8 March 2013 Placencia, Belize
It was Glenys’s birthday today, so we had a lazy chill-out day. Like last year, I’ve not managed to buy her any presents, but she had the foresight to buy herself some Mexican silver earrings and a pendant while we were in Isla Mujeres, so she opened that and wore it today.
We went for a walk around town, first dropping off a big bag of washing at a laundry. Placencia is a very, very sleepy place - originally a fishing village, it is now heavily geared to tourism. There are lots of small beach restaurants and tour guides dotted around the place. The locals have built a concrete path called the “sidewalk”, which apparently took over thirty years to construct. It runs parallel to the main street of the town next to the beach – very pleasant to stroll along with palm trees and flowering bushes everywhere.
While strolling along, we met Craig and Elizabeth from “Salida” and ended up having lunch with them at a beach bar. A few beers later, we continued our stroll around, checking out a few supermarkets and hardware stores on the way - they’re not too badly stocked. We retired to a bar that had a wireless internet connection and had a long chat with our sons – it’s the first time that we’ve spoken to them for a couple of months.
Back on the boat, we continued chilling-out and after dinner, Glenys wanted to watch more Battlestar Gallactica – we’re now on series three…
9 March 2013 Placencia, Belize
The plan was to do some maintenance jobs today, but the wind was coming from the south east and put our boat into a position where I could finally get an internet connection. Not one to miss out on an opportunity, I spent most of the morning catching up on admin – checking our bank and credit card accounts, etc.
After lunch, Glenys went into town, picked up the laundry and went to the supermarket. While she was out, I dived under the boat and sorted out our Stripper. This device fits on the propeller shaft just in front of the propeller. It has three sharp serrated blades that rotate with the propeller, so if we’re unlucky enough to motor over a rope, the Stripper will cut the rope before it has a chance to wrap around our propeller.
I serviced it when we hauled out last August and replaced the plastic bearing inserts, but the damn thing has been making a noise when we’re motoring or sailing – it’s a loud metallic rattling sound and is driving me crazy. The installation instructions specify a 6mm gap on the fixed blade which means that it’s free to move backwards and forwards. I’ve no idea when they specify this, but I'm convinced that this gap is too big. I spent an hour snorkelling down to loosen the device from the propeller shaft and then I moved it, so that there’s only one millimetre of movement now. Hopefully, that will sort it out.
10 March 2013 Placencia, Belize
I woke up this morning with my subconscious mind having worked out why there’s a 6 mm gap on the Stripper. The engine is mounted on flexible rubber feet to handle vibrations. The engine is connected to the propeller shaft, so the propeller shaft will move in and out of the boat by the same amount that the engine vibrates. Without the 6 mm gap the Stripper will hit the cutlass bearing housing as the engine vibrates – not good.
I spent half an hour, snorkelling down under the boat and removed the Stripper completely. I can attest to its sharpness because I managed to cut myself a couple of times. I looked on the internet and found out that a new Stripper is nearly £500! So I’ve decided that I’ll send it back to the UK manufacturer to get it inspected and fixed – it took me an hour to clean off the barnacles and lime scale to make it at least a little presentable.
Now that we could use the engine safely, we re-anchored because we were swinging close to another boat and (more importantly) we would be able to pick up a stronger internet connection from the Paradise Resort on shore – it’s a real nuisance to have to pack up our laptops and go ashore to a bar.
Glenys decided to do some work on the bimini, so we took it off and put up our boom tent that hasn't seen the light of day for at least six months. A couple of zips have broken – the tropical sun is very harsh on the nylon backing tape and the plastic teeth. Also there’s a flexible plastic window in the top that should allow us to see the sails, but that has become crazed and now has some cracks in it.
In afternoon, I couldn't do much because Glenys was dominating the saloon with her sewing (great excuse), so I mooched about reading and playing the guitar.
11 March 2013 Placencia, Belize
My lower back has been giving me gip for the past few months. It stiffens up and then aches when I move. I had it adjusted by an osteopath in Florida in December, but it’s been gradually getting worse again. I think that it’s caused by my poor posture - I do slouch when I'm sitting and standing, which is not helped by being on a boat with restricted head room… So I've started a regime of doing stretching exercises most mornings and it seems to be helping, but it’s a bit of a fag to spend 40 minutes each morning getting hot and sweaty.
After breakfast, I went up the mast and checked all of our rigging. I tightened our intermediate shrouds and our forward lower shrouds by half a turn because I've noticed that they’re both a bit too slack when were hard on the wind. We've also got some superficial rust appearing on the fittings, so I cleaned them up and wiped some Corrosion X on the stainless steel. Hopefully that will slow down any further rust .
Glenys spent most of the day working on the bimini – it’s all a bit complicated because it has curves everywhere and she’s dealing with a three dimensional shape. Also it’s pretty big, so it’s difficult to work with. She finished at four o'clock but when we tried to fit it, we found that she’s sewn one of the zips slightly in the wrong place, so she had to un-pick it and we spent half an hour marking it up ready to be sewn tomorrow – she was a little despondent.
12 March 2013 Placencia, Belize
Glenys finished off the bimini, which went very well and she had it all installed by half past ten – cracking job.
I spent some time chilling out and updating my website. I've just started to add a popup page which shows our anchorage location in Google Earth and decided that it would be cool to add this function to our mountaineering section. Then I got it into my head to publish a new article about when I climbed the Matterhorn seven years ago. It took a while to dig out my old notes and the photographs, so I spent most of the morning at my laptop – you know how it goes…
The weather is very strange at the moment, there’s a cold front lurking around to the north of us and it’s slowly heading our way. The wind is swirling around and it all feels very humid and muggy – very draining. In addition, there’s an irritating swell coming into the anchorage that it making us roll around. I’ll be glad when the front arrives and we have more consistent wind – hopefully it will be a little bit cooler as well.
The humid heat and the rolling was so oppressive that we got off the boat and went for lunch ashore. There’s not much to do in Placencia apart from eat in restaurants and go to the supermarket. By three o'clock, we were back on board Alba, rocking & rolling. Fortunately, it started raining at six o'clock and the wind picked up a bit, so the evening was much more pleasant.
13 March 2013 Placencia, Belize
The wind finally switched to the north and it was an overcast, but cool day. I downloaded a weather forecast and the wind looks good early next week – it’s going to be 10-15 knots from the east/south east, so that should be pretty good for us to sail back up north to Cuba. We’re going to keep an eye on it, but we’re now planning to clear out on the 15th and then sail away from Placencia on the next day – it’s about time, we've been here for nearly a week now. We've only been in Belize for a couple of weeks, but we might not get such favourable winds for a while.
We had a fairly lazy day, mooching about. We went into town and dropped off the laundry. I walked down to the hardware store and bought a new 5 gallon petrol container because one of ours has finally split. While I was near the fuel dock, I filled the container and was shocked to find that it cost me $60 Belize dollars for 19 litres of petrol – that’s £1 a litre. It’s like being back in the UK. I met Glenys at the supermarket and we lugged back some more provisions.
Duncan and Dorothy from “Hunda” came for a beer or two – they've been cruising for seventeen years, so we picked their brains about Malaysia and Thailand, where they spent a few years. It sounds like it’s a really good place to stop a while – we should get there in 3-4 years…