The Voyage of the Manatee

2011-06-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is difficult to write about my experiences in Belize while I am there. Brief periods of time off require my attention elsewhere, and before you know it, I am on my way home. And when I get home, there are other priorities waiting for me.

But now I have been back in San Carlos for just over a week, and am well-enough rested to recount some of the more interesting (I hope) tales of my travels. Alas, the memory isn't what it used to be...

This season was unique for me in many ways. Island Expeditions is setting up a new trip, for the first time in Mexico, just north of Belize. The fit is good, because travellers can fly in to Cancun, do the Costa Maya Explorer trip, then carry on south to Belize, to participate in one of our trips there, or just explore the country on their own. When I learned of this new trip idea last year, I talked the bosses into having me and Lorena work on it. They agreed to give it a try, and to fly both of us out there. They were also a little short-staffed early in the season, so they asked me if I could do a few trips in Belize as well. Since Lorena was already coming with me, I told them sure, as long as Lorena can come along with me there too. They agreed.

So that is how Lorena and I spent a wonderful two months in Belize. I would go off with the guests, kayaking, snorkeling, sailing, and when I came back to camp, Lorena
was always there. They even set us up with our own tent, an oldie, but still functional. And I had the best of both worlds.

I had a looser schedule early in the season, which meant I had more time to work on Manadi. I did get a lot done, and she is very close to completion. The next step will be a complete gel-coat cover of all the new fibreglass, and then I can finish the mahogany gunwales, and bolt the cross-poles to the deck.

I was a little disappointed in the amas: the basic principle is good but the shape is too difficult to fit to the boat. So while I am in San Carlos, I plan to build new amas, and ship them to Chetumal before I return to Belize next year. The first ama I built, I shipped to Chetumal and carried it across the border. But even though it was built by me, the Belizian Customs agents charged me an arm and a leg for it. So next time I will paddle or sail the boat to Chetumal, install the amas there, and it will be complete. No need to pay duty. But I am getting ahead of myself.

After a couple of months in Belize I found myself heading north into the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, with Lorena and Tim, the head honcho of IE. Together we took a 3/4-built program, and fleshed it out the best we could before the first group of guests arrived.

Let me describe this trip for you. This is part I.

The trip starts in Cancun, where the guests are put up for the night in a hotel and the next day we start our adventure by driving south in a van. After a couple of hours in the van we stop at a place called Dos Ojos (two eyes). There is a massive complex of flooded caves, with multiple openings, or cenotes. One location with two of these openings is managed by the local Mayan community, in which they run guided dives, and snorkelling tours. So for an hour we floated from one cavern to another in gin-clear water. It felt like floating in space. The bottom is littered with boulders that have fallen from the ceiling, and the roof is a constellation of stalactites and flowstone formations. Small fish float curiously around the swimmers, sometimes taking a tentative peck at our skin. We swim over shallow water mostly, but along the edges of the pool the water deepens, and distant lights and bubbles indicate the presence of divers. When you submerge you can hear a strange mechanical hissing noise: this is the sum of all the exhalations of the divers, carried long distances through the water.

In single file, we glide carefully under a low point in the ceiling, barely above the water level, and enter a dark, circular chamber, about 20m across. A single hole in the ceiling sends a shaft of daylight into the water. From a small island of rubble in the centre of the chamber, a broken and rusty ladder extends towards the hole. In the depths, to the edges of the chamber, the lights of unseen divers peer out of crevices. And everywhere we go we are followed by tiny, curious fish. The effect is eerie, like a scene from a spy thriller. Following the group even in a relatively small chamber, is
difficult. Other people with other tours drift by and it is hard to know who to follow. But we manage to regroup and carry on into the next chamber.

This chamber is open and bright. One entire side of the cave has collapsed, letting in plenty of daylight. We swim through the clear, cool water. We pass a large submarine passage where the bright glow of daylight streams in. This is the passage to the second “Ojo”. One could easily be fooled into thinking that other side is mere metres away, and a deep breath would be enough to allow a snorkeler to pass through. But we are told that the distance is more like fifty metres. Half a football field. Too much for some, so not a good idea.

We emerge from the water at the far end and walk the last bit to the final chamber, and swim to the exit. We don't realise how cold we are until we stand in the warm sunlight, in what is actually a hot, dry day. But the feeling is one of relaxed fatigue after the mild exertion of swimming in cool water. The sun streams through the trees and a motmot, an odd tropical bird with two long skinny tail feathers each ending in a tuft, like darts or arrows with most of the fletching gone, looks down at us mortals and chuckles. Soon we are in dry clothes, and after a delicious lunch at a nearby restaurant, we are headed south to the coastal village of Mahahual.

End of Part I.

2011-01-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

This season in Belize, I have a much looser schedule, and have had plenty of time to work on the Manatee. This is in marked contrast to last year, when I had a total of two weeks in the entire season to get my work done.
The great challenge of making something new from scratch, is that there is a constant stream of problems to overcome. Most of the big problems have been solved, but new ones keep cropping up. For example the edge of the cockpit opening has a coaming to deflect water, that stands about six inches high. This would deflect a lot of water, but it will also break, or at least crack and weaken, if I put too much pressure on it.

So I decided to to strengthen it with gunwales, of mahogany. I bought a ten-foot by two-by-eight-inch board, and got it ripped into quarter-inch by two-inch strips. These strips were then bent around the coaming and clamped in place. After cutting them to the right length, I removed the strips, then laminated them together with FG resin. Once I applied the resin, I wrapped them in waxed paper to catch the drips, and re-clamped them onto the coaming again. This had to be done to each inwale and outwale separately, so it took a bit of time.

Once the gunwales were complete, I had them planed and sanded them smooth. Then I drilled and bolted them to the coaming with stainless steel hardware.

This week I also installed the mast step and laid the base for the deck hatch. All that is left to do is drill the holes in the coaming for the aluminum poles that connect the hull to the amas, and the holes for the threaded rods that will be used to clamp them down. Then the boat will be ready to spray with gel-coat.

2011-01-17T05:38:00.000-08:00

Lorena and I just got back from three weeks at Half Moon Caye. We arrived a few days before the first batch of guests arrived, just to put the final touches on camp. That is to say that the tents were up and the beds assembled, but most of the camp still needed to be unpacked and organised. Also there are always repairs to be made, and new things to be built.

The kitchen is stocked with plenty of fresh fruit and veggies. kept in cages to allow airflow and protect our larder from the coconut squirrels.

Lorena is making signs for the showers with permanent marker on coconut flower bracts. We try to use local materials whenever possible, for the aesthetic appeal.

Sylvino and Javier make luggage tables for the tents, out of scrap lumber. Sylvino could make just about anything from scrap materials which makes him a handy camp guy.

Once the camp was put together we could spent some time reaquainting ourselves with the island. Our first reaction on exploring the island was one of shock: I knew that Hurricane Richard had hit the island, and was prepared for the loss of some trees, but the west end of the island, the one covered with littoral forest, looked as if it had been stomped all over by a giant. The trees were smashed down, and lying all over the ground in a thick tangle. Already they had formed new leaves, and new shoots were emerging and filling in the spaces left empty by the hurricane, but the impression was still one of severe destruction.

This is the view from the dining hall. Despite the destruction, the island is a beautiful place.

The observation tower revealed a broader view, and all the more spectacular, as there were more birds and nests visible than ever before. So it appears that the boobies and frigates were not reduced in numbers, though their egg-laying was delayed by several weeks. Normally in December the birds are sitting on fluffy white chicks. This year they were just getting around to laying. Since food is available year-round, the delay isn't expected to hurt this year's recruitment.

This mature red-footed booby is of the grey colour phase. Most of the boobies at this site are white when mature. Note the exaggerated pose, like an Audubon print. This is not booby yoga, but the way one attracts a mate to the nest.

Finally everything was ready, the first batch of guests arrived, and we were off on another adventure. In this series, we are sailing to Long Cay, an island about four miles downwind.

This is a local fishing boat. About eight men and boys are on this boat, and live aboard for a week to ten days. The small boats stacked on deck are called "dories" although they are more like canoes. The fishermen paddle the dories out to a suitable area, then swim, pulling the small craft behind them. In the water they pick up conch, hook lobsters from under reefs, and spear fish. Once they have a good load, they return to the sailboat and stow their catch in an ice chest.

Bye for now

Jack and Lorena

2010-10-06T23:58:00.001-07:00

It was very difficult to post anything this summer, as we were at the cottage and had no internet. So here is an installment of "What I did for my summer holidays", which was essentially spending three months at the cottage, eating, drinking and swimming. It was, well, simply wonderful.

IdleWilde Cottage
Thurs. 29 July 2010

Well it's been three weeks since we fled the desert, and we are enjoying our life here in the bush. The weather has been hot and humid over Southern and Central Ontario, but here in the North it has been lovely. Even when it is hot the breeze from the lake keeps us comfortable and evenings are mild and calm. The sandflies were pretty annoying when we first arrived but they are gone now. Just a few deerflies during the day and the mosquitoes on the beach at night.

We have been swimming every day just to keep clean, as we have no hot water unless we heat it on the stove. The lake isn't either warm or cold: a bit bracing when you get in, but lovely to swim in after the intial shock has passed. And it is such a treat to swim in fresh water! No salty taste, no need to rinse or even to dry off when you come ashore.

Just to give you a better picture of the place the cottage is a long wooden structure among the white and red pines, nestled among blueberry and lilac bushes, and perched over a wide sandy beach. Sitting in a small cove, we look out over Rice Bay, about 3/4mile across. The rest of Talon Lake is out of sight behind high, rolling hills. The entire lake is a few miles long, divided into various bays and inlets. The shoreline has a scattering of cottages, clustered in small groups, but 80% of the shoreline and all the surrounding hills are covered in a mixed forest of pine, spruce, fir, birch, maple and aspen. All undeveloped land belongs to the Crown and is part of a Provincial park, and is to remain wild and natural. Even logging is banned within view of the lake. We are very lucky to have such a spot, and only 40 minutes from downtown North Bay.

The wildlife here keeps us entertained, with the loons calling on the lake at night, and a small flock of Canada geese and a family of merganser ducks skirting the shore by day. A pair of phoebes had a nest on the windowledge in the sunroom, but have abandoned it since the chicks have learned to fly. So now we have one adult phoebe and three chicks flying among the pines in the front yard. A mink comes by every few days, hunting among the rocks along the shore, and there is a large beaver lodge across the cove, with frequent evening traffic as they patrol the shore looking for another tree to chew down. A recent trip through the Dead River gave us the chance to watch a young moose feeding on brush by the water's edge.

This is a typical Canadian breakfast: potatoes, eggs and peameal bacon. It also came with Lorena's fresh-baked multigrain bread. Yumm!!!

Our days are filled fixing up the cottage and accumulating boats. Our friends Brian and Tanya down the lake have loaned us an old Mercury outboard for our little skiff, but we haven't been able to get it running. We also borrowed a small sailboat from them, and my nephew Ted has been learning to sail. Some other friends on the lake, the Guys, have also loaned us their aluminum skiff with a 25 hp Johnson, which they haven't used in a couple of years. We had some fuel-line problems with it, but we have it licked now. The boat will be very handy for visiting our friends down the lake, and for getting our drinking water at the spring across the lake. We also have a canoe to paddle around. Ted, my sister's son, has been doing some fishing from the canoe, and so we have had the occasional lunch of pan-fried pike. And of course we have been socialising with neighbours and friends from town.

My brother Alex's youngest two boys, Max and Sam, proudly hold up a pike. We ate it for lunch the next day.

Katie is working this summer in North Bay, but has been coming out for her days off. She usually gets a friend to bring her out. Kate has been busy doing some commissioned paintings as well.

My oldest friend Bill loaned us his car for a few days which was a huge help, but most of the time we are stranded out here. So whenever anyone calls to say they are coming to visit we give them a shopping list.

The sunroom off the kitchen has excellent lighting for painting. Kate's cousin Elysia is volunteering to help drink the beer and keep her company.

We have had a couple of cool nights, so we have to think about getting in some firewood. We cut down a big dead elm tree, so it should keep us warm for a while. The chain saw ran out of chain oil before I finished, and my brother Alex sent out the diesel motor oil for his tractor instead of the chain oil. When I called to let him know, his wife, Page, asked him diplomatically if he happened to change the oil on the tractor lately. Fortunately the answer was negative.

Went to bed last night to the gentle tapping of rain on the roof. This morning it is still raining softly. The birds are chirping and squawking in the pines outside the window. Lorena is mixing flour to bake bread. She bakes most days, so we always have fresh bread. Every day it is something different, from buns to foccaccia to cinnamon buns to regular bread, in whole wheat, rye and other mixed grains.

It feels good to be living here. It is so peaceful and lovely, one of the wonders of the world. When you consider how crowded the planet is, and how so many live in squalor or at least in conditions that never let them be away from people, machines, buildings etc. Here there is not even the sight of power lines. The occasional boat on the water or plane high overhead, a scattering of cottages along the shore are the only signs of human intrusion. The rest is wild and beautiful and free. We eat fresh food, swim when we are hot or need a bath, drink water from a spring. We have the company of each other, and of friends and family members. What more could we want or need? More soon......

2010-05-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

How rough is too rough?

You can practice wet exit and re-entry in kayaks in calm conditions every week for years, but a single capsize in big seas is a lesson you never forget.

The first day we take our people kayaking, we teach them how to exit and re-enter their kayaks in the event of a capsize. After they do this for themselves, we usually do a paddle around the island to finish up the activity. Since this island sits on the edge of the reef, part of our route takes us outside of its protection, into the open Caribbean Sea. As we emerge into open water, we start to ride the swells, and if we have had sustained Easterly winds, (which we usually do) then the swells can be impressively large. For many people, this is the biggest water they have ever paddled.

The height of a wave is an impressive feature, but it is its steepness that determines if it is dangerous. Long, slow swells of mountainous height are no threat to a kayak, as they merely lift us up then let us down again. We usually get these waves when the winds calm down after a period of strong breeze, or when there is a strong breeze somewhere to the east of us and it is calm or light winds here. But if it is blowing hard here, the waves can be mountainous and steep, even breaking at their crests. If a wave is tall enough to “feel” the bottom, it will spill or even dump its top as the leading edge of the wave is slowed by reflection from bottom structure. A tall, steep, dumping wave will be impossible for all but the most skilled kayaker to handle without a capsize. But the capsize itself isn't a danger to a paddler here. It's what happens after.

Once in the water, a paddler has to make sure his boat, paddle, and, in the case of double kayaks, his partner are all connected to prevent them from separating. The waves will continue to push them downwind, often towards shallower water. As long as one person stays in the water the drift will be slow, and he may even have to swim his kayak out of danger before considering re-entering. Once you re-enter your boat, it drifts very quickly, abeam to the wind, making the paddler susceptible to the next wave and another capsize. This is why it is crucial to bail the boat thoroughly before re-entering. Once in you may not have much time to get your nose into the wind and your ass out of danger.

One such situation occurred recently.

James and I had just finished taking a group of students through the wet exit/re-entry exercise, and we were paddling around the island. The students were all in double kayaks, but James, Tory (the prof’s assistant) and I were in singles. James was leading the pack and the double kayaks were all sticking close to him. I was in the sweep position, with Tory, trying to keep an eye on the whole group.

I had been blowing moderately hard in the morning, but now the wind had really kicked up. From the dock on the sheltered side of the island the waves seemed big, but they were quite a distance away, so it was hard to be sure.

As we emerged through the reef-cut into the open sea, the magnitude of the waves suddenly became obvious. An eight-foot wave broke over Tory and tossed her out of her single kayak. I came alongside and helped steady her boat as she bailed. She had to work quickly as we were drifting onto the reef, where the waves, slowed by the sloping bottom, would rise to what seemed like mountainous height, and the tops curled over, crashing onto the shallow sharp-edged coral.

Tory stayed cool and quickly bailed her boat. As soon as she climbed aboard her body stopped acting as a sea anchor, and our rate of drift increased dramatically. With little time to lose, we separated and, before we could turn into the oncoming wave, it broke over us both. Tory was knocked over, and hit me square in the chest with one outstretched arm. We went over like dominoes. Now we were both in the water and much closer to the reef.

It was too late to bail now, so we swam, hard, pulling our boats with us. I began to prepare Tory for the possibility that we would have to abandon the boats to the reef and swim on without them. But we were making some headway, crossing the wind and currents instead of fighting against them. The farther we got from shore, the deeper the water was and the farther we would be from the deadly shallows.

Eventually we passed the last of the coral heads, and there was nothing immediately downwind of us. Out of danger, rolling in long swells, we relaxed and took our time. Soon the boats were bailed out and we were in them again. This time we stayed rafted together until we got turned downwind, parallel to the direction of the waves. The sea conditions here were so different from the gauntlet we had just run, that it seemed as if we had imagined the whole exercise. The rest was an easy paddle, surfing the swells for fun rather than for our lives.

By the time we got to the beach, the rest of the group had finished their paddle and had decided to come looking for us in the motorboat. They had had one boat capsize, but they were farther out to sea and not in any immediate danger, despite an unwarranted fear of sharks. The boys who tipped over had gotten back in alright and were none the worse for wear.

The question “How rough is too rough?” remains unanswered. It depends largely on the surrounding environment (ie water temperature, proximity to shore and reef), and on the experience and discipline of the paddlers. If Tory had not been so rock-solid calm, I might have had a much more challenging situation to deal with. As it was even with eight-foot breaking seas, we got out of it ok, but we really should not have been between such waves and the reef in the first place.

