Belize

After a lovely few relaxing weeks in Mexico it was time to travel down to the Rio so we could pack everything up in order to fly back to the UK. Sym was feeling rather miserable about leaving the boat for so long but there was no way I wanted my first baby born in some local dodgy town where I could not speak the language!
We headed off and did a couple of days out to sea and sailed in behind the reef - where we arrived at Belize.

Belize was a fab place, with flat protected waters, hundreds of small islands with thousands of choices of places to anchor. We were gutted we could not stay any longer but time was of the essence. We did not bother checking into the country ( I know, how naughty!!) we heard it was really expensive and we were only there three nights and really did not want the hassle with the customs and immigration.
We spent three days hopping down the islands travelling south towards the Rio. The last night there and we nearly ended up on a reef - our closet encounter yet!! The situation sounds very ridiculous actually - but true!!

We tried anchoring a few times and the anchor would not bite, the bottom was grassy and muddy so Sym decided he wanted to attach the Danforth anchor to our CQR and have both anchors out. Night was falling so we wanted to do it quickly. Anyway Sym throws the anchor over the bow of our boat - not the way we usually do it as its alot easier to bring it up and re attach it! but he decided he wanted to dive down and check the anchors and would do it in the water! Well the palavor begins!! he jumps in and screams and jumps back out - there is a 4 foot barracuda lurking underneath the boat - Sym startled it when jumping in and it showed Sym its teeth and swam towards him.....

An hour later, 20 attempts and still no joy. Every time Sym tried to go into the water the barracuda swam out and circled him!!! It even got to the stage where Sym threw a bucket to see what it would do and it swam out from the boat and starting circling the bucket ready for attack...Sym even tried catching him with the fishing line and he took the bite, bit through it and still came back for more!!Sym felt slightly frightened to say the least at the tormenting barracuda.

As you can imagine, Sym did not go back into the water that night! Hence one poorly dug in anchor - but hey there was no wind!!
Night fell...pitch black, a big squall came over wind blowing 35 knots, guess what, we come out on deck to find the anchor dragged and we were about 2 metres from the reef....1 foot beneath the keel.

Thank god my babs was quick off the mark and got us moving in seconds otherwise it would not have been a very nice last night!! All caused by the bloody barracuda!!
Anyhow we did manage to retrieve our anchor the following morning - the barracuda - GONE!!