Shakedown In Belize

Shakedown In Belize

Ketch 22 in San Pedro Belize

February 2011

Bahia Espiritu Santos, Mexico

It started in Mexico, not that the Mexicans had anything at all to do with the rude behavior we experienced in San Pedro Belize, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Stuck in Bahia Espiritu Santos Mexico for three days while awaiting a fair weather window, a fleet of three other yachts managed to join Ketch 22 behind the barrier reef about the same time we arrived, taking shelter in the bay and waiting for the seas to mellow enough to make the roughly 100 mile passage to San Pedro Belize. Little did we realize at anchor in Mexico that the Belizean authorities were already plotting and scheming on ways to make life difficult and expensive for the transient vessels en-route to the waters of Belize. But when the weather window came, we took it and arrived the next day in Belizean waters.

San Pedro, Belize

A beautiful day in the tropical San Pedro paradise! Temperatures in the mid 70s Fahrenheit, sun shining, a mild breeze keeping the bugs at bay, billowing white puffs of moisture laden water vapor, low on the horizon, slowly inching their way to obscurity somewhere to the southwest. Pangas zipping across the water with gringo tourists on board like water striders on their first trip out to the reef, rocking the anchorage with their wake, international law be damned. Forget the fact that we were low on fuel, water, food and unbeknown to us, the dinghy outboard was deader than a hammer. Forget that I had a nagging headache from sleep deprivation and forget that the cruising schedule was at risk. This was paradise, and I had boat maintenance that was screaming to be be completed. What better place and time to be doing boat maintenance, than when paradise beckoned? Watching the sun go down and happy hours might have to wait.

But the truth is, if you are not a tourist or working in the industry, you have no business being in San Pedro at all. My problem, was that I had just sailed in from Bahia Espiritu Santos, and I needed to inform the 'authorities ' that I had arrived. It was on my way in to inform them, that the outboard died. Admittedly bad timing on my part, but fortunately, our cruising buddy on Pea Soup gave us a ride into customs and immigration with their dinghy, because we were out of options without them. And on the way into the beach, Reg gave us the scoop! 'Tell them you arrived after 11 am, or else it will cost you an extra day. We had to pay extra for every day we were here.' It was a cruiser 's call to arms. This was serious business, not to be taken lightly. Belize was trying to charge far more than was justified by the circumstances, and offering nothing in return except a slice of paradise on a thin slice of Central American style bread.

San Pedro was not the place to be in such a predicament. The shakedown started with Immigration and Customs authorities. Immigration required $40.00. That might be considered a bargain, but we weren't done yet. Customs wanted $40 as well, but there were 2 of them, so it had to be $40 each! Not to be outdone, a Mr. Austin Martinez the Port Supervisor from the Belize Port Authority had to weigh in on the issue. Arriving in a panga just before sundown and accompanied by no less than five armed guards wielding semi-automatics (perhaps they had heard of the vast array of Swiss Army knives on board Ketch 22 ), he arrived with his paperwork and sense of self importance, prepared to tally up still more charges. And those charges were starting to fly fast and furious while beginning to add up to serious money. Mr. Austin Martinez informed us that the first $30 was a boarding fee - I didn't ask them to board, in fact I had gone to the office in town during business hours and it was closed. The second $30 was a clearance fee, the third $30 was a port dues fee, and the last $33 dollars was a 'navigation aid' fee. Funny I saw damn few 'nav' aids on the way into San Pedro, but maybe I was blind from sleep deprivation? The total for the fees was now just a little north of $240.00 BD for customs, immigration and the Port Authority. Even with the Belize dollar at half the value of the US dollar, check in fees of $120 USD was on the high side for the services rendered. But there was more to come. Mr. Martinez further informed me that there would be a $10/day fee for every person on board, to be paid when we checked out of Belize. An excellent strategy to get yachties to exit Belize as soon as possible I thought at the time. The cruiser communications net went into overtime in the morning when the Caribbean Northwest Cruisers net, an HF radio based network broadcasting every day at 8am, heard the news about the fees and the daily charge per person. The Belize Tourism Board was notified, and the email address for the Belize Minister of Tourism was distributed over the net to any who wanted to make a statement via email. The minister of Tourism, the Honorable Manuel Heredia, the 'Honorable' is on his business card, has yet to weigh in on the issue, but his representative did offer to arrange a meeting with him and a fellow cruiser also caught in the web of over charging. I've always wondered why government officials use the 'Honorable' title. Does that mean they haven't been convicted yet? At any rate, the fur was starting to fly. I want more than a conversation with an honorable minister though. I want a refund!