2010-05-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

San Carlos Sonora, 19 May 2010

Back again after a busy season. How do I summarise four months in a few paragraphs? Let me try.

First the challenges. I wanted time to work on Manadi, so I asked for a few free days before I started work. I got two: not enough time even to get the boat out of storage. “Oh don’t worry,” they would say, ”right after this trip you will have some time off.” And when I got back? “We had to change your schedule a bit. You are going out to Lighthouse Reef for a month, but don’t worry, we have you scheduled for some time off right after.“ And then they would change my schedule again. Six times they changed my schedule. Finally, three quarters of the way through the season, they gave me two weeks off. I worked frantically and got the boat much closer to completion. And I solved the biggest challenge: finding a way to securely connect the main hull to the amas. So now it is so close I can almost taste it. But I have to wait until next winter.

The next big challenge came in the form of illness. There is a class of viruses referred to as noroviruses, which spread rapidly, and cause a short-term illness often referred to as “stomach flu”. Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps are the common symptoms, and it lasts a few hours to two days. The worst of this group is called the Norwalk Virus, and it was rampant in schools in parts of the US. A cruise ship arrived at Belize City with 400 passengers down with the virus. Although the ship was quarantined, the virus still spread to the mainland, and eventually arrived at Half Moon Caye.

In the worst incident, we had eighteen out of thirty people (including your humble scribbler) hit overnight. We had to modify our procedures a bit to keep it from spreading, did a major disinfection of the camp, and we got it under control quickly, never to appear again. While this was going on, we continued to take those healthy enough out snorkelling and fishing. Then my nightmare happened. Two of the guests came to me and asked if they could do a little paddling, and maybe a snorkel, unescorted. I was still ill but getting better, so I told them they could paddle only as far as the end of the island – I did not want them going beyond that, as it would take them into open unsheltered waters. At the end of the island is a small beach. I told them to paddle to this beach –and no further- and wait for me there. I would head down on foot and watch them from shore f they wanted to do a little snorkelling.

I was delayed getting down to the beach, dealing with the office by sat phone, and when I got to the beach, there was no sign of either of them. I waded out and looked around the corner of the island and saw one person paddling out toward the waves, which were breaking on the coral rubble. I whistled and she came back to me. “Where is your partner?” I asked. “She went ahead.” She replied. There was no sign of her between the shore and the big waves crashing on the rocks. “Why didn’t you wait?” I asked, annoyed and concerned. “I told her to wait, but she went ahead.”

I took her kayak and went looking for my wandering guest. I paddled around the reef, avoiding the surf zone and began to scan the water and shore for any sign. The kayak was not in sight on the water beyond the reef, so I looked along the shore. My worst nightmare revealed itself. There was the missing kayak, upside down, washed against the shore. No one was nearby. My first thought was that she has paddled straight into the surf – even though she could see the waves as she approached them – got flipped over, and has hit her head and drowned. I scanned the shore for a body washed up. I saw her sitting at the water’s edge, conscious and alert, waving to me. I waved back, she waved again as if she hadn’t seen me wave. I waved again but it was no good; she couldn’t see well enough to tell that I had seen her. I was relieved that she was alive and not in immediate danger, but she still could have been injured. She was sitting right at the shore.

I paddled quickly, as I had quite a distance to go before I could land my kayak. I wasn’t going to go through the surf that tossed her out of her boat. When I got a shore, I rushed through camp, and got the cooks, Bol and Phillip to help me. Phillip came with me, and Bol went around the other side of the island. We made our way along the shore. We found the paddle, then the boat, but no sign of our wayward guest. Bol showed up, having walked the whole shoreline. The nightmare just got worse again. She has wandered somewhere into the middle of the island. This island isn’t big, but the forested section is dense and trackless. I wondered 'Why she would wander off?" And why wouldn’t she stick to the shore where she would be easy to find? She was only 150m or so from our camp, if she had followed the rocky beach. After about 45 minutes of searching I stumbled into camp, there she was, with a couple of the guys who had found her. She gave me a hug and told me she forgave me. I was ready to strangle her!

This incident taught me to be very wary of letting people go off on their own, especially little old ladies, whom you would think would have more sense. We were very lucky too, as nobody was hurt and even the boat and paddle were undamaged. She lost her sunglasses, hat and sandals though, but that is a plus, as otherwise I don’t think she would have learned a thing from this incident.
Another lesson well-learned this year was one of sunburn. The day the guests arrive I inform them of the hazards to their health and safety, and the greatest threat is from the sun. I tell them that they need to stay hydrated as they need to sweat to cool down, and if they stop sweating, their brain will overheat and they will collapse from heat exhaustion or even heat stroke. By comparison, I say, sunburn is a painful annoyance. I strongly recommend sunscreen, but I let them know that if they are determined to burn themselves I don’t care. I was wrong.

We had a group of students from Prince Edward Island, on Canada’s Atlantic shore, out to Glover’s Reef for three days. What can happen in three days? Right? Wrong. These students had already spent five days on the coast, and many of them had burned and peeled. A hot day in P.E.I. is not a lot less hot than a day on a breezy cay in Belize but the difference in intensity of sunlight is huge. These young adults didn’t realise this. One young chap got a massive second-degree burn over his entire upper back and shoulders. It was horrifying. They were headed to a jungle lodge for two days after leaving our little island. These islands are a pretty clean environment, for the tropics, with clean white sand and a salty sea. By comparison, the jungle is a seething mass of infection waiting for a break in the skin to take hold, and to take over. If the blisters on this young lad’s skin were to break, he would be seriously exposed to possible infection. I made an example of him to the crowd, and told him, he needs to avoid any further exposure to the sun, and should not even consider going for a swim in the pool at the lodge. I hope he made it home alright.

So much for the challenges. Otherwise it was an incredible season. Every year we see more turtles than the previous one. As usual I got to meet interesting people from many walks of life. The crew I worked with were great. And as the season progressed the water got more enjoyable. We also had some great school groups. Tony Rino’s kids from St. Peter’s Catholic School, just outside Ottawa, were a great bunch and I turned 50 on the last day with them. They treated me like a king, as did the arriving group of guests, with most of whom I suddenly found myself sharing a decade. You only turn 50 once.

The last two weeks were very special for me. We had an unique situation, in that we were hosting a group of students who were taking a field course, through the University of Western Ontario. The professor, his two assistants, and a couple of the students were from Western, but the rest of the students were from various universities all over southern Ontario. The biggest block was from my alma mater, the University of Guelph, which has a massive biology program, and is very field-oriented. These young adults worked hard recording their observations, and devising little experiments, and they stayed up late like children, not wanting to miss a thing.

At the same time, the Wildlife Conservation Society had a team of biologists on the island. They were tagging and tracking sharks, turtles and stingrays. This was a great opportunity for the students to see field research being carried out, and even to participate in the some of the data collection. And it was handy for the WCS researchers, who used the help of the students. I had a great time, watching all of this unfold, and meeting the researchers and their assistants. I also met a photo-journalist and his assistant, who work with the National Geographic Society, and were chronicling some of the research work.

It was a great season and a smashing finale. I feel lucky to be a small part of it.
Cheers
Jack

2010-04-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

Evenings at the clubhouse we like to sit out on the front porch, in the afternoon breeze and have a drink while the sun goes down. There is a surprising amount of wildlife in this part of town. Across the street is a six-story Araucaria (Norfolk Island Pine) tree, with whorls of bushy branches every few feet up the trunk, and a bald top. Lately the grackles (blackbirds) have taken to roosting in the dense bushy branches. So they were understandably upset this week when a bat falcon took to standing on the top of this tree, waiting for the abundant population of bats to emerge from the eaves of the house directly below.

Occasionally a bold blackbird will fly up to the top of the tree, always coming behind the falcon, and if the falcon dives, the formerly bold blackbird and his colleagues will scatter like thieves as he dashes among them. Sometimes he gets pretty close, and the blackbird in his sights will scurry sideways at the last instant cackling wildly, and the falcon will zoom by in a streak of black and white and rusty orange. I don't think he really wants to catch one, as they are almost as big as he, but it is a good warm-up until the bats emerge.

Bats emerge in groups, flying helter-skelter, as the falcon dashes among them. It is impressive enough to see a stooping and diving falcon high over open ground, but when one flashes by between trees and buildings and pops up a block away in a heartbeat, it is breathtaking. We watch for a single bat to emerge, and one obliges, heading swiftly for the cover of nearby trees. The raptor leans off his perch and falls forward, surging ahead with a rapid beating of his wings. Before the bat can cross the street the falcon is on him but the bat pulls one of those mid-air reversals that bats are famous for and the hawk sweeps by. We cheer like fans at the arena. What a show.

Besides lounging in the evenings I have been working on the manatee. Before I install the aft and centre decks, I have to make sure I have done everything else. It will be much harder to work on interior areas of the boat once the decks are in place. I have learned to slow down, to spend a lot of time simply staring at the boat, letting the solutions to problems come to me. One such problem was how to install the rudder. I thought I would have to penetrate the hull with screws, so I cut a hole in the aft flotation chamber and installed a hatch. This way I could get at the inside at the very back, and install a wooden block to receive the screws, and also so that I didn't have a chamber in the boat that could fill with water without my kknowledge or ability to drain it.

It turns out I didn't need the hatch, because I found a way to mount the bracket by bolting on wooden side pieces that meet at the stern. The side pieces are bolted to the gunwhales, so they don't penetrate the hull, and where they meet, a third piece of wood is screwed on as a tiny transom, to receive the rudder mounting bracket. No holes in the hull. You can see in this picture the wooden brackets bolted into the side of the gunwales. The rudder is from one of my Seaward Southwinds expedition double kayaks, and should be big enough for the job.

I managed to complete a few other little jobs too, like installing the latch on the aft bulkhead hatch, and mounting wooden dogs to secure the hatches more tightly.

My biggest challenge so far has been the forward compartment. The hatch is on the bulkhead, under a long section of the midships deck and in front of the centreboard trunk. In other words, I can't get at the hatch to open or close it, not to mention manging to stow anything in there or retrieve it later. The only alternative I could think of was to install an hatch on the foredeck. But the foredeck is arched, making it difficult to install a pre-made, flat hatch, and if it were to leak, the water would get into the forward compartment, where I could never see it nor drain it.

So after staring at the boat I came up with a solution. I would install a hatch on the midships deck, above the forward bulkhead hatch so that by reaching through the deck hatch I can open and close the bulkhead hatch, and even reach into the compartment a short distance to stuff things in or take them out. Such a deck hatch needs only be big enough for my arm to reach through, so even if it is flat, it will fit the curved deck well enough not to leak. And if it does leak at all, it will leak into the cockpit where I can bail it out easily. Another problem solved.

2010-04-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have gone nearly an entire season without posting. Part of the reason for this is that I have had virtually no time off. One day, or even two, is barely enough break to catch my breath, regain my strength and do my laundry. And if I knew I was going out again so quickly I would husband my strength better. But this has been a season of sudden schedule changes.

So here I am, finally with two weeks off (!) to rest up and work on the Manatee. I don't have any pictures of recent progress yet, but I do have other pix.

One of the great things about my job is that I get to see and try out all kinds of cool gear that guests bring. Let's face it: they have a lot more money than I do. And so I have decided what my next camera purchase will be: a Canon Powershot D-10. Any old point-and-shoot will do for your run-of-the-mill photography needs, but it takes a good camera to shott well underwater. And I don't want to deal with housings. This camera takes great shots above the surface, is shallow-water proof, and take dynamite underwater pix. I'll give you a few examples from Mike (last name temporarily lost) who let me download his data card to this computer. Here are a few of Mike's better shots...

This is from the inner chamber of the "Cave of the Stone Sepulchre" Actun Tunichil Mucnal

More tomorrow...

2010-01-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

Back in the tropics

It’s 4:00 am, still dark. The temperature is barely above freezing and there is a heavy, drizzly rain falling. An icy wind blows the rain in gusts against me and my fellow bus passengers as we stand exposed under a high roof at the Nogales border crossing. I am on my way north, to Tucson, to catch a series of flights that will bring me to Belize City tomorrow afternoon.

Arriving in Tucson, I am the first one off the bus, but by the time I find my damn luggage ticket the only taxi is full. The desk clerk tells me he has called a guy to take me where I want to go, or he can order me a real taxi. I accept the bogus cab ride because I don’t know how long my cash will take me. So we bump and grind our way across Tucson in an old beater with a broken side view mirror (a previous near-miss, I gather), pocked windshield, broken seatbelt, and scraps of fabric hanging from the ceiling. It saves me ten bucks and I arrive safely so all is well.

My good friend Sonnie and her daughter Liz collect my international mail, and feed and house me when I come to town. Liz loaned me her car so I could make a few last-minute purchases. Thanks, Liz. I leave at 5:25, so I don’t get to say goodbye. Thanks, Sonnie.

It is still dark and pouring rain in Tucson as I ride to the airport. Earlier tonight the winds were so bad they closed the Phoenix airport (there were tornado warnings all over the state) but this morning the air is calm and by the time we take off, the sky is starting to clear. Check-in and security go smoothly and I have time to spare before my first of three flights. My only concern about timing will happen when I get to Belize City. If they search my bags, I will probably miss my flight to Dangriga. As it turns out they only ask me a few questions and let me go. I get to the departure lounge with plenty of time to spare: five whole minutes.

I love flying in these Cessna Caravans. You never see a fifteen-passenger single-prop plane anymore. The view of the coast is spectacular: out the port window you see the sea below and the islands that huddle behind the barrier reef. Out the starboard window is the swampy coastal plain, a broad, flat expanse of savannah, dotted with lakes and marshes. The coast itself is a long line of sand, with the submerged sandbars visible through the clear water. I watch for manatees along the line of seagrass that parallels the shore just beyond the last sandbar, but all I see are the remaining hulks of a couple of wrecked ships.

At the airport in Dangriga, I meet Sue and Aaron, a Philly couple who are going to Glover’s Reef. We all pile into the Island Expeditions Toyota Hi-Lux, and in no time I am back in the “Clubhouse” exhausted and sweating.

To all my friends in San Carlos, take care, have a good rest of the winter, and I’ll see you in May. More to come soon.

2009-11-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

I found a great quote recently, about the effects of natural selection on cultural evolution, using the Polynesian canoe as a model. Translated from the original French, is this quote, from the French philosopher Alain (Émile-Auguste Chartier) in 1908.

Every boat is copied from another boat...it is the sea herself who fashions the boats choosing those which function and destroying the rest.

As a selective force, the sea can indeed be very powerful. This, needless to say, is the source of much worry for seafarers, but it is also the driving force behind us, more so than the wind itself. For of what use is a voyage if it does not test us? It must test our seaworthiness, in every sense, from the craft itself to the skills and strengths of those who sail her. It tests the seaworthiness of our judgement, our knowledge, our alertness, our stamina. If we are found seaworthy, in the conditions nature throws at us, we will reach our intended shore and it will mean something to us, that we have passed a rigorous test indeed and were not destroyed.

As this is my voyage, from top to bottom, and all the building, planning, outfitting, navigating etc. are my project, then it is I alone who am being tested. Am I seaworthy? Time will tell. The first Manatee ran into a few flaws, and they were fixed with no real harm done, until the last one. But by then I had already deemed the boat unfit for such a voyage as I had planned, so the loss was small. And more was learned by that simple shipwrecking, than was lost to me in the event. The second Manatee will be all the better-built for it, and I will be better prepared for the next failure, whatever it may be.

Still, whatever events I may plan for, I am sure the sea will be throwing up new ones at me, even unto the day I arrive at my destination, after months of sailing. And more complicated than one finds aboard any ordinary sailboat, is the fact that this boat and I must be able to land on the beach, time after time. The deep blue sea has dangers enough, but any sailor will tell you the most dangerous place in the whole ocean of the world, is the place where it collides with the land: an unstoppable force meeting an immoveable object.

So will the Manatee II and I be seaworthy and shoreworthy? Time and tide will tell.

2009-09-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

There have been many stories written about a future without mankind. What will cities look like after the last humans have left? The stories usually portray a gradual erosion of buildings and roads. I have seen how it will really happen. Long periods without change will be punctuated by the abrupt collapse of buildings, utility poles, the sudden washing away of roads, and breakage of pipes and conduits. Time will gradually weaken structures, but it will be storms that knock it all down.

Imagine 36 hours of one-inch-per-hour rains, flowing over hard desert soils. A river of mud and debris will take out strings of power poles, float boats out of storage yards and pile them up on roads, wash cars into the sea. Drainage courses in the desert are dry so much of the time, that people build their houses, put up walls and fences right in or across them, as if they were a mere dip in the landscape and nothing to be concerned about. But walls become dams, and when they are knocked over, the resulting flood can be devastating. And when water and mud flow in under doors it can be terrifying.

Hurricane Jimena never officially touched the mainland in the Guaymas area, but it parked itself in the middle of the Gulf of California for a day and a half, and the sustained heavy rains cut roads in half and washed whole houses away, especially in poor areas. Two weeks later we have electricity and water again, but thousands are homeless, there is still debris on the roads and detours around the washed out sections. Everything will eventually be restored, but the breakdown from a single, if rare, storm is immense. This is how it will all happen when we finally leave this planet, or when, like the Mayans, we abandon our cities and our civilisation and return to a stone age culture. Hopefully that time is a long way off.

