
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| There goes our last anchor rum,Anita and Joep! |
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| Mutton snapper at Turneffe. |
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| The bay of Jonesville bight. |
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| Live music at Trico bar. |
The rest of the month we spend at various anchorages of Roatan and Guanaja.
Beginning February, we met up with the "Tikaroa" tribe, Yan and Marie- Claude with their 3 children and cousin.
Mmmm sashimi! We were lucky to sail through a fish frenzy and caught a bonito on our way to Guanaja.
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| Oh no, not all for me? Coco |
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| Mom's 2 wolholle! |
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| February = wet , wetter , Guanaja! |
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| Spectacular scenery walking along the mountain with the dogs. |
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| Fetch! Coco's favourite game. |
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| View from our favourite restaurant "Mi Casa Too". |
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| Back in Jonesville Bight , anchored at "Hole in the wall" during a week of sustained 30 to 35, gusting to 40 knot easterlies. |
After meeting up with Tikaroa at French harbour, we sailed together to Cayo Cochinos islands, on a shake- down cruise.
Cochinos consist of two small islands and 13 small coral cays situated 30 kilometres (19 mi) northeast of La Ceiba. The islands are a Marine Protected Area, the National Geographic writes, "The waters around this collection of coral cays are a marine biologist's dream: protected by the government, off-limits to commercial divers and fishermen, and busy with creatures that may not yet have names."
The park provides 4 moorings. (we found 2 more, but their rope and mooring ball broke of) One should inspect the rope, cause ours was old where-as Tikaroa's mooring rope was new and strong.
Here we spend an enjoyable week, snorkeling various spots, beach BBQs, exploring the island trails and a day trip by dingy to the friendly local island.
To end a perfect week, we celebrated Marie-Claude's birthday the day before we returned to Jonesville.
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| Local transport with S/V Tikaroa in the background |
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| Visit a Garifuna bar. |
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| The two Cochinos islands in the background |
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| Garifuna houses on the tiny tourist cay. |
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| Jaco and Yan at a local sail boat. |
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| Songerie and Tikaroa on mooring. |
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| View from the light house. Main land in the background. |
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| Tikaroa under sail on our way to Jonesville. |
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| What more can I say?! Guess who's the boss? |
