December 25, 2006 - January 1, 2007

Last Holiday’s in Guatemala

            We had a wonderful Christmas day dinner at the “Crowbar” with our host Roy & Jane S/V Steel Magnolia. There were around 50 people there, some locals and some cruisers. It was very festive and a lot of fun.

            New Years Eve we were invited to dinner at our previous home, Monkey Bay Marina, where we had kept the boat for hurricane season. Karl & Ingrid, the owners, provided a wonderful dinner and we enjoyed seeing everyone there before leaving on our cruise south to Panama & Columbia.

            New Years Day we pulled up anchor and sailed across the Golfette to Gringo Bay for the night, then on to Livingston where we would check out of Guatemala for the last time (supposedly). We had the spinnaker up for the better part of the sail.  Sandy stayed at the helm while Cheri jumped into the dingy and circled around taking pictures of Namaste’

January 2007 – early April 2007

YO-YO Time

            The next 3-4 months we spent between Belize and going back to Guatemala to complete more work on Namaste’. The past 6 months have been a little rough as far as having to do repairs on Namaste.

            Even with the trips back to Guatemala we did have time to explore parts of Belize we missed the year before. Some of our favorite Cays were:

Laughing Bird, where we did some of the best snorkeling ever.

Lagoon Cay, We stopped here with our friends, Paul & Mary Margret, on S/V AngelHeart. Paul & Sandy went “conch hunting” and brought up 7 large conchs, which we made into fritters and pasta sauce, and ate for the next few days. Gotta love it! The best part was watching these two figure out how to extract the conch out of there homes.  

The last week of February we flew home to the USA, from Guatemala, to attend our son Chris’& his bride Keri’s wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and the grandson’s participation along with Keri’s niece’s made it very special.

We also were able to visit other family members and friends before we returned to Guatemala to get Namaste’ ready for our visit from Cat & Rob, our kids from Dallas, who were flying into Belize City at the end of March. 

We arrived back in Guatemala, only to find out the parts we had ordered before we left for Texas had not arrived yet. After much hassle, they finally arrived and were installed, by our good friend Randal. We were finally on our way back to Belize with only a few days to spare before Cat and Rob arrive. 

They arrived in Belize City the day after we anchored at St Georges Cay. (A little close for comfort). The Lodge at St Georges Cay sent their water taxi to pick the kids up in Belize City and they dropped them off at Namaste’. What great service.   

The first night we had cocktails on Namaste’, then went to the Lodge for dinner. We had spent time at the lodge the previous year with Kelly and Al and as before it was a fabulous dinner. 

Cat and Rob went diving the next day with one of the Lodges dive masters and had a really good time.  

The next day we sailed north to Cay Caulker, about 20 miles away. We met up with our good friends Tami & Thane on S/V Heart of Gold. We did a really fun happy hour with them in a shallow area in the anchorage. We all dinghied over to it and stood or sat in the water along with other cruisers. We then motored over to a really cool bar and had some of the best conch fritters ever. The next day the kids did another dive day from Cay Caulker, generally packing many days into 3.   

The next day we made another great spinnaker run back to St Georges Cay for a bonfire and a terrific meal at the Lodge. The kids flew out the following day, after they took the water taxi back to Belize City. If they had half as much fun as we did, then they had a great time. 

After the kids left we chilled a few days before heading back to Placencia to re-provision for our trip towards Panama. On our way down to Placencia we had the best spinnaker run we have ever had since we have been sailing. Namaste’ flew along at 7-8 knots with the wind at 12 knots. This is what sailing is all about.

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