Meanwhile, life goes on in San Carlos. I for one am still acclimating to the humid heat after a wonderful five weeks in Ontario. If there is anyone who doubts the effect of humidity on the sensation of heat, or cold for that matter, think of it in terms of conductivity. Moisture in the air is like metal in the hand, versus something less conductive, like wood or plastic. And humid heat is unrelieved by sweat, which clings to clothing and skin, instead of evaporating and cooling the body. As much as I love my life here, I long for the cool fresh air of a Canadian summer and fall.

Lorena and I are considering spending more time in Canada. Since we migrate north every summer, we might as well stay longer, and make some money. This way we can avoid the extremes of temperature in both countries, and enjoy the best of what they have to offer. The tricky part is to find seasonal work so that we can come back to it every summer, and always have the job waiting for us.

Wish us luck.

Cheers
Jack

2009-09-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

Lake Talon, 31 August, night
A pregnant moon lays a silver path across the still, black water. A thin layer of mist dances and swirls slowly over the surface . Outside the temperature is already just a few degrees above freezing, but in the bathroom, a small electric heater has kept it the toastiest room in the cottage.

I am reluctant to emerge from this sanctuary of warmth, to cross the chilly, uninsulated main lodge to the insulated, if unheated bedroom. Quickly I shiver under a down blanket and am snuggled again against my warm other half. This is life at the cottage in late summer, or at least a glimpse.

Soon we are up, getting the fire going and starting breakfast. The morning sun has lifted the night mist off the lake, and it is a bright, cheery day.

This cottage is the anchor for the Wilde family. We try to all get here when we can, to share our old stories, and make up new ones, with family and friends new and old. The building itself expresses the history of the various families that owned it, with all the various additions , the rearranged rooms, and the mismatched dishes and cutlery. Legally it belongs to my brother, Alex. This was Dad’s idea: he has seen too many family conflicts when various siblings co-own a cottage, and can’t agree on modifications and repairs, who will pay for what, and who uses it when. Management of the family cottage needs to be a dictatorship. And Alex has been a benevolent dictator, making sure it remains the Wilde family cottage.

Alex has a young family and a new farm, so the cottage has become a necessarily low priority. So when we arrived in early August, we found that this petty fiefdom had been conquered by ravaging hordes of tiny Visigoths resembling nothing more than mice and chipmunks. Also, an ill-timed family accident led the cottage to be temporarily abandoned one fall, resulting in frozen water pipes. So our first priorities were to clean out the mouse-befouled cupboards and counters, remove debris and scattered clothing and toys, and to restore the water supply to kitchen and bathroom.

Under the cottage, the copper tubing had blown out at several elbows. Just a few joints to resolder, no pipes to replace. A borrowed torch from next door, and a bit of cursing and a few burned fingers, and the job of reconnecting the pipes is done without burning down the building. I broke a plastic connector attached to the pressure tank, and managed to free it by melting it with the torch without damaging the bladder inside the tank. So everything is good from the pump to the kitchen sink and toilet.

Next is the water supply from the lake. When the ice came in it pushed the waterline right up onto the beach and broke it off at the edge of shore. It also pushed it up underground putting a kink in the line. So the kids dug up the line and found the blockage, and when we were done, the waterline was good from the pump to the lake.
Prepared for the triumphant sound of water flowing in the pipes, I filled the pipe to the lake, connected it to the pump, and then began to fill the pump. And, of course, triumph turns to defeat as water pours out through a gaping crack in the side of the pump. Shit. So now it is a trip to town to buy a used pump.

Hooking up the pump to 220V, I turned off the switch so the wires would be safe to handle. It wasn’t until I tried to turn it on that I discovered the switch was somehow bypassed and useless, and if it weren’t for the fact that the power was turned off at the main panel upstairs, I wouldn’t be typing this.

Anyway, the new pump worked once we had adjusted the pressure so that it didn’t blow the hose off every time it turned off. So we have a flushing toilet and water in the kitchen. The place is clean and orderly. Life is good. We still have to heat water on the stove, but we use the electric one for that, and a shower is a simple matter of standing in the tub and pouring hot water over your body with a dipper.

The reason we come up to Ontario in August is to split our summer into manageable halves. The summer monsoon in Sonora runs from July to early October, and is both hot and humid. So by coming to North Bay in August, although we miss the best of summer weather here, we also miss the worst of the summer down south. And we can appreciate the cool and even the cold, wet weather, as a pleasant change to extreme moist heat.

Today, however, is perfect. Sunny and clear, the day promises to be warm and dry. The lake is a bit chilly, but we can swim until late October in Sonora, so we don’t miss it as much as we might if we lived here year-round. That said, there is nothing like swimming in a warm freshwater lake. No chlorinated pool and no salty sea can compare with the joy of freshwater. I like the sea, especially snorkelling in it, for all there is to see. But it is nice to not have to rinse the salt off of you. And of you swallow a bit of lake water, you are less thirsty for it, not more.

Today we might take the SS Entropy for a stroll down the lake, maybe see if our neighbours are around. The Entropy has seen better days. A pontoon boat is like a floating dock you can drive around the lake. It has a big flat deck, and lots of comfy chairs and couches to sit on. The problem is that the sun and the rain eat away at the upholstery, the carpeted deck stays wet long after a rain, and traps mildew and sand, and eventually the boat looks like an abandoned convertible on some redneck’s front lawn. So next year we are going to replace the carpeted deck with cedar decking, and the upholstered chairs can be replaced with cedar lawn furniture. Then it will still look like a floating dock but will be much easier to maintain and will look good for years.

Lake Talon is a lovely lake. Most of the shore and surrounding terrain is Crown land, with a scattering of cottages and a few permanent homes. It is all surrounded by a mixed forest, dominated by pines near shore, and a mixture of spruce, fir, poplar, birch and maple on the slopes. High hills surround the lake and except for the cottages and a few boats, it looks like the middle of wilderness. And it will stay that way because the crown has no intention of releasing any more land. Much longer than it is wide, it is a crooked series of bays and inlets, giving it a long shoreline but no really big open water. So it is ideal for exploring by canoe or motorboat. Most of the shore is bouldery, but there are plenty of rocky outcrops and some nice sandy beaches for picnicking. There is very little boat traffic on the lake, even in summer, and at this time of the year you practically feel like you have the lake to yourself.

The lake is part of the Mattawa River, and is part of an ancient canoe route stretching across the country. At one time the portages were marked with a signpost, and each had a large brass plaque outlining the history of the river and of that particular portage. Now the portages are hard to find, though they are all still used all summer by adventurous paddlers, and during the annual North Bay to Mattawa canoe race.

Being surrounded by so much Crown land has really spoiled me. The idea that you can just push off shore in a canoe and go for days or weeks, camping anywhere suitable, catch fish for dinner, and just wander at will without having to ask anyone for permission or pay a fee seemed the most natural thing in the world to me growing up here. Now I see how rare a thing this is I feel especially lucky to have grown up here. And to have a cottage surrounded in Crown land is a rare and lucky thing. I hope it always remains like this.

A postscript: While we were away in beautiful Northern Ontario, our lovely San Carlos got hit by Hurricane Jimena. Strong winds and heavy rain battered the poor town for 36 hours, dumping nearly a half a metre of rain. As far as we know our friends in San Carlos and neighbouring Guaymas are still trapped there with no water, no electricity and the highways washed out in both directions. We wish them all the best. Please eat the food in our fridge!

2009-07-19T17:45:00.001-07:00

This is Monsoon Season: SE winds bring moisture-laden Tropical air and the rains, when they come, fall violently,with lightning crashing all around us, knocking out power, flooding the streets and making a big mess. As I was about to go to bed last night, I noticed the trees outside were rocking violently. The wind began blowing so strong that things started crashing to the ground outside, and I had to go onto the roof to close the hatch over the bathroom. I was a bit late: I still had to sweep the floor in the morning for all the sand and grit that had blown in, and that was from the roof.
I checked the internet weather and discovered a huge mass of cloud to the south and coming this way. I was hoping for a monsoon rain: heavy rain, lots of lightning. But so far all we got was wind, shaking the windows, blowing grit in through the gaps and under the doors. The dogs were pretty nervous about the whole event, but I couldn’t sit with them because my eyes would get all full of grit. So I had to content myself with watching from inside. The flashes of light in the sky told of an advancing thunderstorm, and when I started to hear the rumble, I knew it was within about 15 miles. Alas the rain, the lightning spectacle that is so much fun to watch from the safety of home, never arrived. It was another teaser.
Meanwhile, the desert is still dry and leafless, and we stay in to avoid the extreme heat and humidity, awaiting the glory that the summer rains bring.

2009-05-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

My daughter, Kate, returned from a high school field trip to Europe. I asked her “How was your trip?”. And instead of the expected “good” or “it was awesome!” she replied, “There were a lot of stairs, and don’t ever call anything in Canada ‘old’.”
There is a lesson here for all of us. When we travel, it is not enough to think of our experiences as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We should think about how our experiences have changed our relationship with the world at large. Every new experience moulds and shapes us, however little, or it wasn’t truly experienced. Travel is rich in new experiences, and since travelling is costly, economically and environmentally, we owe it to ourselves and others to make the best of it.
Keeping a journal is an effective way to enhance the experience. Not only does having a record allow you to relive your memories, but the mere act of writing down what you saw and did and felt, involves the whole mind in the experience.
Photography is a useful tool as well, for reliving your trip, especially when you share the photos with others. But I find the act of taking pictures removes you from the act of experience. Take a beautiful sunset for example. To sit and watch the colours of the sky gradually shift down the spectrum and fade to that deep indigo, and to see the night stars emerge in order of brightness, can be a deeply spiritual experience. Sunsets can be beautiful, but if you are fussing about setting up the tripod, and waiting for just the right moment when the lighting is perfect, you get a great picture, but no sense of having experienced the sunset. What you experienced was the act of photographing the sunset, not the act of observing it.
I remember a trip I took with Kate when she was eight. We drove around southern Vancouver Island in an old camper van I had. My camera broke(drowned, actually) the week before when we were on a sailing trip, so I was relieved of the distraction of photography and was free to fully experience the act of observing the joys of discovery that only an eight-year-old can truly do well. Without the camera to chronicle the trip, I deliberately took mental pictures. One picture is of an eight-year-old girl dressed in fleece jacket and pants, with new hiking boots. She was standing on a tree stump, which had washed up on the beach. The stump was not very tall but wide enough she could have lain down on it with neither head nor foot hanging over the edge. She was leaning into a pair of miniature binoculars and gazing intently out to sea. Her expression was of serious curiosity, and she was a perfect miniature version of an adult, all the cuter for being a kid.
Now picture a huge conifer, its massive buttress roots anchoring it to the earth. Each root emerges from the tree as a triangular slab of wood, a few inches thick but three feet tall at the base, tapering to a more rounded shape a few feet from the trunk. Now picture this noble tree, long dead, washed ashore with the buttresses radiating from the base, facing the sea that delivered it to some lonely beach. Now picture the same eight-year-old curled up, lying asleep on an horizontal buttress in the root system of this great tree, shaded by the root above. My feeling at this image is one of great joy, at spending this brief moment of time with my precious daughter. The memories of that time together will remain with me all my life, and has shaped our relationship.
So, by all means take a few snaps. But more importantly, write down your experiences. And most of all, live them.

2009-03-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

Well it's time I did some justice to the places I visit, especially Lighthouse Reef. My thanks to Victor and Dawn Meekhof for all the photos in this post. You did a great job, much better than I could have done. By the way, all these images are the property of Victor and Dawn Meekhof.

Let's start with Half Moon Caye. as the Belize Audubon Society says, "It all started with the boobies." In this case it was the red-footed boobies, which have a large nesting colony here. To see the boobies, you follow a trail along the north shore of the island, which then turns inland. You hear them before you see them; strange croaking noises, bill-clapping and other noises beyond description fill the air. As does the smell of guano, also known as birdshit. Peering up into the trees, you can see boobies peering back down at you, sitting on nests that are no more than a few meagre twigs jammed into the crotch of a tree.. They are so tame that they are not the least stressed by the presence of people who are walking quietly beneath them. Presently you come to an observation tower, and a few steps takes you to eye level.

There you see the boobies, and frigatebirds all nesting together. People wonder why boobies would tolerate their arch-enemy, the frigatebird to nest so closely. It is easy to imagine that having the same bully that stole your breakfast from you sitting in the next nest over would be intolerable. But the birds don't take it personally. The frigates are no threat on the nest, and there is safety in numbers, from real nest predators. so they live and let live.

The first two shots are of mature red-footed boobies in the white colour phase. This phase is less common globally than the brown-with-a-white-tail colour phase, but here on Half Moon Caye, the white birds are by far the more common.

The second shot, you have figured out by now. It is all a confusing mess. Newborns are all-white and fluffy. When they lose the baby down, they are brown. Only at maturity do they reach their final colour pattern.

Sometimes a bird falls from the flimsy nest and is rejected by the parents. The Park Rangers may try to replace the bird, but if the parents won't have it then they raise it themselves. Sometimes these orphans eventually take off and go off to feed themselves, but not Gilly. She liked people too much. When placed with her kin, she would immediately fly back to the park office. She would often be seen landing on the outboard motor of an approaching dinghy, begging for fish scraps. She even landed on my kayak a couple of times, then finally landed on my hat. She stayed on my hat all the way back to the beach until I set her on the fish-cleaning table.

She would even make a nuisance of herself when James and Adolfo were trying to clean the day's catch.

We also get in the water to do some snorkelling. Here is Dawn consulting the Oracle, a huge brain coral. Also shown is a hawksbill turtle. Hawksbills are the most common turtle found in the shallow water, but are often too shy to watch for long. They graze on algae and eat a variety of marine mollusks. This is the turtle that was once prized for "tortoiseshell" jewellery, and was saved from extinction by the development of cheap plastic substitutes. Ironic, considering floating plastics are arguably the greatest threat to the survival of several sea turtle species.

Can you see the stonefish in this picture? If you can you may even notice a small sharp-nosed puffer picking at the stonefish as if it were indeed a rock covered in marine growth.

I couldn't resist including this shot of a reef squid checking out a school of snorkellers. Reef squid are real characters; they swim in formation, changing colour and even flashing white and dark. They have amazing control over their skin pigment, opening and closing pigment cells called chromatophores with astonishing speed.

The weather isn't always as it appears in the literature. Sometimes a squall hits us
and dumps a heavy rain for a couple of minutes before it passes. This is Victor smiling because he was smart or lucky enough to still be in the water when it hit. Pity those who sat through the rain on the boat, but not too much. And if you look closely between the engines you will see the head of yours truly, avoiding the rain altogether.

It isn't always raining either, Much more often we have a flawless sky and sometimes the wind is just right for a sail.....

More to come soon. Cheers
Jack

2009-03-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

Just in from Glover's Reef and want to post some photos from some of my guests.

The first is an iguana in a tree. During the winter months the males climb up into prominent spots where they can display their size and orange mating colours. Preferred sites are in the tops of trees directly over water, for a quick getaway if needed. This magnificent specimen was in his prime and probably had several females hanging around in nearby branches to get a piece of him when laying time comes around.

Next is a Morelet's crocodile. This species is smaller and less aggressive than the American crocodile, and unlike the American, is found only in freshwater rivers and lagoons. This fellow was hanging out in the branches of a downed tree along the banks of the New River.

Half Moon Caye hosts a nesting colony of the rare and beautiful white-phase red-footed booby. Trails wander under the booby nests, leading to a three-metre tall observation tower. Standing on the tower, visitors are surrounded by nesting boobies and frigatebirds, almost within reach. This pair of boobies was sharing the duties of feeding each other and sitting on the nest.

Thanks to Birgit Kuhle, for the booby pic, which I have posted with her permission.

More coming next week. Cheers
Jack

2009-02-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

I have some catching up to do. Sorry I am so late. Ok, so last summer and fall, I did a little research on outriggers (amas). I decided to go to two amas after the disastrous consequences of having a single ama fail on me one dark and windy night. I found out that in the Hawaiian chain there is a tradition of making sailing canoes with two amas. Because of the surfy conditions and huge swells these boats have to content with, the amas are swept high in the front, so if the boat broaches (turns sideways) while coming in through surf, or sliding down a big wave at sea, the lower ama won't dig into the next wave and trip the boat.

The first three photos show the basic shape of an ama. It is made of polyisocyanurate foam (which is expensive but doesnt dissolve on contact with polyester resin like styrofoam would), cut with a saw and shaped with planing tools and coarse sandpaper. The foam is two sheets glued together and glued to a plywood backbone which was precut to the right shape, and gives a consistent form and stiffness to the mould. Without the plywood spine it never would have come out symmetrical.

The next photo shows the fibreglass ( a single layer of matte) as it is cut and laid on before adding the resin. The fibreglass and resin are bonded to the foam and this forms the outer layer of the mould (middle picture). Then the foam is carefully cut away from the plywood spine.

After the foam is separated from the spine, it is mounted on a couple of posts, and wrapped with plastic film, of the type you wrap leftovers in. Now is it ready for the thick fibreglass layer: two layers of matte sandwiching a layer of woven roving. The fibreglass will not stick to the mould because of the layers of plastic film. You could use mould release wax, but I didn't have any.

Once I made the first fibreglass cast, I had to grind it off at the ends so it would open enough to remove it. Then I put it back in place and shipped it to Chetumal, near the border with Belize. There it would wait for me to carry it across the border.