After the Austin Martinez shakedown, San Pedro was still waiting, but the dinghy outboard still needed fixin'. Without the cruiser's inflatable water taxi, the trip to shore was near insurmountable. Easy to drift with the wind to the beach, but god help the mariner trying to row against the trades back to his yacht. The simple truth was that no dinghy outboard meant no trips to shore. A fact of life, like it or not, and the crew didn't like it one bit. A mutiny was brewing, but the situation was out of my control. That outboard had to be repaired, or the cruise was off. Period! Nothing to be done until the outboard was operational once more. But before fixing the thing, a bit of analysis was necessary. The symptom was obvious. The damn thing wouldn't start! It could be dirty fuel, bad spark, dirty carburetor or a combination of all three. The fix would take hours, and maybe days or weeks if outside help had to be brought in or sun down or happy hour interfered with the repairs.

The Belize experience didn't stop with the check in fees however. The bad news about San Pedro just kept rolling in. Located on the south end of Ambergris Cay, San Pedro is a tourist delight (or perhaps trap). If the ambiance didn't clue you in , the prices would. Fifteen dollar (USD) lunches and two dollar (USD) beers were routine. For most things, just assume a big city location in the US and multiply by 2 to convert to the local Belizean price and currency. That made the prices pretty close to big city US, cause the Belizean dollar was worth about fifty cents USD.

God knows cruisers are always needing fuel, and there was no shortage of fuel in Belize for the locals shallow draft vessels. The problem was that a sailing vessel with a five and a half foot draft couldn't get near the fuel dock, so the outboard repair was becoming even more urgent. After dumping the old fuel and cleaning the tank, the Steady Eddy Nissan 8 HP two cycle still wouldn't turn over on its own. My sore shoulders were testament to that. Things were looking pretty grim, after I removed, cleaned and re-installed the carburetor and it still wouldn't start. The cavalry arrived in the person of boat buddy Reg, who it just so happened used to ride dirt bikes extensively. He'd seen his share of two cycle engines, and was able to guide me through the overhaul of the Nissan carburetor until we found the problem. The fuel float adjustment was off a hair, so Reg applied just a smidgen of pressure and we were back in business! The outboard was operational and it was time for a nap. But the fuel thing didn't go away. I had to run the dinghy to the fuel dock, fill the two 6 gallon diesel jugs and the three gallons of gasoline. What a shock to be presented with a bill of $152 BD! Yes, $75 USD for 10 gallons of diesel and three gallon of gasoline! I wonder how I'll fill my water tanks?

Cay Caulker

Not wanting to stay in San Pedro any longer than necessary, we departed early the next day for Cay Caulker. Still having a really bad taste in my mouth from San Pedro, I was unsure whether I should bother to stop in, but in retrospect I am really glad I made the effort. Excellent holding in the anchorage was the first clue that things were going well. Running the dinghy to shore, we tied up near the ferry dock and meandered our way down main street. Life was sweet again. A Caribbean ambiance dominated the Cay Calker scene. Lots of reggae music from the restaurants and cafe's, reasonable prices and friendly folks. Could we still be in Belize? It turns out we were. Cay Caulker and San Pedro were as different as catchup and Mexican salsa. Restaurants, coffee shops, internet cafes, beer and sodas by the case, fresh vegetables, rice and beans, fresh seafood. We were in hawg' heaven.

