Belize City

14 Nov

20 hours after leaving Banco Chincherro, we were on the final approach to Belize and had been studying the pilotage involved. A snaking channel would take us through the offshore reef to the shallows approaching Belize City where we could check into the country.

Now some back story. The last two countries Argonaut had arrived in, the USA and Mexico, were unconventional. Pre-refit, a mechanical breakdown had Argonaut towed into Florida before an extensive refit. The engine before this had provided many years of faithful service and the skipper opted to have the engine completely rebuilt, rather than replaced. Departing the pontoon in Florida, bound for Belize, the mechanic who to date had taken great pride in their work, shared a parting comment. “Oh by the way, there is slight oil leak, keep an eye on that”. You can imagine how well that went down.

Ghost tender Argonauty, nobly propelling us forward

Roll on hurricane Milton, a course diversion and new arrival point in Mexico, the engine decided to go on strike owing to contaminated fuel. Again a tow into the dock was required entering Mexico. That was country number two. Can you see where this is going yet?

I was on watch and observed light coloured smoke from the exhaust that had not been present prior. I raised the skipper who in turn checks the oil level, it barely registers on the dip stick. Quickly shutting the engine down, I climb into the lazarette and fish out the spare oil reserves. With the oil topped up and both ourselves and the engine hot we decide to plunge into the now mirror like sea.

Cranking the engine, we traded looks of ‘not again’. The cranking continued but no more life developed. We again inspected the whole fuel system, bleeding it and checking all filters, which this time around were perfectly clean. An hour later we were no further and we launched the dinghy to start a tow operation.

The inline tow was comedic with Argonauty slewing side to side and little forward motion achieved. A longer tow line would have helped but the prospect of someone helming the dinghy for the next 6 hours wasn’t appealing. A side by side tow was soon rigged and we soon were on the move at nearly 5 knots. Looking a the setup, it was apparent that with the throttle and steering locked a dinghy pilot was not required, so with string extending the kill cord we all got comfortable onboard, periodically checking the fuel burn.

The 25hp Yamaha humming along was significantly quieter than the inboard 80hp diesel, and we were quite proud of the MacGyver fix to our predicament. So we had arrived in Belize, the 3rd country this year that Argonaut had entered in under tow. Never a dull day.

Check in

The following day, we resumed our towing configuration and motored closer to Belize City for our customs inspection and check in to the country. We had sailed ahead to notify of our arrival and received a receipt to confirm this. Phoning the port authority, them advised representatives form 5 different jurisdictions would meet us at the dock and need to inspect the boat. None had their own vessel, so Argonauty was deployed to the pier to collect them. Only one official was there, and it soon transpired the port Authority had not arranged the other parties to show up and they would like us to have an agent to do so. With a friendly word to the Port Authority manager, all of a sudden they could do without an agent.

The Port Authority was also very surprised we had not used a pilot to navigate in, we didn’t share that we’d also don’t the whole operation under tow.

The Port Authority official joined us on the boat first, and the paperwork commenced. An hour later it was time for the 4 other departments and their officials. Charles went ashore, and the comedy of signing many, many pieces of paperwork and trading hands with seemingly random amounts of cash to each department commenced. All in they took us for in excess of $650 US, and joyfully shared that we'd have to see them all again before we departed. Oh, and for all that cash, they didn’t even step foot on the boat for their so called important inspections.

Landfall

After our towing exploits, it was time to refill the fuel cans. After finding the fuel dock and promptly running aground in the silty Haulover Creek which splits Belize City north and south, we were told they'd only take cash, no trouble I was soon pointed to an ATM just on the street. That was out of order, but soon another friendly local gave me directions over the swing bridge to another ATM in south of the city. The Belizian Dollar is pegged at 2 dollars to 1 USD and conveniently used in equal measure.

On our shore mission, we also located a dive shop to recharge our tanks and hire some extras. Landing on the river side dock I jumped the side gate and knocked on the front door, being let in to a well appointed shop, devoid on light. Turns out there was a power cut and tank recharging would be delayed until they were back online.

The shop attendant generously offered some local intel, and was keen to stress we should move our lifejackets out the dinghy into shop for the time we perused, as there were opportunistic theives in the vicinity, more so on the South side of the city.

We hadn't planned on spending long in the shop, but we're soon introduced a Belizian celeb who had tales to share. Gerald ‘Lord’ Rahburn proudly told of his background, and how we would have heard him on BBC Radio after he gained fame in the 1970’s & 80’s as a Belizean calypso, soca, reggae and brukdown musician. Lord Rahburn went so far as improvising a ssort song about our arrival from far away lands and intent to dive and see Belize’s fantastic wildlife.

Dive time

With the dinghy loaded up with 4 sets of scuba kit sitting heavy in the water, we navigated through the Drowned Cays mangrove islands, shallow sea grass beds ultimately to Gallows Point dive site, on the ocean side of the coral barrier reef.

Frustratingly one of the cylinder valves we'd hired had a damaged yoke valve and would not seal to the first stage regulator, so only Ben, Alex and I would dive leaving Charles as boat man.

Descending to approximately 12 metres the reef was a dense coral wall. Whilst not of the exceptional quality of our previous dive at Banco Chinchorro, the reef was dense with coral and small fish life. Large translucent jellyfish pulsed overhead.