Once I was in Belize, I took the bus up to the border and dropped in on my friends Rolando and Mercedes. They were storing it for me, and kindly took me in overnight. The next morning Rolando drove me to the border. I walked across the Rio Hondo bridge into Belize and went to Customs and Immigration. The Customs officers didnt know how much to rob me in duty for this strange-looking object. They base their "duty" on the market value, plus the cost of shipping and insuring the object. The shipping cost was typed on the waybill. It said $845. So they assumed that was in US dollars. I told them that was pesos (it was), and they finally believed me when I explained that the sign for pesos is not found on a keyboard, so they use the $ sign. So when they finally tallied up their estimate they charge 20%, then taxes on their fee (!). It all came to almost $100us. For a chunk of foam and fibreglass that I made myself. So I left the Customs office and started walking to Corozal, a distance of about 20 miles. Of course the second pickup truck that passed by stopped for me and I rode in the back until I saw the bus station. I was concerned about the awkwardness of taking the ama on the bus but it fit right under the seats – the buses here are all old Bluebird school buses, totally unmodified. The rest is uneventful.
When I got to Dangriga I moved into the new guides house. Every year it is a different place, because they only rent it for a few months and have to take what they can get. This year it is the top floor of a two-storey concrete house at the south edge of town, right up against the mangroves (and sandflies).

This isnt it. But it is our immediate neighbour to the west. This picture was taken from the roof, which is accessible and has a rail all around, as you will see.

The first picture is the Manatee on the roof before I got the sawhorses built. After the sawhorses were built, I began work on the daggerboard trunk. On the right you can see the opening in the hull for the daggerboard (a hinged keel: more like a jackknife than a dagger). In the centre picture the dagger board is barely visible sticking up through the opening. I like this picture because it shows how sleek this boat is.

On the left is a better view of the daggerboard, which is an old rudder salvaged off a wrecked Hobiecat, found out at Half Moon Caye. Above the boat is the framework for a shade. I only set the tarp up when I am going to work on the boat. Otherwise the wind beats it up and pulls the poles all apart.

The photo on the right shows the trunk: the box in which the dagger board is housed. Also evident in this picture are the two bulkheads with large hatches cut into them.
Just working on this section made me realise I am not getting this boat done this year; especially since I spent the bulk of my time off vacationing with Lorena, which I don’t regret in the least.
So thats my progress so far, folks. Next posting will come in a week or two. I have to rustle up some photos from some of my guests first. Cheers, Jack

2008-06-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

How can one describe silence? How can one share solitude? How can a desire for aloneness cure a loneliness of the soul? That is the rub, isn’t it? The paradox of wilderness. We want it , indeed need wilderness to exist, even if we never set foot in it. Many insist that there be places on this earth where no human treads, even lightly. I am one such person. But I am selfish. I also need places where no permanent trace of man exists, and yet I want to be there. To live, even briefly, as man lived before civilisation, before industrialisation, before globalisation. To breathe the silence, to drink in the emptiness, to swell inside with the fullness of a lonely planet, empty of my own kind.

I can only speak for myself. When I leave behind humanity and enter the wild world, it takes about three days before the voice in my head quiets. Suddenly I am truly present in my surroundings, no longer buffered and shielded by the continuous chatter that substitutes for my own thoughts. Thinking, feeling and being, are revealed to be three different processes of mind. It takes continuous silence, not from sound, but from noise,the kind you are trained since birth to notice, to interpret. Voices, street traffic, music, commercials. And noise, which comes in a visual form as well, especially if written in billboards ten feet high, demands your attention even if you don’t realise it. And by grabbing and holding your attention, noise, in all its forms, robs you of your presence of mind; that is, it takes you out of yourself, and prevents your self from being present, in the moment, and connected to all things.

In the bush, in the desert, on the sea, your attention is also needed, but the volume of traffic on your brain is much slower, more manageable, and devoid of any social context. The word peaceful springs to mind. There is a peace in solitude that cannot exist in the presence of another human being. But how can one describe this kind of peace, with the words that shatter it, deny its existence? How can one hope to communicate the feeling of that moment, when all internal communication stops, ceases to exist, and all that is is a state of peaceful emptiness of mind, of a fullness of spirit, a moment of mere, bare , pure existence? Alone, but not lonely, indeed the opposite of lonely, in which the connectedness of all the universe is known without thought, felt without sensation, but just is.

2008-04-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

The longest stage of any journey begins when you start to see signs you are almost home.

It is said that “Life is a journey”. We focus too much on the little destinations, the goals that have been set before us, so that we do not live in the moment but are always striving for a distant future. But the destinations are but instants in time: they occupy none of the space of our lives. It is the striving, the journey itself that fills the space between the destinations: this is where we live.
It’s hard to feel that way when you are travelling home. Heading away from home is a form of exploration. Every moment has meaning because travel is the purpose of your life at that moment. But when you set your sights on home you cease to travel, as an activity, as a form of exploration. From then on all the experiences of your travel are an annoyance, something that stands between you and your goal. The goal isn’t to go home: it is to be home.

That was how I felt at the end of my season in Belize this year. Don’t get me wrong: it was a good season for me. I met some very interesting people, and had a great time swimming with the fishies. But once the season was over, I was in a hurry to get home, to be there on my birthday, with Lorena. And a cancelled flight meant I had to get from Dangriga to Cancun overland in a single day. Now I am home, in San Carlos, in late April. The days are warm, the nights are cool and the air is dry. And the sea is chilly. Oh well, I can go a while without snorkelling with no ill effects.

This blog is supposed to be about the Manatee. Well the first one is gone, and the second one is under construction. It has been a great experience working on the new boat this past winter. I had done a little fibreglass work before, but never actually built anything out of fibreglass. This year, with the help of Kerry (aka Bobo), Island Expeditions’ resident fibreglass expert, I have built the decking, the cockpit, bulkheads, hatches and the centreboard trunk, all out of fibreglass. When she is done, she will be all fibreglass except the floor and a folding table attached to the centreboard trunk.

I was planning to photodocument each stage of the process, but I left my camera in San Carlos and took only one photo of the boat with the camera of another guide. So the pictures will have to wait. Now I am home I plan to build the amas (outriggers) and akas (crossbeams between the amas and the main hull) here in San Carlos, and ship them to Belize for the beginning of next season. This gives me plenty of time to work on them. Next season I should be able to assemble the whole boat before I start work and then take her out with me. I will sail her around and find her weaknesses before I set out on my voyage home. This next one will have two amas, so if one fails, I have a backup until I can get it fixed. It will also be very fast as it is longer - 20 ft - and lighter - about 1/3 the weight of the first one. The further I progress, the more excited I become about the voyage home. Sometimes it is an obsession and I have to remind myself to enjoy the anticipation but live my life now. That said, it doesn’t mean I can’t reminisce. So I would like to share some of the moments I experienced this past field season in Belize.

We don’t often snorkel the Western Wall at Glover’s Reef, as it is too far to paddle for most groups, and the groups are usually too big to take the skiff. But this year the number of people travelling to Belize was way down, so we had some small groups. One such trip we decided to skiff over to the Western Wall and snorkel along the outside edge of the atoll where the bottom drops vertically to great depths. The wall is actually a series of walls, separated by ledges. We were snorkelling over one such ledge, with about 20 feet between us and the corals below. We saw the usual assortment of reef fishes, and in small sandy clearing lay a dead squirrelfish. We noted the fish and carried on when someone spotted a large green moray eel, swimming along the bottom in broad daylight. This is unusual, so we followed it as it poked its head in and out of various holes in the reef, until it came upon the dead squirrelfish. It must have caught scent of the fish and come looking for it. We watched as the huge eel writhed and struggled to swallow this spiny fish. The whole effort looked painful.

After the show was over, we spread out and continued to drift southward with the current. I was off to the right of the main group, right near the dropoff, when a large shape directly below caught my eye. My breath caught in my throat as a 12 ft. hammerhead shark swam steadily beneath me. This was the first time I had seen a shark that could easily eat me, while I was in the water with it. The long, lithe body and powerful tail contrasted sharply with the more commonly seen nurse shark. I had a feeling, looking at this fellow, that he could easily turn and take a monstrous bite out of me should he decide to. Rationally I knew I had nothing to fear, as shark attacks are almost always on people who are spearfishing, and the shark really just wants the fish. I also quickly surmised that he wasn’t interested in us because he was already past us and swimming determinedly southward. I tried to follow, but even though he wasn’t in a hurry, he was still far too fast to keep up with. But just for the briefest of moments, he was Jaws, and I was one of his hapless victims.

My second shark encounter was much closer and much, much scarier. I was snorkelling a new patch reef, near the edge of the atoll at Lighthouse Reef, with two guests in tow. We had anchored in about 15 ft. of water, and were working our way around this big patch reef. As we got nearer to the edge of the reef, the patch reef broke up into a series of large dead coral mounds. I got an eerie feeling there. There was no live coral, no fish even. As I rounded one mound, I suddenly saw a big, heavy-bodied shark, swimming away from me, scanning back and forth. Usually when you see a shark during the day, they are milling around, killing time. This one looked like it was looking for something. I turned and looked for my friends. Then I stuck my head back in the water. The shark emerged again, a few feet away. This time he had a school of jacks with him. They knew he was hunting. Again he swam away.

I pressed myself against the coral head and looked for my guests again. I called them over and said “Snorkel’s over. I just saw a really big shark.” Read the italics as a kind of breathy speech. “Ok,” I continued, “Let’s swim over to the boats together, like one big fish.” No one argued or questioned me and we more or less did just that. It seemed to take forever for the two of them to get into the boats, as I stayed under, scanning the water. Then we were all in and on our way back. When the fear is over, you are left with a rush of adrenaline, the kind of high that makes you feel truly and sharply alive. You feel like you are charged with electricity, covered in Saint Elmo's fire. There is nothing like it.

It occurred to me that if one of the Belizian guides was with us, I wouldn’t have felt so spooked. These guys know the sea, they live in these waters, and I rely on them for their knowledge and experience. But when it is all up to me, I don’t quite have the same confidence, not when other peoples’ lives are at stake. Later conversations with Alex, the most experienced of the Belizian guides, convinced me it was probably a bull shark, and that it was wise to get out of the water when we did.

I guess that’s a part of life, isn’t it? Knowing when to get out of the water. That’s my cue.

Cheers
Island Jack

2008-02-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

Back in Belize, with high hopes and empty pockets. Came early intending to work on the new Manadi, but can't do any work until I gt some money, so I am enjoying playing tourist. Went camping for ten with a friend from Tucson. Here are some highlights...

Sailing a double kayak in a lovely NE breeze, we spy a dolphin clearing the water about 100m ahead. So I scratch the hull of the kayak to get his attention. and soon he appears below us in the clear green water. He swims alongside, underneath us for a few seconds, then crosses under us and disappears. We take this as an auspicious start to our trip.

Day 3 Tobacco Range. A cold front has come in and strong NW winds are keeping us on the beach. A fishing boat from the north coast is using our island as shelter from the wind, so the crew come ashore. The Skipper teaches me how to weave a net. We use his net needle and I make a net bag. This is a great skill to have. Later we get some bamboo and carve net needles. Several of us are at work carving these needles, and one suggests a contest to see who can make the nicest one. I have the sharpest knife and so win the contest, not by any skill of my own.

Day 6: We are entering Sittee River after crossing several miles from Billyhawk Cay. Right at the mouth are three manatees, which we watch only briefly before they spot us and disappear. We enter the river, and about a mile in there is a narrow side channel which connects to a lagoon. We pass into the channel and are swallowed up by the forest. The scene about us is magical. We are surrounding by tall tangles of mangrove roots, and enclosed by the forest. Tiny birds flit by so swiftly we can't identify them, and all is still and silent. The silence rings in our ears after so many days of constant wind and waves. We drift with the current and marvel at our surroundings before we burst forth into a large round lagoon and the spell is broken.

Day 7: We are camped on a beautiful sandy beach, with our own dock and picnic area. Through the sparse woods behind us is a lagoon, and a new-built road. In the bush we find a pair of narrow-gauge locomotive wheels, and there is evidence of dredging in the lagoon. We later discover that there is a big marina and housing devlopment planned for this area, but for now we have it to ourselves. Ourselves and millions of nasty biting sandflies. For now the breeze is blowing and we are content to hang our hammocks and make our dinner in peace. But in the morning, after a rain followed by a windless day, we are driven away as fast as we can flee.

Day 9: We are on the Sittee River, at the Riverview Lodge, which for now is just a restaurant and dock, but we are very pleased with the people and the location. We have slung our hammocks under a big thatch, and we have a place to cook our meals and hang our clothes, along with a shower and toilets. This place is perfect for us. The owners are friendly and helpful and plan to build some cabins on the grounds. And camping is only $10 BZE ($5US) per night.

From the dock we watch tiger herons and little blue herons stalk the shoreline. A small black opossum steals by in the night. He is headed to a small channel to drink where he is reasonably safe from crocodiles. Later we see one glide by, about a 10-footer.

In the trees around our campsite we see and hear oropendulas, melodious blackbirds, red-lored parrots, a huge, orange and black iguana, and two keel-billed toucans. The toucans are a real highlight, being such an unusual bird and are a big attraction to the Sittee River area.

We get a couple of bikes and ride up the road, looking for the old sugar mill. A Salvadorian citrus worker helps us find it, and we discover huge wheels and gears buried in the jungle vegetation. By the size of the trees that have grown up in this site, it has been abandoned for a long time. We later learn it was the first sugar mill in Belize, built in the 1830's. We also learn that from here was built a railway to take the sugar to the sea, where it was loaded on schooners. The point of loading was that very beach where we had camped among the locomotive wheels and sandflies. Another mystery solved and a trip worth the effort.

A word about campsites. Much of the coast of this tiny country is privately owned, but we found welcoming people and affordable sites. One such place is Billyhawk Cay, which has a small fledgling resort. For $10bze a night you can camp there and live among Garifuna fishermen. If you don't catch any fish, they will sell you some, and there are nice coral reefs nearby to explore. They also have small rooms available and a bar.

Another spot we found was Castillo's Beach, on the north end of Hopkins. Mr. Castillo let us stay on his beach for $10 bze for the both of us. The beach is very nice for swimming, there is a picnic table and flat ground for a tent or some nice tres to sling a jungle hammock. He also let us use his shower and toilet, in an outbuilding near his house. Right beside his house is Sew Much Hemp, where you can buy natural insect repellent and a variety of hemp-based clothing and other products (not weed). I didn't try the insect repellent, but it sure smells better than DEET.

The last day was a 14 mile paddle from Sittee River to Dangriga against the wind. It was a long day but we enjoyed the challenge and certainly felt we had earned a cold Belikin beer at the end of that day.

See you soon. Cheers
Jack

2007-09-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

I'm back in San Carlos, just after a grazing by Tropical Storm Henriette. we got some wind, much rain, and very little damage.

I recently got a request for more desert photos, so i am dedicating this post to the beautiful Sonoran Desert. Those among you who are more interested in the marine stuff, skip this one but don't give up on me. Soon I will begin construction on the new amas (outriggers)for the Manatee.

San Carlos is in the southern Sonoran desert, in a region of the desert known as the Central Gulf Coast region. Rains here come mostly in the summer. The winter rains which are fairly reliable in the north, particularly around Tucson, Arizona, may not fall here for several years. Despite this, the desert is surprisingly shrubby.

Surprising too, is how dry it can be a few feet from the sea. All that moisture, and it hardly falls on land. This is typical of deserts found in the "Horse Latitudes". The horse latitudes (roughly 30 degrees, north and south of the equator)are a region of descending air, which as it falls, warms and dries. The result is very stable air, with few clouds, little wind, and very little precipitation. And the ability to tie your boat to a cactus.

Much of the Sonoran Desert is in the Basin and Range Province of southwestern North America. Small ranges of moderate to low volcanic mountains rise through a flat basin of volcanic dust and ash. San Carlos is on the seaward edge of the Sierra el Aguaje, a mountain range split with canyons and pushed right up to the sea. The canyons are shady and often have water seeping in from the surrounding porous rock. As a result these canyons often harbour a variety of tropical deciduous forest species, normally found hundreds of kilometres to the south. On the slopes are more typical desert species, such as cacti and agave plants.

Even talk. The pictures were chosen to show the variety of landforms and vegetation. I hope you enjoy them.

Cheers,
Jack

2007-09-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve been asked to post more frequently and more regularly, lest my readers lose interest. My philosophy has been to post when I think I have something interesting to say, however rare and random that may be. Please let me know what you think.
Lorena and I are at the cottage, on the shore of Lake Talon; a lake in Northern Ontario. The water is a light tea colour, tinted by the water from the bogs in its catchment area. By mid-August it is already chilly for swimming, and so our daily bath is quick and bracing, but necessary, as there is no indoor plumbing this year.
I awoke last night, for the usual reasons, and peering out through the big front windows, I was struck by a rare and beautiful sight. In the bright moonlight a shroud of silver mist swirled slowly over the still, dark water in little peaks, like ghosts figure-skating in slow-motion over black ice. The nocturnal world seemed filled with magic, and I could only stand and stare in wonder. At such moments, you forget about the cold, and the flies, and all the inconveniences of living in such a place, and are only grateful for the brief moments of awe and wonder. Like the lonely call of a loon, drifting in through the fog, or when a bright green dragonfly with crimson eyes comes to rest on your shoulder as you paddle among the reeds and water-lilies, and you know no deerfly will dare approach to bite your neck. Or the sudden slap of a beaver’s tail, warning his neighbours of your approach as you round a bend in the river. Or the immense silence of a windless day, occasionally broken by the chattering of a red squirrel, or the distant drumming of a grouse. These are the moments that, put together, make life in the bush so rewarding in a way that is difficult to describe to one who has not experienced it for himself. And they are the moments that come back to you in sudden flashes, when you are thousands of miles away, and make you suddenly long for home, for the smell of pine and woodsmoke, for the soft rustle of leaves underfoot, for the immense silence of new-fallen snow.
Meanwhile, hurricane Henriette has hit San Carlos, and we have to wait to assess the damages. First reports are good; it was brief and not too intense. So we are expecting minimal damage. I’ll keep you posted.
Cheers
Jack

2007-07-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Desert Thirst

I had a writer here for a few days. His name is Roland Pelletier, and he is writing a book that takes place in Guaymas in the 1850’s and wanted someone to take him around the city and into the desert. It seemed an easy assignment.

I took him for a hike in the desert. Ordinarily we don’t hike in the desert at this time of year; it was 107F or 42C today (the day I am writing this), at noon. But this was when he came, so off we went. It was a typical summer day; a cloudless sky of rich blue, like looking up at the Caribbean. We walked over some rolling hills and open country at first. The desert is very dry; months without rain have taken every leaf from the shrubs and trees, leaving a brown and grey landscape. The only green is the odd organpipe cactus, scattered along the hillsides, and the dense thornscrub in the deeper washes, where water is available year-round. Two deer bounded into a draw as we crossed over a hill. I wondered what they found to eat. We crossed a wash and strolled over the open ground beyond. Then we descended back into the wash, at first struggling through the dense bush. Eventually the wash narrowed into a boulder-strewn canyon, with palm trees that rustle in the breeze like flowing water, high walls of worn tuff, riddled with caves. After reaching a blind end at a 20 ft waterfall (dry of course), we decided to back out a bit and then climb the side, to get around the barrier. That’s when the trouble started.

The rock here is rotten, soft and easily broken; a perfect handhold may crumble with a light tug. We ascended the near-vertical sides without incident, but there was no going back the way we came up. The rest was a safer slope, but much of it was loose scree and treacherous enough with good hikers underfoot. And my friend Roland was wearing boots with smooth soles. At least they were rubber, not leather, so they held well onto hard rock. But it was treacherous going. We got to the top, and the other side was a long, vertical drop. We tried to find another way into the canyon we left, but it ended in the same, vertical formations. So the only way was to move laterally, and get ahead of the dry waterfall. This choice was the safer one, but we were already almost out of water. And to carry on meant heading a long, roundabout route through desert wash and dense thornscrub bush.

So we headed on. The sun was hot, the air hot, heavy, and still. Walking under the sun was like carrying a hot stone on your back and shoulders. My water was long gone, (I had only brought 3 litres for the two of us, planning on an hour or two on easy ground), and the thirst was intense. Saliva becomes thick, like glue, or a MacDonald’s shake, and the eyes become dry and uncomfortable. On we trudged, over boulders, through brush, out into the open where the mountains dip down to make a notch. Through this notch we descended into another wash, thick with scratchy, thorny and prickly brush. By this time we walked in silence, automatically moving forward, pushing through thickets, crunching over loose gravel, moving onward, forward, towards water, life and relief from the awful thirst. By the time we reached the last section of our hike, a dirt road over even ground, Roland turned to me and said “My hands are swollen.” I looked at mine and realized the same thing was happening to me. He also asked me if I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Fortunately I couldn’t, and we knew we would be okay soon, so we became more relaxed, and began to talk again.

Roland wanted an experience of the desert and he got one. It is important to realize that the desert is not malevolently waiting for you to make a mistake so it can punish you. It is merciless, not because it is evil, but because it is indifferent. Man does not struggle against nature; he struggles against his own fragility, his own limitations, with nature not as his opponent, but as an impartial and disinterested judge. To survive here, you need to know what you need and how to get it. And if you don’t have what you need to survive here, you had better stay on the cilivised side of the edge.

People rarely die way out in the wilderness, far from help, out of communication range. The only people who get that far are those who know what they are doing. People more often die on the edges, near to civilization. Unprepared, unequipped, and caught off guard, they wander lost, or simply get themselves stuck somewhere and perish before they can get back out. We won that particular race, but it could have gone the other way if we were forced, say, to spend the night, or if an accident or injury befell one of us and slowed us down too much. And remember, long before you die from environmental exposure, your judgment becomes impaired, and you make foolish decisions which make your situation worse. So to survive you need enough to keep from getting that far, to the point of no return.

2007-07-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

Well I don't have much to say about the "Voyage". I am in San Carlos, Sonora, a long way from the new Manatee. I haven't even started on the new outriggers, though I have picked up a sail and mast along with a cute little sailboat called a Sabot. I have a new digital camera; the old one suffered an accident with a yoghurt container full of salad in my backpack on a hike in the desert. The resultant leak of oil and vinegar has resulted in the gradual loss of function.

While uploading the last of my photos onto my laptop, I discovered a pair of pictures of the new Manatee.

The first is the boat at the boatyard before I bought her.

The second is the builder: Mr. Bradley of Bradley's Boatyard, Belize City. He was surprised I wanted to take his picture, but was very gracious.

The last picture is of the new boat in Dangriga. I have cut out the plywood moulds for the bulkheads and the decking is screwed on but not yet trimmed. With any imagination you can picture the basic form she will take.

Monsoon

The dogs hear it before we do. The first sign of the approaching storm is the banging at the door by Tequis, who is so afraid of thunder that she tries to get inside. That brings our attention to the flashes of lightning. The thunder soon follows as the storm gets within 15 miles of us.

The monsoon is a wind pattern, not a rainfall. It begins in the summer, when the air over the desert heats up enough to drag the trade winds from the tropics up this way. This brings us moist, tropical air, and eventually, rain. Hence it is called the monsoon rain.

After several months, almost a year in fact, of no rain, the desert is dry, brown, burnt-looking. The sun has baked it until it releases a scorched smell. The cacti are lean, deeply pleated, and the only green things in the landscape, as not a leaf remains over most of the desert. And a walk in the desert raises only dust. But every day since the monsoon began, the air has become a little more humid. At night, flashes of light are seen over the horizon .These flashes, called heat lightning, are the result of static electricity, released as the cooling night air descends. But the lightning I see tonight is the real thing, and the dogs are not at ease tonight.

I have been hoping the rains would come before we head north to Canada. I miss the seasons up there. Here there are only two seasons: wet and dry. Dry is most of the time, but the wet season brings a transformation to the desert that must be seen and heard, felt and smelt to be appreciated. Before the first shower is even finished, the air is filled with the resinous odour of the creosote bush, what is universally known here as the smell of rain. And at the same time arrives the shrill chorus of the spadefoot toad. Lying dormant in the ground since last summer, they begin to emerge in response to the rumbling of the thunder. By the time the rain has soaked the earth, they are crawling out and filling every puddle. Tonight they call out for a mate. Tomorrow they will be silent. The puddles in which they breed do not last long: there is no time for prolonged courtship so by the end of tonight they will have selected a mate and begun to lay and fertilise the eggs. Within days the tadpoles have hatched and started to feed on each other in the mad race to emerge as fully developed toads before the Sonoran sun dries the puddle to a cracked bed of clay.

As soon as the adult toads have mated, they begin to feed and fatten on the sudden emergence of winged termites. These insects are easily desiccated and so they also must mate and seek a place to lay their eggs and start a new colony while the humidity is high. Hopefully they won’t choose the window and door frames of our house.

After the rain ends, the transformation of the landscape begins. Leaves begin to emerge, the desert floor becomes carpeted in flowers. In two weeks, what was bare brown earth and dry grey branches, is green, yellow, orange and blue: a riot of colour and profusion of life. Summer is here.

2007-05-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

Waiting in Can Cun

Finally I got lucky. The Customs officer, whose father I know in Dangriga, arranged it so I could pick up the radio at the Belize International Airport, and carry it myself to the border. He just made a note in my passport, which they checked at the border. Very easy. And then I caught a bus, leaving immediately, which took me all the way to Chetumal in Mexico. Last year we took the bus to Corozal, which is the last Belizian town before - not at - the border. From there we took a Belizian taxi to the exit point, another taxi to the Mexican point of entry, and another taxi to Chetumal. This time one bus did it all.

I bought a ticket to Cancun, leaving at 6:00 pm. I didn´t realise I had crossed into a different Time Zone. Pity there is no big clock in the bus terminal. And of course the public address system sounds like an abductee with duct tape on his mouth in the trunk of a car. So I ignored the garbled message at 5:00. At one minute to six there was no bus at the departure gate, and no passengers waiting around. So I went to the ticket booth and showed the guy my ticket and my watch. He wasn´t particularly sympathetic. Said they were on Mexican time. Hehe, I never thought that would be faster!

So I left the bus station in Chetumal at 10:00 on a second class bus (picture seats about 14" wide) seated (ie squished up against the window) next to a big gal. Didn´t get any sleep. The bus got progressively colder too, so by the middle of the ride I had gone from sticky-sweaty to freezing cold. I reached Cancun at about 4:30 and slept there until it was light out. Then, a few blocks away, I found the Hotel Coloniál. A nice, two storey building with a central courtyard. A room with private bathroom, TV, two beds and a ceiling fan for 350 pesos a night. Perfect.

The Coloniál is on a side alley; quiet, closed to vehicles and lined with trees and restaurant patios. After half a year of rice and beans, it is nice to see some international cuisine and a variety of beers. Modelo makes one here called Leon. It is a dark, bavarian-style lager: very refreshing with a light body and a long finish. But I digress.

The end of the alley opens into a big public park with a stage. It was full of people, food- and crafts-vendors, and some kind of entertainment on stage. The big attraction though was the large screen showing a live broadcast of the National Championship futbol soccer game between Pachuca and America, two big Mexican teams. I sat behind the screens and watched through the back of the screen. The image was reversed, naturally, so I watched a lot of left-footed action, but it was a good game.

I spent the morning at the beach, a 20 minute bus ride away. The beach here is gorgeous, with fine, white sand, firmly packed by the surf, and clear blue, Carribean water. There were a few places where you could rent or use a sailing dinghy, or a wave runner or a sit-on-top kayak, but most people were content to sit and burn their skin. Some had an impressive tan, I must say. Had a little lunch at Señor Frogs, where they make a desperate and vain attempt to animate the lunch crowd and make everything sexy and funny. I´m sure the place is very different at night. Ridiculously expensive and the food is overhyped.

So now I wander and wait for my flights. Meanwhile I am drawing some sketches for the new outriggers and akas. And looking forward to going home again.

Cheers
Jack

2007-05-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

Heading home

This is my progress so far: I have built the frames for the decking and the bulkheads, out of thin plywood, and put a layer of fibreglass over the decks. I don't think I can get away with just one layer of FG though, but I have run out of time for this year. The worst thing is that when I return, termites will have eaten the wooden decking and I'll have to start over. C'est la vie. At least the canoe itself will be undamaged.

I have a flight booked from Can Cun on Tuesday, 29 May. I would stay and do more work on the boat, but I want to get my VHF marine radio back. The Customs agent at the Belize Airport seized my radio when I arrived, back in December. Apparently I needed a permit to import it. They gave me a receipt and told me I could pick it up on my way out. Well I didn't fly out, and now I am going to be taking the bus north, to the Yucatan. To take it with me, I have to pay a Customs guard to come with me to the airport, pick up the radio, and then go back to the city to take the bus north to the border. If I do it on a weekend day, it costs double. So my only chance is to do it tomorrow, Friday, 24 May. Happy Victoria Day to all my Canadian friends and family by the way.

I asked if they couldn't just hand it over to me and phone the Customs office at the Northern Border, and warn them I am coming, and ask them to make sure I have the radio on me. But they won't do that, because there is a chance I might use it while in the country. Who am I: Osama Bin Laden? Anyway the law is the law. Fortunately I know someone who has a family member in the Customs Department, so I have been given his number to call him and see if we can't work out some reasonable compromise.

The only other option is for me to get a permit for the damned thing. The Communications Department is in Belmopan, right near the bus station, so I could go over there and see if they will issue me a permit. But knowing the bureaucracy here, it will probably take seven different departments to stamp it, and radio will be outmoded technology before a permit is issued. Oh, and the streets of Belmopan are full of rioters these days, due to a corruption scandal involving the prime Minister. So the gov't offices might not even be open. So wish me luck.

This means of course, that I will be spending the better part of three days in CanCun. That will be nice: some beer to drink other than Belikin! I should get a good, off-season rate too, so I may be able to stay near the beach instead of downtown. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Jack

2007-05-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Shipwrecked!

In my last post, I mentioned thinking of buying a 20 ft. canoe in Belize City. I decided to go for it, so, on Sunday I sailed Manadi north in light head winds. I saw not a single boat, but had the momentary company of a dolphin and one manatee. Needless to say, progress was not great, but I got about halfway there, pulling into the mouth of the Manatee River at dusk. I chuckled at the coincidence. I had just enough time to set up my jungle hammock and start supper before dark. I made a rice dish in my brand new Trangia alcohol stove, which was sent to my by my good pal Bruce Swanton. Thanks Bruce: it works great.

The next morning I was underway again. This was going to be a long day. And it was. With more light headwinds, it seemed to take forever. For a while I seemed to be tacking back and forth in place, unable to get to the city. Finally I caught a favourable wind and landed in a shallow bay right in town. There I met a fisherman named Michael, who promised to watch over my boat for me. I locked my stuff in the aft locker and took a taxi to Bradley's Boatyard. I bought the canoe from old Mr. Bradley himself. He got his boys to leave it on the dock behind the boatyard while I went and got a bite to eat.

So after a meal of... what else? fried chicken, rice and beans, I was on my way, paddling through the heart of the city on my way to find the Manatee. The way to see the beating heart of Belize City is by water. The city is laced with canals: the whole city is right at sea level. The river is a garbage-strewn sewer of black water; abandoned boatyards; old hulks lying in the water or thrust up onshore by the last hurricane; squalid, unpainted waterfront shacks with rusted out screens and a boat tied out front; a cantina for fishermen - no parking lot but a pier. Down a little further is a row of brightly painted upscale tourist shops; a big, fancy hotel and casino. Right off the dock you can buy groceries, ice, gas, marine hardware, booze. There is an ancient swing bridge, separating the north from the (poorer) southside. And then the sea.

Around the point from the entrance is the little bay where I left my boat, anchored in the shallows. It wsn't there, but I figured Micheal probably moved it to the canal entrance. And there it sat, part of a motley fleet of fishermen's boats. After a quick phone call I tied the new canoe atop the akas and was underway. I was a little concerned they might not bear the weight, so I kept an eye on them as I sailed out in a freshening North breeze.

It was blowing pretty well out there, so I untied the canoe, slid it off the akas and tied it up to ride behind me. We were running right before the wind, an awkward point of sail. The sail is so big that when it swings out wide, it tends to turn the boat. The new tiller wasn't working great. I really had to lean out to reposition it. It is extremely stiff, and once I get it set I can leave it. But in a following wind the boat is constantly yawing left and right and the rudder neede constant correcting. Add the fact that I was towing. As one boat is slowed climbing the next wave, the other is accelerating down the face of the last one. I had to hold the canoe on a short leash with one hand while steering with the other. I remember thinking that if I ran into trouble, at least I had a liferaft.

Sunset

I could feel a strong drag from the canoe, so I decided to roll it back up onto the akas. By now we were rolling into 2 ft to 3 ft waves. You don't hear or see the moment it happens. Suddenly you are in the water, the boat is gone over and you are trying to hang on and find your hat and paddle. The canoe was tied on. That was a good thing. The outrigger's posts snapped off right at the base, and it was blowing away fast. I bolted after it, caught it and threw it in the canoe, which was half full of water. Did I mention it was a racing canoe design? They are not built for stability. It rolled over when the next wave hit it, and the outrigger was going fast. I said goodbye and focussed on getting the canoe empty of water and stable so I could start throwing stuff in it. Keep in mind now that it is dark, and there are waves smashing against Manadi. I can't bail out the canoe: the bailer was the first thing to blow away. So I did a t-rescue, hauling myself onto the pitching Manatee, and pulling the canoe up perpendicular. This works well, because the overturned boat turns sideways to the wind, and the canoe, once held up, turns downwind. I flipped it over, holding the bucking boat beneath me with my legs. Once it was drained, I flipped it back upright and threw it on the water. Now it was ready to take on whatever I could salvage.

I started to roll the Manatee over. Immediately a hatch cover floated off and stuff was starting to extrude out through the hatch. I grabbed two buckets and my dry bag, and heaved them and the paddle, which I was still clutching, into the canoe. I rooted around in the hatch, but it was dark, the boat was tossing around, and I already had the most important stuff. So I climbed into the canoe, to rest and collect my thoughts. Hanging below the Manatee was a tangled mess of anchor rope and broken spars. I tried to pull the sail up but it was too difficult and risky in the tossing seas. I hauled up the anchor,and got as much rope as I could safely handle, then cut it off and tossed it in the canoe with me. I pulled the rudder pin out and tossed rudder and pin in the canoe. Then I cut the rope that held the two boats together. It was amazing how quickly I was blown away from that heaving boat. And I never saw it again.

The wind was blowing from the NE, and if I didn't paddle I would find myself a few miles south of town on a beach, if I was lucky, or in the mangroves if I wasn't. Belize City is surrounded by miles of impenetrable mangroves. It would be no place to spend the night. Across the wind - for I had no hope of paddling a 20 ft. canoe into that wind by myself - was a set of bright lights. I started paddling. For a paddle, since it was only for emergency purposes, I had a half a kayak paddle with a broken shaft. I could use it by placing my bailing sponge over the end, and use it I did, paddling furiously to keep from being swept downwind. It took a couple of hours before I got to where I could see the lights up close. Of all things it was a marina!

I paddled in, aware that I was trespassing, but there was no one about. I tied up at the first slip. At the base of the dock was a bar. I asked to see the manager and for a glass of water. I got the two owners, a Mr. Francis Woods and Mr. Rigoberto Blanco. I explained my situation, and why I was trespassing in their marina. Their response was to ask the waitress to get me a "very nice" plate of chicken, rice and beans and a glass of fruit juice. I asked if there was a budget hotel nearby, or even two trees where I could sling my hammock. At first they offered me the beach, where I could use a shower and sling the hammock. Then they came back and gave me the use of a staff cabin for the night. It was very nice, with a loft, kitchen, bathroom. I had a shower, rinsed my wet clothes and even watched a little TV while my stuff dried around me. Then I tried to sleep. It didn't come for quite a while: I kept reliving the experience of being in the water. I made a mental inventory of what I lost: my headlamp, sunglasses, all three canoe seats, Finally I slept.

In the morning I hitched a ride into town to buy a decent canoe paddle, a flashlight and some food and water. I would go look for my boat, and for anything that had drifted ashore from it. Then I would carry on down the coast to Dangriga. I never found the Manatee, but miles down the coast I found the rubber fenders that I would use as rollers to haul the boat ashore. Another mile further down and I found the outrigger. I don't know why, but I threw that in the canoe. I found no other piece of flotsam from the Manatee.

I was most excited to find the fenders, for now I had something to sit on. It is very uncomfortable to paddle sitting on the bottom of a canoe with your legs straight out in front of you and no backrest. And I had 35 sea miles of paddling ahead of me. It was still hard on my back, but manageable. The other challenges were a lack of sunscreen and sunglasses. I was still in a salty wet shirt, and developed painful salt rashes below the armpits.

By 3:30 the sun was getting too much for me so I pulled into the beach, cooked up dinner and was asleep in my hammock before the sun set. This, by the way, is a good way to avoid the mosquitoes. Before going to bed, I packed up the canoe for a quick getaway.

I awoke at 1:30, and tried to fall back to sleep until 2:30. It wasn't happening, so I got up, packed up the hammock and sleeping bag, and shoved off the beach. It was a moonless night, with scattered thin clouds. The Milky Way led me straight along the coast. The sea was smooth, with just the slightest hint of a swell. The water was dark and scary. Who knows what lurks in the shallows in the night? Every stroke of the paddle stirred a bioluminescent plume and even the wake of the bow was aglow. Occasionally a fish would dart away underwater, leaving a puff of pale green light where its tail had flicked it away. At one point a needlefish lunged clear of the surface and collided with my hull. I hoped he didn't break his thin beak.

As time went on I relaxed and became more comfortable paddling in the dark, and in a couple of hours, a thin glow began to emerge from the eastern horizon. For the first time I could remember, I was not happy to see the sun rise, as I knew it would bring heat and more burns to my skin. But it also brought a freshening breeze, which was not only cooling, but also nudged me lightly in the direction I wanted to go. The day stretched on and I paddled, rested and paddled some more, until after what felt like an eternity, I reached home and hauled my stuff into the house.

I have learned a few things in the last two days, and have had ample time to rethink the project. I still plan to sail/paddle home to San Carlos, but I need a new sail and new outriggers. After my experience with the original Manadi, I have decided to go with smaller sails of a more conventional shape - maybe even a commercially made set - use a daggerboard or maybe a centreboard instead of a fixed keel, install a kayak rudder and design a lighter, more manageable outrigger (perhaps two?). I will redesign the whole craft to be lighter, stronger and easier to handle. This next week or so I will install the decking, lockers and mast step and partner, but I will have to wait til next fall for the installation of sails, daggerboard trunk and rudder. And over the summer I will design and build a better outrigger system. So don't give up on me yet. I'm not quitting. Just going back to the drawing board.

Cheers
Jack

2007-05-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

Manadi II

I went to Belize City yesterday to look at a 20 ft. fibreglass racing canoe. It is strongly built and a good length, but sits low on the water (ie not much freeboard). Norman the Fibreglasser tells me I should buy it, as we can always modify it. So tomorrow I plan to sail Manadi up to Belize City. I will spend the night somewhere along the coast and sail into the city on Monday morning, buy a few items, including the canoe, and then tow it back to Dangriga. Tuesday we begin the modifications.

Meanwhile, I am living in the ground floor of a house, rented by Island Expeditions, for the owners to live in when they are down here. Denver, the last to leave, is letting me use it. I have got nothing but support and help from the owners of IEC, and am forever grateful and indebted to them. Denver even went to the offices of the water board and the electrical utility, to ask them not to shut off supply yet. I can pay the final bill when I am ready to leave. Didn't work. Yesterday, while I was in Belize City, they came and shut off both my water and my electricity, despite the assurances of the landlord that the planned shutoff dates had been changed. So now Dave, the landlord who lives upstairs, has plugged me into his electrical system with a male-male extension chord, and I am getting water from an outside tap at the side of the house.
So now I have light, refrigeration and TV. More soon.
Cheers
Jack

2007-05-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

Last week together...

Lorena and I took a jarring and dusty bus-ride down to Placencia, at the end of a long, sandy, north-south running peninsula, south of Dangriga. In places the peninsula is very narrow, with the sea on one side and a large mangrove lagoon on the other. Along this road is the airstrip, which has to face the prevailing trade winds. Which means that the runway runs across the peninsula. The "highway" takes a jog around the airstrip, right out onto the beach, but people on foot or bicycle ride straight across. So they have to watch for a flag that tells them a plane is scheduled to land soon, in which case they had better wait or go around.

Placencia is a little town at the end of the peninsula. The beach is white sand here, the best on the mainland, but the swimming area is grassier than what you find at the cayes. Placencia has lots of little bars, and good restaurants, and certainly a more international atmosphere then say Dangriga or Hopkins. A tourist town is not what I usually look for when travelling, but when you spend so much time in a town that offers rice and beans or chinese food as the only food choices, it is nice to go where the tourists go once in a while.

We were also there to hunt for Norman, a Jamaican guy who is known to be an expert fibreglasser. We asked around in the bars and hangouts, but people either said they never heard of him or that he moved. I always figure local people are going to be protective of their own, and if they think a local guy is being searched for, they might want to put me off the scent, in case I am a bounty hunter or debt collector. So finally we learned of a baker who matched the description. We found Norman the Baker an hour before we were planning to catch the bus to Hopkins, a village we rode through on the way south. So we made plans to meet at the Manatee on the following Tuesday, and we parted company.

The bus doesn't go into Hopkins, so we got off at the entrance to the 4 mile long Hopkins Rd. After that little accident we had a couple of years ago, Lorena was determined not to hitchhike again, but we agreed we could wait for the bus to Hopkins, that comes in from Dangriga. At the junction there is a bus shelter. Behind the bus shelter there was a small brush fire, which at one point spread and completely engulfed the bus shelter in heavy black smoke. We waited on the road and watched it burn itself out. At one point, two basilisk lizards came charging out onto the road, driven out of the bush by smoke and heat. These speedy reptiles run on their hind legs like little dinosaurs, and can run right over ponds and streams, thus earning the nickname Jesus Christ lizards.

We weren't the only ones waiting at the junction, so when a pickup arrived and took everyone else onboard, we decided to jump in too. The narrow dirt road runs over a broad, flat savannah, with regularly spaced culverts to handle the annual floodwaters. These culverts elevate the road, with a flat concrete slab on top. As we crossed each culvert, we would fly into the air and come crashing back down onto the truck bed. After a couple of these flights, Lorena asked me if we shouldn't ask to be let out. This is precisely what we should have done two years ago when we got a ride with some young soldiers who were driving so fast we ended up in a rollover accident. I replied that we were almost there. The truck had made the four miles in less than five minutes!

We stayed at a nice little place called Tipple Tree Beya. Beya is the Garifuna word for beach, and the Tipple Tree was a Sea Grape tree that had fallen over in the front yard. The locals make a kind of wine from the fruits of this bush, thus the name.

Our room faced the sea and had a steady breeze blowing in through the front door and hurricane-shuttered windows. On the front verandah were two hammocks for each room. Lying in a hammock, in the shade and the breeze, was a very restful way to spend three days, including Lorena's birthday. We swam in the sea, spotting manatees right off the beach and sampled some of the local fare, which ranged from mediocre to excellent.

Monday, 7 May, we returned to Dangriga on the 7:00 am bus, and spent our last night together (for a while), at Pal's Guest House. It was an emotional time, as Lorena is pretty frightened of this voyage I have planned. The main concern is that the boat is too heavy. It is a challenge to wrestle it up onto the beach, and it would be a bear to handle in surf. So concerned was she, and I admit to my apprehensions about such a heavy craft, that I have made a major concession. I won't be sailing the Manatee home this year, or ever. Instead, Norman and I will be building Manadi II, a 20 - 22 ft. fibreglass canoe. Norm has a mould for a 14-footer, and we will stretch that out with inserts amidships. The result will be boat that is longer, swifter, more seaworthy, and much lighter. It will also have more load capacity.

The construction of the new Manadi will delay my departure by a couple of weeks, but I hope to make up that time with greater daily progress. It has always been a race against the tropical cyclones but with this boat I will have more options for going ashore if a cyclone gets too close, and can either come home 'til the season ends, or resume when the weather clears.

Sorry there are no photos this time: I don't have my camera with me at the moment. But I will be posting lots of photos of the new boat as it is constructed, for those who care to see it. Until then take care.

Jack

2007-05-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

End of Season

Well, Folks, thanks for another great season. This year I saw more turtles than ever before, had better weather, and as always some great guests, with interesting stories of their own to tell. I also have had a lot of support from guests, the people of Island Expeditions, and the people of Dangriga, in my efforts to get the Manatee on the water and sailing home.

Backing up a bit....

After a few weeks of working, I finally got some time off to repair and restore the Manatee. Loose patches of fibreglass were torn off and painted over with epoxy. Broken akas (cross-beams connecting the hull to the outrigger) were replaced. Finally she was ready to put in the water again. Not pretty, with black patches all over a blue and white boat, but functional nonetheless.

I had made a couple of crucial modifications. The first was to reverse the boat, installing a new mast step in what was previously the stern. This was done at the end of season last year, but never tested. The reason for my choice of bow last year was due to the shape of the boat, as seen from the side. One end has a sharp turn from the keel to the stem, the other more rounded. It was plain to see that the rounder end would be more suitable to rolling up onto a beach. The rudder would be an extension of the straight line stern of the boat. But seen from above, one end of the canoe is wider than the other: this was the trunk of a tree after all. And with so much weight of mast, sail and spars so near the bow of the boat, it tended to dive into each wave. With a low bow and a deep keel in the stern, it was also very difficult to steer. I hoped that turning it around would make the bow more bouyant and make the stern easier to turn.

The second modification was to install a new rudder. I had salvaged a rudder from the wreck of a hobie cat sailboat found at Lighthouse Reef. For a fitting, I salvaged a piece of galvanised steel from a telephone pole washed up on the beach at Half Moon Caye, and took it to a welding shop where they bent it into a shallow U, drilled some holes in it, and ground off all the galvanising(!). Oh well. I bolted it into the Manatee and it made a fine rudder, which sits deep in the water and will even ride up when I hit the beach.

This done it was time for a sea trial, number three. I had lost the boom, but brought along a couple of light poles and decided to try to sail it loose-footed, like a lateen sail. Didn't work. As soon as I got out there (light NE breeze), I realised the sail would only allow me to run downwind. So I threw out the anchor and began to string on the two poles, lashed together in their middle. I want to say right now, how difficult it is to find a straight pole, 17 ft long, which is strong enough, yet reasonably light, to act as a boom or yard.

After a half hour of strugggling to get the boom tied on, I noticed, as the canoe pitched and rolled in half-metre seas, that I was feeling oddly queasy. Finally it dawned on me: I was getting seasick. Never in my life have I felt seasick while sober, until that moment. I could only quiet my stomach by staring at the horizon, but this merely slowed things down. Suddenly it became a race to tie the sail on before I get properly sick. I would tie as fast as I could, stringing the black twine around the wood and through the little holes in the sail. Then I would have to stop and stare at the horizon. As soon as I felt a little better I would string away again, back and forth until finally I had it done. And none too soon, I must say.

As soon as it was done, I hauled the halyard and the sail raised up, caught the wind, and we picked up speed. I hauled up the anchor as we sailed over it, and the boat began to push throught the waves, in control, once again of its motion, its destiny, and the queasiness vanished without a lingering trace.

The yard holds up the leading edge of the sail. It is built of pine, with a joint in the middle I never liked. The yard used to be the boom, until the first yard, identically constructed, broke while I was testing the sail on shore. In anticipation of another similar rupture, I reinforced the joint with a metal strap on one side. Well, shortly after we got underway, that joint ended up on the underside (the spar rolled a bit in place) and SNAP! went the yard, turning a fine, flat sail into a tent, folded at the mast (see photo, below).

I turned the Manatee around with a few strokes of a paddle, and the remaining sail caught the wind, and pushed us into shore a couple of miles south of Dangriga at a pace of about 1.5 knots. "Not bad for a broken boat", I remember thinking.

The shore south of town is mostly bush and swamp, with a road running parallel, and the occasional house along its length. As I reached shore at an empty lot, I was greeted by a couple of kids from a nearby house. They were curious and friendly. I told them my problem and they assured me it would be fine with the owners if I cut myself a new yard here out of the mangroves. So I took my big knife and walked into the bush. In 20 minutes I was back at the boat with a fairly straight pole of black mangrove. The kids returned and told me of a bar along the beach, just to the south, so as soon as the sail was restrung, I set out down the beach. A cold beer and a cold coke went down in as much time as it takes to read this sentence, and I was underway again. The bar is called the triple W (despite lacking internet)and a coke and a beer were $5 bz. The beach is well-groomed and has a volleyball net, and the music is very loud. I sat outside.

I sailed SE nine miles across the Inner Channel, to a line of islands called the Blueground Range. From there I sailed south, along the chain, to Billyhawk Caye, where an Island Expeditions group on a Coral Islands trip was camped. I joined them for dinner, and stayed overnight. The owner of this camp is Alex Sabal, a long time guide and boat captain with IE, and their most skilled and respected guide. Alex has been working hard to develop the site into a simple and rustic resort, and I was impressed with all he had done to it. Alex wasn't there, but guides Kris and Domasco were and it was a treat for me to play the role of guest for a change.

The next morning I sailed back to Dangriga; 11 miles in 3.5 hours ESE in a NE wind. On the way, I noticed the sail was not lying very flat so I cut some of the strings and she stretched out better. Gradually, however, the lack of support for the boom caused it to flex excessively, and I wondered that it didn't break before I got ashore.

So here I am a month later. Lorena is here and we have closed the season with the last three trips. I bought (promised to anyway) two aluminum poles from IEC and will be stringing them on the spars today. I also built a tiller to steer by. Before, I was using light chord with stirrups, and steering like a kayak is steered. This works in a kayak, because you are always in a fixed location, but you like to move around in a sailboat, so a tiller is more practical. And today she goes out on the water again, to test it out. If it works well, Lorena and I will take a couple of days and sail down to Placencia.

I want to take Lorena to Placencia because it is a funky little tourist beach town, with a sidewalk as the main thoroughfare. I have also learned of a Jamaican guy who lives there, who is an expert fibreglasser. The Manatee remains a very heavy boat, and I want to talk to him about making a cast of the Manatee in fibreglass. Such a boat would be lighter, with more interior space and be much easier to handle, particularly in surf. It would also respond better in light winds, and ride over heavy seas, keeping me drier and more comfortable. Such a project would mean leaving the original Manadi behind, but that's ok, it was a all an amazing experience, and I am coming home by sea one way or another.

Thanks for tuning in, more to come soon about our travels in Cayo District and Placencia.

Cheers
Jack

ps here is a picture of the Manatee with the broken yard. She lies on the beach where I went ashore to cut another one.

2007-03-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

Dangriga, 4 March 2007

I'm back from a couple of weeks at Half Moon Caye. What a beautiful place! I am still blown away by the colours of the sea. We had a great trip: the people were fun, the weather was warm and sunny, though a bit windy at times, and the fish were most cooperative. We saw many sharks and rays and even a couple of turtles. In fact, this year I have seen more turtles than the previous three years combined.

Lighthouse Reef has two protected areas, guarded by the Belize Audubon Society. This NGO has some very hard-working and dedicated people. This last trip there was only one BAS staff on the island and some commercial fishermen took advantage of that fact. One form of commercial fishing common in Belize is a homemade wooden sailboat, up to about 30 feet in length. On board the boat is a stack of dories; small boats, either of fibreglass or dugouts. When the boat gets to a good location, it is anchored and each fisherman takes a dory. They will paddle to a patch reef or turtlegrass bed and jump overboard with mask, snorkel and fins. As they swim along, they will spear fish, pick up conch, and hook lobsters from under the corals.

The fishermen are allowed to fish in the unprotected areas, but will often sneak in to the protected areas if no one is patrolling. Our BAS Park Ranger asked us for a little help to go out and chase them away, so we sent two guides to ride shotgun (figuratively speaking) and warn the fishers away. They got nothing but scorn from the fishermen, so they came back and called the Coast Guard. Before dark, the Coast Guard was there and had rounded up four boats, each with as many as eight fishermen and boys aboard. The following photos show the boats at the dock at Half Moon Caye, along with a large motor skiff belonging to the Belize Coast Guard.

As a follow-up to my botfly entry, I finally managed to remove my little pet. I tried using duct tape to seal off its air supply, but the location so close to my knee resulted in a fold or crease forming some time during the night. I must have killed it the second time I tried, but it wasn't sticking out the hole at all, and the snake venom extractor I was using didn't convince it to come out. Finally, when I tried it one evening last week, it started to protrude from the hole. A few guests were still up and were quite intrigued at the sight of an insect larva (technically a maggot) emerging from my leg.

I took a few photos. The first is the extractor. The suction on that thing is intense! It left quite a dimple on my leg as you can see. In the next photo, you can see it emerging. Then once it was partway out, I used a (borrowed) pair of tweezers (thank you Carole and the makers of Tweezerman) to pull it out. The last picture is of the larva lying beside the hole from which it was removed. Note the rows of hooks around the thickest part of the body. The hooks are what held it inside me and it was their squirming around at night that I could feel. But it is out now.

Cheers

Jack and Squirmy

2007-02-13T06:54:00.000-08:00

Just keeping up my parasite load….

Dangriga, 13 Feb 2007

Scientists speculate that the reason we have so many autoimmune diseases, is because our immune system is set to be at constant war with germs and parasites. In our hygienic modern world, the lack of parasite load leaves the immune system without an enemy and it misdirects its energies towards its own tissues, like bored soldiers brawling with each other. Life in the tropics gives one plenty of opportunity to keep the immune system sharp and well occupied. In the spirit of a healthy immune system I would like to announce I am the proud host of a bouncing baby (read squirming larval) botfly.

Somewhere in my travels, I picked up a botfly egg on my skin. It could have been left on a leaf or even deposited on a mosquito. Once it felt my body heat, the egg hatched and the tiny larva burrowed into my skin. Once there it makes a small sore, just like a fly bite. At the centre of the sore is a tiny hole which it needs to breathe through a thin snorkel. It barely itches, except sometimes at night, when the growing larva repositions itself, and takes a nutritious meal of my ‘surplus’ body fluids.

Getting rid of it is a matter of waiting a few days until it is big enough, and then suffocating it by blocking the air hole. Duct tape works if you can get it to lie flat. The area around the opening has to be shaved first, to get a good seal and make removal of the tape less painful. This is usually done before bed and removed in the morning. You know you have a good seal when you feel him squirm like crazy! As he struggles to get air, he will stretch as far as he can and eventually he will come out, still reaching for air. At this point, ideally, he will stick to the tape and will come out in one piece. Ideally. Sometimes you have to squeeze and pull with forceps or tweezers until he comes out.

My little guest will stay with me awhile. I am thinking of letting him grow to maturity before taking him out. I want to know how big they get.

Next entry will have some photos of the process of removal……

2006-12-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

Belize, 15 December 2006

I am at the Tropical Education Centre, walking a trail in dense, wet forest. Last night it rained, and water is still dripping from leaf to leaf to leaf to ground. A pair of chicken-like birds chuckle as they whizz overhead. Even though I have been here before, more than once, it strikes me how alien it is. Unfamiliar trees are draped, climbed and strewn with oddly familiar houseplants. I wonder what it is that urges us to seek out the unfamiliar. I remember the Northern Ontario bush of my youth: spruce and birch, pine and maple, poplar and fir. There I know what burns when wet, where to make camp, where to fish; there among the beaver ponds and rock, lakes and creeks I feel truly at home. I must confess that I am a little uneasy travelling in foreign lands. And yet I, like so many others, am compelled to explore. And this puzzles me.

Yesterday morning I was sitting with Lorena in the Tucson Airport, as we waited for nearly simultaneous flights from adjacent gates. We were about to part company for many months, and we were talking quietly about anything but that fact, and suddenly her flight was called and in two minutes she was gone. What can you say to someone you share your life with, every day for months, when you are going to be gone for so long, with some unacknowledged risk you may never return? How can you quiet a desperate longing, in a few minutes in a public airport? There can be no satisfactory answer. There is only hope, and a clinging to familiar memories and shared dreams. And you carry on.

I allow he uncertainties of travel to occupy my mind. Will I land in Houston close enough to my departing gate to make the next leg of my flight? As it turns out, I land in a nearly adjacent gate. Weird luck. but it doesn't last. The flight departing for Belize City is late, a creeping delay that grows to over an hour. Last time I flew to Belize my plane was 20 minutes late landing, and I missed my connecting flight to Dangriga. This time, when we land, the flight captain tells us that connecting flights are being held for us. I doubt my luck, as Dangriga airstrip has no lights, and it is growing dusk outside as I wait for my bag to come off the plane. Then Customs discovers my VHF radio (I told them I had one when they asked what was in my case), and tells me I need an importation permit. Or I can pay duty. I respond that I am passing through, and I would pay duty as long as it is refunded when I leave. They don't buy it but agree to hold the radio for me until I leave. There is nothing to do but hand it over in exchange for a receipt, and worry about it later.

Now my plane is gone, it is too late to catch a bus to Dangriga, and my funds are low for such things as hotels and taxis. It costs $25US to take a taxi to Belize City from the airport. Just my options are drying up, an Island Expeditions bus is spotted leaving the parking lot. I run and jump in. Rudy and Albert are taking two guests to the Tropical Education Centre, so I catch a ride, and get a free meal and nights lodging. Soon I will flag down a bus on the highway and make my way to Dangriga. The luggage will follow me in a couple of days. Time to hike out.

2006-12-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

I got myself into a little trouble with the government over a bit of money. To prove their point they have suspended my passport. I still have it with me, but I wouldn't want to have to hand it over to an officer sitting in front of a computer. So to satisfy the government and get my passport released, I have decided to return to work in December of this year, instead of February as planned.

I emailed Tim (Grand Poobah) at Island Expeditions, to see about getting back to work sooner. The schedule was already set, but he bent over backwards, and, thanks to the cooperation of Dick, one of the guides, I will be starting in two weeks. Tim also asked me if they could help with my financial troubles. Since I need my passport to get to Belize, I have to satisfy the government before I return to work.

This is the kind of company Island Expeditions is: besides all they do to help with conservation efforts in Belize, and all their efforts to improve peoples' lived their, they also take care of their "family". And so now the money is sent, the gov't is satisfied, and the paperwork is out there to release my passport. Unfortunately, although the gov't can take something from you at the speed of the ethernet, getting it back moves at the speed of the postal service. They say it takes ten days. I have fifteen. Will I make it? Stay tuned...

2006-07-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

Swinging in my hammock in the early morning air: it is the only time that this part of the Sonoran Desert is tolerable. I have been home for a couple of months now.

I won't be going back to Dangriga until February of next year, to work the second half of the season. Since the Manatee is pretty much ready now, I will be able to sail her out to Glover's, or perhaps Lighthouse Reef, and get to know her handling characteristics before I begin my voyage. Every delay is a heartbreak for me, but results in my being better prepared so I guess I shouldn't whine.

Meanwhile life goes on here, on the edge of the Sea of Cortez. I am experimenting with sails for my kayaks, and plan to build a 16 ft double ended sailing/rowing craft in the fall, just to keep busy. And you know, you can never have too many boats.

This summer has been great in the Sea of Cortez. Usually in July the sea gets crowded with jellyfish and especially the dreaded and painful Portuguese Man-of-War. There have been times when they are so thick out there that I won't even paddle a kayak amongst them, as their tentacles get tangled up in the shaft of my paddles and end up lying across someone's cheek or at least their arm.

But this year, they have been almost absent, and we can swim every day. The water is warm too, and though not as clear as the Caribbean, it is rich in marine life. There are no trade winds here. The air is calm, the sea flat, until the sun heats up the land in the mid-afternoon. Then the breeze begins and blows until just before sunset. Occasionally, about a day after a tropical cyclone passes to the south of the entrance to the Gulf, swells come rolling in, but otherwise the only surf is from windwaves in the afternoon, and all is calm again at dawn.

In a week we will be heading north, to Ontario, where we will spend five weeks, visiting family and friends, sampling much-missed foods, and hanging out at the cottage. Mostly I want to spend time with Katie, my daughter, who is seventeen (!) now. We have so much to catch up on. I also have two new nephews to see and lots of old rellies too.

Take care all. Check in once in a while.... until then

Cheers
Jack

2006-05-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

It is a month since I finished work, and still I have not been able to start the long voyage home. The little modifications on the boat are not the problem; it is getting my registration papers. I do not blame the folks at the Ship Registry: they have been very quick and helpful. Even though they can’t seem to find the document I sent them a month ago. But shit happens, things get lost. No, the big delay was because I was jerked around for so long by the Canadian Consular Services. A pox on them.

Anyway, when I realized that I have already been in Belize a month longer than planned, that it would probably take another three weeks before my papers arrived, and that my finances were depleted, and hurricane season was fast approaching and freaking Lorena out, I decided to pack it in for the season. Next year I will work a short season, and have the Manatee to play around with on my time off. Then I will come straight home and that is simply a better option.

The trick is getting home. I was almost out of money and couldn’t seem to get at the money I had. So Jaime and I took the bus to Cancun, where he was headed anyway, and bought a flight to Tucson. What a trip. All-night bus ride. An unforgettable taxi ride with an old-timer in coke-bottle glasses driving down the highway at 15 miles an hour an aging Chrysler New Yorker land-yacht, that steered like a barge in a following sea, on a misty night with the wipers set on interval: an interval a bit too long, so we would completely lose sight of the road a second before the windshield was wiped clean, and he would have to swerve this big beauty off the gravel, or out from the kill zone of an approaching car. And all the while he was complaining about how there was no shoulder and not any kind of paint on the road to indicate which half was his, or where the pavement ended. After my earlier experiences on Belizian highways, I lost a pound of sweat that trip.

I remember thinking as we drove into Mexico, that no matter how poor, or prosperous, or how well-kept or how run-down it is, there is a vitality to this country that makes it exciting to be in. By comparison, much of Belize lacks any sign of vitality; in some places it lacks a pulse. I also remember that there is a smell in the air in Mexican towns that immediately distinguishes it from any other country I have been in. It is sort of a combination of diesel oil and cooking grease.

Back to Cancun. We got in in the early light of a new day, and found a cheap hotel, had a bit of a rest and got cleaned up. We spent too much time and money finding a way to buy a flight for me with his credit card, but we got it done and took a bus to the beach. We walked the sand for a couple of miles, noting how much of the damage from last years hurricane has been healed or is in the process. And the lack of topless women. We did find two though before rain drove us all off the beach, so it was worth the walk

I didn’t tell Lorena I was coming home, so when I got on-line at an internet location, I had to lie to her about what I was doing. But my absence and her worries about tropical storms was taking a toll on her, and I compromised: I told her I was going to come home. I really wanted to surprise her completely when I showed up, but it was too cruel making her suffer just to satisfy my selfish desire to see her reaction. So I gave her some hope, and kept from her how close I was. Judge me how you will.

When I got to Tucson I had $20 in my pocket: not enough for a cab, let alone a bus ticket or hotel, but my good old brother came through and put some cash in my account. And I took a cab directly to the bus depot and at 11:00 that night I was on a bus for Guaymas.

She got her surprise at about 8:30 the next morning, and it was worth it. She is happy, and though disappointed, I am relieved and happy to be home again too.

To my readers who have been following along with my efforts, I plead to you not to give up on me yet. I had to make a difficult choice, but what’s another delay if it means I go when it is safest to do so? Who would deny me that? And those of you who have given me your support through generous donations of equipment and clothing, I will requite. Next year.

In the meantime I may add a note or two, and I hope what I say is worth a chuckle or a knowing smile. To all I wish you the best.

Island Jack Wilde

2006-05-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

Still waiting in Dangriga, but not idly. I am still working on the new outrigger, and in the meantime I decided to paint up the manatee in some more nautical colours. The matt black colour of the epoxy paint and her sharp lines made her look like a stealth bomber. Plus black might get a little hot, on the deck surfaces and within the compartments.

A couple of things to note in this photo: first, the name "Manadi" is painted on the bow. Manadi is the Carib or Garifuna word from which we get manatee. The emphasis is on the middle syllable. The second thing you may notice, is the green netting between the akas (crossbeams), between the canoe and the outrigger on the opposite side of the boat. The boat is sitting on two rubber boat fenders, which are not supporting the weight at all. I was hoping to use these as rollers, but I may have to fill them with something first, like dry sand, to give them some support.

This second shot shows her sails better. This is how she will look running before the wind. Today she goes back in the water for her second sea trial. I am hoping she will sail drier with the raised sides. Maybe I'll get some photos of her underway as well. Cheers.

2006-05-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

Each day gets me a little closer. While I await my ship registration papers, I have been fixing the glitches. First, that she isn't sea-worthy: this is a biggie. I added some planking to her sides, adding six inches of freeboard. I also installed deflectors fore and aft, to keep the cockpit drier.

I also installed the rudder. I have to work out how to control it, but I will do that in the water. It is a strange characteristic of this type of sail, that the bulk of the steering is done by manipulating the sails, and the rudder is for a quick push to get her turned. We'll see how that works.

I am still waiting for the ship registration papers to come in. I got severely held up by the Canadian Consulate. I am very unhappy with the runaround they gave me. You see, it is important to me to register the boat as a Canadian vessel. This grants me the protection of the Crown, whatever that may mean, and allows me to identify the vessel as Canadian by flying the Maple Leaf off the stern.

To register a vessel, you need to provide all kinds of documents, including a declaration of ownership. If the vessel is being built outside of Canada this form needs to be notarised by a Consular Officer. Well the nearest Canadian Consulate is in Guatemala City, but Belize has an Honorary Consul, (certainly more of an honour for her than for Canada). I called and asked for an appintment to see the honorary consul, explaining my need. I was asked to give my name, a time period convenient to me for the meeting and a phone number where I could be reached, and when the Consul would come in, she would check her appointments schedule, and make one for me. "When will she be in next?", I innocently asked, and was told she only comes in when she has an appointment scheduled. I wondered how she was ever going to get an appointment if she only made them when she came in, and she only came in when she had one. Seems a convenient lifestyle to me. I hope she isn't paid for this "Honorary" position.

After two months of this nonsense, I called once again, and was told "We have been trying to reach you. I'll get the Consular Officer and ask her to call you right away." I was aghast: finally some break in the inertia. So a few minutes later, a Consular Officer called me, and told me that my situation had been discussed in Guatemala, and that they were not going to cooperate with my request. I should go to a local notary or lawyer and get them to notarise it for me. Shit, I could have done that months ago. so the next day I did. Now I am waiting for my papers to arrive.

In the meantime, there is still work to be done. The Manatee looks too much like a Stealth bomber, and, although the epoxy paint is hard and strong, I want more layers between the boat and the water. Plus I thought that a black boat might be a touch hot under a tropical sun.

So how about a white boat, with blue trim and decking? Tomorrow another coat goes on, and then I'll turn her on her side and paint the topsides.

Riding my bike around Dangriga the other night, I was mentally saying goodbye. It is a different impression you get of a town at night: reggae music spills out an open doorway, light leaks out a thousand cracks in a clapboard house, riddled with termites and dry rot. After a while you realise all sorts of people are watching you ride by, sitting silently in porches or on concrete steps, shadows in the cooling night air. You ride half standing, to cushion the shock of unseen potholes, watching for dogs out for mischief. Everyone you pass says 'goodnight'.

I like the people here. Everyone calls you brother no matter what colour or race you appear to be. They are well mannered, especially the kids. The women scare me though. They can be pretty big and they yell and swear a lot. hehe.

I'll be finishing up pretty soon and I hope to have some pictures of her under sail. But first we'll see if she keeps the waves out. Until then

Cheers,

Jack

2006-04-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

My last post was a little hasty, trying to catch you up all at once, and without the benefit of photos. So here is a quick retrospective, with some shots of the Manatee on her way to her infamous sea trial....

Here she is, still in Sam's workshop yard. The mainsail is up: it still needs a little adjusting to get it to lie flat. The first time we raised the sail, I thought it would be way too big for such a small boat. But rigged like a Sunfish, it doesn't swing way out and make the whole boat tippy. Under sail in a stiff breeze, it couldn't raise the outrigger out of the water.

To get her out of the yard, we couldn't go throught the gate so we had to carry her over the fence. Sorry Sam. It took six men to handle her. I should have guessed then that she was going to sit low in the water. I want to thank the guys at Island Expeditions for helping me: Javier, Carlton, Rio, Bobo (Kerry) and Duba (Kenroy), and of course the bossman, Leif for loaning me his guys and the use of the truck.

We got out just in time before Godzilla arrived and laid waste to the whole town!

If you look closely you will see a human finger over the left hand of our little visitor, a green iguana about two feet long. Jaime is a bit of a crocodile hunter, and is always catching lizards.

She is all rigged up ready to go. I think we mounted the outrigger too low.

Yup. It was all I could do to keep her from filling with water over the starboard gunwhale.
We took her ashore and readjusted the trim.

Here she is in front of Island Expeditions operations centre. The mizzen sail is up to keep her bow pointed into the wind. I am afraid I don't have any pictures of her full of water: I just wasn't thinking of taking pictures at the time.

Just to show you that she does sail. She cuts the water smartly, with very little leeward drift and can beat fairly close to the wind. She does, however slowly fill up with water, as waves slide in over the sides and water breaking over the bow leaks into the forward compartment. She is also a touch bow-heavy, which will have to be countered by loading the heavy stuff in the stern compartment. I will also put in a drain hole through the forward bulkhead, so that excess water can drain into the cockpit where i can get at it to bail it out.

All of this is very dry and technical. What pictures don't show you, is the thrill of seeing all your work (so far) finally bearing fruit, all of your questions and concerns finally coming to the test. It is an excitement mixed with dread, disappointment and renewed vigour as you plan how to fix the little problems that have arisen. And add to the regular challenges two new ones: that I have to do the rest of the work myself, on the beach, and that I am running out of time and money. What I have now has to last me for the duration of the voyage. But I'm up to it. Life is an adventure.

2006-04-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe how time flies. Two months (!!!) have passed since I last posted , and I am sure I have lost the interest of most of my readers. This is my fault, and the result of my reliance on modern technology. We get spoiled, don't we? For example, the ability to include photos on this site makes it much more interesting and informative for the reader, but it means that if I am unable to upload any photos, I end up not posting at all.

In the meantime, trips have come and gone, my field season is over, the weather has gotten a lot hotter, and the Manatee has seen a lot of construction. In the absence of pictures, permit me to resort to the old-fashioned thousand words...

Both ends of the boat have decks, each sealed off from the rest of the boat's interior with a bulkhead, and accessible by a hatch cover. The boat and the original outigger are painted "dark grey", but it looks black to me. This is an epoxy paint that is not mean to be the final colour, but a strong undercoat. This is a learning experience every day I work on it, and, in retrospect, if I have known about this paint, I would never have fibreglassed her. More on that later.Eventually.

The mainmast is a three-inch diameter, twelve-foot long red mangrove log, that weighs a good 15 pounds. The mainsail is the same configuration as on a Sunfish: with an upper yard and a lower boom, hinged so that the angle of the sail and its relative fore-and-aft position can be modified. The picture will explain it. The main point is that the sail can be adjusted in three ways, which is meant to steer the boat with minimal use of a rudder.

We finally carried her to the water on a hot and breezy Thursday, 20 April, 2006. It took six men, four of them borrowed from Island Expeditions staff, plus yours truly and Sam my furniture-maker-cum-shipwright. The akas (crossbeams connecting the boat to her outrigger) were tied on with equal lengths on either side of the boat, and we picked her up by grabbing these 10 ft poles. Someone commented that it looked like we were carrying a coffin. I didn't much like that. The path out of the yard squeezed between the house and a big shrub, so we had to carry her through the back yard and heave her over the fence. I think we crushed the corrugated tin a little, but we got her over. Then it was a simple two-block slog down the street to the water, where we re-installed the akas and attached them to the outrigger. Phwew. My back told me later what it thought of that little maneouvre.

The beach along this shore has been eroding since last summer, and has been reinforced with boulders, sand bags, and sticks driven into the sand. It looks a little like a half-hearted attempt to repel an invasion.

On the beach we tied on the outrigger, slid the masts in place, and raised the maisail. We left the mizzen sail out for the time being. Didn't want too many complications yet. Had to find out if she floats.

Sitting on land is no place to try and judge how high the outrigger and boat will sit in the water. We set the outrigger too high and when she went into the water, the boat listed over with the edge of the gunwhale dangerously close to the water. In this awkward position we drifted down the shore a short distance to the beach in front of Island Expeditions field office before hauling her out and re-adjusting the outrigger and bringing her to an even keel.

After borrowing a couple of paddles and lifejackets, my co-adventurer, Jaime, and I climbed in, and we pushed off. The wind was heading towards the beach, angling in at about a 45 degree angle from the left (NE). As soon as we raised and secured the mainsail, she took off, heading about 60 degrees off the wind, slicing into the waves and throwing spray. She looked and felt grand.

Our first discovery was that she runs arrow-straight. I installed a full-length keel only a few inches deep, and have been waiting to see how she resisted leeward drift. I am pleased. The downside is that she resists any effort to steer her with a paddle. That needs work.

The second discovery was that she isn't quite what you would call sea-worthy. Her shape is long, narrow and deep. And she has a lot of extra weight from the decking, the fibreglass, and the mast, sails and, oh yes, the crew. The unsurprising result is that she sits low, with little freeboard and takes in water with every wave. Also landing in light surf results in immediate swamping. Fortunately, when you are sailing, your hands are free to bail, and swamping is not such a problem with an outrigger canoe because it remains upright.

Discovery three: she is a little bow-heavy. Water splashing over the deck gets into the foreward compartment under the hatch cover, and through the mast-step.

So this is all good. I knew she would need a little tweaking here and there. It is just a matter of building up the sides a few inches to increase freeboard, installing deflectors on the foredeck to keep waves from sliding up under the hatch cover, installing weatherstripping in the hatch cover and shifting the weight a little further aft. So all the heavy stuff, drinking water etc, will go in the after compartment. I will also install drainplugs in the bulkheads, so if water does get in, I can drain them into the open middle section (affectionately called ""the bathtub") and bail them out without opening a hatch-cover.

And I will have to install the rudder and mizzensail to make her go where I want to. That is kind of important.

My sweetheart and partner Lorena is here visiting me. I wanted to have the boat in the water by the time she got here, but, well, it's a boat. She has been helping me work on it between short jaunts around the country. We managed to spend a week at Half-Moon Cay, the most beautiful place I have ever been, and a couple of days in Guatemala, where we stayed in Flores and visited the ancient Mayan capital city of Tikal. She will be heading back to Mexico in a couple of days and I will be in a rush to finish the boat then, as I won't even have an apartment in Dangriga past the end of the month. So as soon as I can I will post some photos and an update on my progress before I finally head out to sea. Lorena, it is so great to have you here with me. I will miss you but I am coming home to you....ya mero.

Thanks for checking in on me. I will let you know how things are progressing soon.

Cheers,
Island Jack

2006-02-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

Well after another two weeks at Glover's Reef, I am in a mad dash to finish the manatee. I have eight days off and a million little details. Fortunately I had the help of two of my colleagues, Andy and Jaime.

Here is the next phase of the manatee. Both Mast steps are cemented in with resin and bolted to the hull. The interior is painted with epoxy paint (dark grey was the only colour available). The PVC post is to provide a continuous tube in which the mast sits, and will be trimmed flush with the deck.

Beside the Manatee is one half of the new outrigger, made of styrofoam, and the original wooden outrigger. The new outrigger will be much lighter and more bouyant.

Below is a picture of the outrigger under construction.

I couldn't afford enough foam to make the whole thing out of solid foam so i am making it hollow.
The backbone is a 12 ft. long section of 1x12 lightweight wood, planed down to about 1/2 inch thickness. The foam is Dow polystyrene. The pieces were cut with a dozuki saw and glued with wood glue. The wood glue was a bad choice, as it never really dries between the impervious layers of foam.

It is easy to shape with a long piece of 50-grit sandpaper, which neither clogs nor wears out on the soft foam. Once shaped, a finer sandpaper can be used before sealing. This is Andy (looking remarkably like Sideshow Bob) working for free.

Well that's all for now. Soon it will be all finished except the new outrigger and the decking and hatches. But I am running out of cash, and the sea beckons once again. Cheers all.

Island Jack

2006-01-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

The good news is, the water tanks at Glover's Reef are all full, even the one we installed after the rainy season supposedly ended. You can guess the bad news. Belize gets 3 - 4 inches of rain in the month of January, typically. This year we got several times that amount in any given week. Where is Global Warming when you need it?!! Actually, this could be an indication of things to come (let's hope not), or might just be one tail of a statistical 'normal' curve. Time will tell.

Aaanyway, I am off for an 8 day week, so I hope to get the Manatee as near done as possible. We started on the spars for the masts, ripping up 2x4's into 2x2's and joining them into two 8 ft and two 18ft spars. I am not satisfied with the joints, but am guaranteed they will hold, so we'll see.

We had a rather famous guest on a trip recently. He wasn't a movie or rock star, but most Canadians would recognise him by outdoor the clothing he designs. He has promised to send me a few items, as a way of sponsoring my upcoming voyage and I am thrilled to receive them. We'll see how well they perform after four months of hard use.

Ahh, life in the tropics. Yesterday I removed a botfly from a colleague's head. It's like a small housefly, which lays on egg on your skin or on vegetation, or even on the underside of a mosquito. At any rate, the egg finds itself on your skin at some point, where it immedialty hatches and burrows in. From there the little maggot grows, feeding on your body fluids, and keeps a small open sore through which it sticks a tiny, transparent breathing tube. You may first notice a small swollen spot with a hole, like a burst pimple. At night, however, it shifts around in its bed, using small hooks located at the head end. This you can feel, and it feels exactly like it sounds.

To get rid of the little pest, you have to smother it. You can use vaseline or duct tape. Duct tape works great (here's a use even Red Green wouldn't have thought of, eh?) because as the maggot tries to extend its snorkel, it crawls out of the hole and gets stuck on the tape. Vaseline doesn't work as well, and neither one works well on the scalp, as my coworker discovered. The alternate treatment is to take the stem of a tobacco leaf (which they sell by the handful in stores here), stick it in the airhole, and leave it overnight. The maggot immediatly struggles vigorously, much to the discomfort of the host, and eventually dies. It is then removed with a lot of squeezing like popping a huge and particularly nasty zit. The wound heals quickly, and it's all over with. Until the next one: this particular host has played this role 3 times before. Just to be clear, these creatures live in the deep jungle and are not found on the cayes.

Cheers

2006-01-16T14:26:00.000-08:00

After a month of guiding trips at Glover's Reef, I had an eight-day rest period. Right away I wanted to get the Manatee out of storage and onto a working platform at Sam's workshop, but I couldn't get a truck and some men... The result was I finally got her onto a cradle on day seven, and had just enough time on day eight to buy some glass and resin, some sandpaper and other materials and explain what I wanted done by the time I came off the water in a week. I asked Sam's nephew to give me some help, sanding and fibreglassing. I wanted the hull smoothed and reinforced along the keel. I bought enough glass to do both decks as well as the little needed along the keel and gunwales. So I was surprised when I returned to find that he had reglassed most of one side of the hull, using up all my glass and most of the resin. Very frustrating, as the boat is already heavy, and only needs a thin layer of glass to reinforce the waterproof layer of resin.

This is me standing beside the Big Manatee on her cradle. Her bow is behind me, barely visible in the glare of a tropical sun. She has been sanded and looks white in places, and the reddish blotches are from resin mixed with sanding dust (mostly mahogany) used to fill cracks and low spots. you can see how sharply tapered she is at the ends, and the full-length keel. She hardly seems big enough, but she will be my home for about four months, starting in April.

The outrigger, the Little Manatee, is behind the big one, out of sight. You'll see her when she is ready.

A little aside: last summer I was given a huge jib sail by my very good friends, Ernesto and Alexandra Rufo. Thanks, guys. From it I cut two smaller (obviously) sails for the Manatee. I decided to test the smaller of the two sails with my canoe, a standard "Canadian" design. I built an outrigger for the canoe, and made the spars and crossbeams, and set up the smaller sail. This is what she looked like. The sail is called a "crabclaw" and is a polynesian design. It has an upper yard and a lower boom. This comes in handy because the sail can be put to other uses. It can be propped on the beach apex up, as a shade or temporary shelter, or it can be held apex down, in a rainstorm, to funnel rain into a bucket. I will be travelling during the rainy season, in some very rainy places, so i hope to capture as much rainwater as I can, for drinking and even bathing. There are few joys as great as having fresh, sweet rainwater to wash off the salt that rubs and chafes the skin.

That's all for now, my friends. Tomorrow I am off to Glover's Reef. I'll bring back some photos of that paradise, and maybe a story or two. Take care,
Jack

2006-01-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

This is the story of the Manatee, a dugout canoe, built in Belize, and converted to a Polynesian outrigger sailing canoe, of the type known as a tacking proa. I am her owner, a Canadian, living in Mexico and working in Belize. So I guess we are a mongrel pair.

A bit of history....

I have been canoeing since I was a kid growing up in Northern Ontario, and have been interested in any kinds of canoes used by peoples of the world. So it was natural that I would want an outrigger canoe to sail and paddle. As I get older and more worn out, I have come to like sailing more and more.

Three years ago I got an opportunity to work as a sae kayak guide for Island Expeditions, a Canadian company that operates adventure travel excursions in Belize. This company is well-known as among the best in the industry, so I jumped at the chance. When I arrived in Belize I found myself in Dangriga, a Garifuna town on the southern coast. The Garifuna, once known as Black Caribs, are the last remnants of the Carib Indians who once paddled all over the Caribbean. They have managed to maintain much of their culture, including a lifestyle based on fishing. Many of them still fish from small dugout canoes which they call dories. These dories are about twice the length of a man, and barely wider than a human torso. Round-bottomed and tippy, they are swiftly paddled and often towed by a swimming fisherman, who spears fish, and picks up lobster and conch from the bottom.

As soon as I saw these canoes, I thought how perfect they would be for an outrigger canoe. Most were too short for my purposes. And then one day I found one that was about 18 feet (a little over five metres) long. This was more to my purpose, because once I decided to get myself a dory and make it into an outrigger canoe, I knew I would want to sail it home to the Pacific side of Mexico. And for that I would need one big enough to carry me and the required supplies and equipment along nearly 3,000 sea miles of coastline, yet be light enough to paddle ashore if the wind died, and drag it up on a beach by myself.

The Arrangement....

There it was, lying on the beach, upright, with one end half full of wet sand. It was bleached grey by the sun, and both ends had deep fissures, where the heartwood had separated from the sapwood. The gunwales were built up with square strips of wood, nailed crudely in place. Each end had a triangular piece of wood nailed in to bring the two halves together; otherwise it was a carved log. The marks from the adze or machete or whatever tool had been used were plainly visible. The owner said that it was too big for general use: it took three men to paddle it. He was glad to part with it, and curious to see the result of my planned modification, and its potential usefulness to the local fishermen.

At the time I was staying in an old-style Belizian house: a wooden structure perched eight feet over the ground on wooden posts. From my bedroom window I looked over the wall separating the property from the workshop of a carpenter and furniture-maker, named Dinsdale Samson. I approached him to see if he could help me with my project. I needed his skills, his tools and his space. He was a little reluctant at first, having no boat-building experience, but, when I assured him that I would come up with the design, he agreed.

The Manatee so Far....

The first thing was to build the outrigger, (little manatee) which was done with 1X2 stringers and thin plywood planking. It has a nice lean look, but I fear it lacks the required bouyancy. I also fibreglassed it, so it is nice and waterproof, but even heavier. That was as far as I got the first season I was here. I had to postpone the trip as my wife's son suddenly got sick, and so I went home.

The next season (2004/5) found me in Belize again, guiding kayak trips, and working on the Manatee on my days off. It had dried out nicely during the summer off-season, and was much lighter, but when I picked it up from the storeroom, I found little piles of fine sawdust: powder-post beetles had gotten into the wood.

This time I got some more help, from Dinsdale's nephew Timothy. He sanded the hull to a smooth, round finish. I then installed a full-length keel, about 6" deep. That was a job, making sure it was perfectly straight. After that, the boat was fibreglassed inside and out. I wanted to seal the wood to keep out insects and moisture during the rainy season.

So I still have to install the rudder, put on some decking and hatches fore and aft, set in the mast steps, make the masts and spars, and find some way to connect the crossbars to the hull. I also suspect the keel is insufficient, so I may have to make and install a leeboard (a keel on the outside of the hull).

The Voyage Home....

My voyage home will take me from the cayes and atolls of Belize, along the Mosquito (Miskito) Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, then up the Rio San Juan to Lake Nicaragua. From there I will hire a local to truck me over to the Pacific coastal town of San Juan del Sur. And then I will sail northwest, along the coasts of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, to my home of San Carlos, Sonora, halfway up the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez).

The Mosquito coast is an isolated stretch of the Caribbean, cut off from the rest of the country by 50 to 100 miles of swamp and lowland plains. There is only one town with road access and it is a very bad road. The rest are nominally connected by river, but are designated autonomous zones, and essentially ignored. Should be some wild and interesting places and people.

The Rio San Juan is 180 km of jungle river, with one settlement and a few farms along its shores. Otherwise I expect to find a true Central American wilderness, and lots of wildlife. I expect to see signs of tapir and jaguar, crocodiles and caimans, anteaters, sloths and birds beyond count or description. The down side of this portion is that I will have to paddle the whole distance. On the positive side though, is that in 180 km, the river only drops 34m.

The Pacific Coast is the longest stretch, and will alternate many times between settled and touristy beaches and bays, and long sections of wild coast. My main challenge here will be surf. The Manatee is not realy designed to liveaboard, and although I will be able to sleep on it, I hope to go ashore most nights. But landing such a heavy boat in surf will be tricky at best, and so I have to be prepared to go offshore and drift with the sea anchor out nights when I can find no sheltered water to make landfall.

The Schedule....

I plan to leave Dangriga about the end of the first week of April. I expect the trip will take about four months to cover 2,750 sea miles. Hurricane season begins in June, but they don't usually really get going until August, and don't head onto land on the Pacific side until nearer September. I'll be off the water, I hope, by early August. I will be travelling during the rainy season, so I hope to use my sails to catch rainwater, and rely as little as possible on river water or municipal supplies.

Ok, so this is a work in progress, as weblogs are meant to be. As I get photos I will download them, and add files and links of interest.

Cheers,
Jack Wilde