Stopping for a quick early afternoon beer, I paid with a fifty BD, which must have been a little to much for the proprietor, who had to run to the bank to get change. No matter, this was the Belize that had a 'don't worry, be happy' attitude. A trip to the outhouse after the beer brought me into contact with the local drug peddler. 'Hey mon, you wan some ganja?' he questioned quietly. Not the least interested, but not wanting to offend, I put my arm over his shoulder and asked him if he knew Ringo Starr. No visible response, so I went on to mention 'you know, The Beatles? John, Paul, George and Ringo?' A quizzical look on his face brought me to the point of my questioning. It turns out, Ringo sang a song that perfectly matched my feelings at the time, so I sang the lyrics for him: 'No, no, no, I don't smoke it no more. I'm tired of waking up on the floor. No thank you please...' Before I could finish, he threw back his head and laughed out loud. 'Ya mon, ya mon, I got ya' he said as he walked away. No ganja for me in Cay Calker that day.

A couple days in Cay Caulker and it was time to move on. That $10/day per person on board was starting to weigh heavy on my mind. Inside the reef, the channels are shallow and narrow in northern Belize. Hard to believe, but about 6 miles south of Cay Caulker on the way to Belize City, there exists a navigable (barely) channel with the quaint and most memorable name of 'Porto Stucko'. Porto Stucko is so named because the channel is narrow, shallow, and lots of boats get stuck there in the mud. I was able to avoid any encounters with the shallows, but not without a lot of heartburn. Proceeding south from there, I started to notice a variation in the RPM of Ketch 22's main engine as we motored south thru the narrow channels. Hoping it would go away, I successfully ignored it for several hours. When it became too obvious to ignore, I opened the engine room hatch cover to check the Racor fuel filter pressure gage. As I suspected, the filter pressure was approaching critical levels and the filter needed changing soon. Not wanting to interfere with our southward progress, I dropped the hook that night without further incident in Sapodilla Lagoon. It seems that the curse of San Pedro was with me still. The fuel I had purchased there was dirty and dumping it into my main tank had dirtied the fuel to the extent that the 10 micron filter was clogged with tiny particles of black 'stuff', that was making it difficult for that ole' Perkins 4-108 to aspirate well enough to keep a stable idle. Wouldn't you think that at near $5 USD per gallon, they could provide clean fuel? No problema. A dirty filter in the Racor was swapped with a spare filter and I was back in business. The next morning, we were on our way to Placencia.

It was in Placencia that I discovered that Belize's most loved beer was small. Not just a few milliliters small, but in fact a bottle of Belican Beer is an amazing 240 milliliters. I don't have my calculator with me, but this is approximately 3/4 of a beer in the rest of the world. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that a 3/4 beer is a rather steep $1.50 USD even when purchased by the case at the distributor in Cay Caulker. Initially, I thought that the Belican was just so good that I couldn't help but guzzle it down so rapidly that the bottles seemed always to be miraculously close to empty. But then I started to ask myself, 'where's the buzz'. Exploring the label, I thought maybe they forgot to ferment the brew, but no, it had a healthy 4.7% alcohol content. It was then I saw the 240 ml designation. It was hidden from casual view by an extraordinarily thick bottle that gave the look and feel of a full size beer, but the inside was like a sixties era Chevrolet: big on the outside and small on the inside. In Belize, it seems it's good to maintain a healthy dose of 'caveat emptor' and then some.

Ahh yes, but by then I was in Placencia. Famous for a miles long sidewalk and a great little anchorage protected by Cay Placencia from all but southwest winds and just off the beach in the main part of town. Plentiful restaurants, hotels and tiendas vending the things cruisers need most. Things like laundry service, eggs and vegetables, drinking water and other fluids, seafood, fish and meat for the carnivores in the cruising community. But by now I had been in Belize for near two weeks and it was time to make tracks to Guatemala. Still, I spent several days in Placencia relaxing and planning my exit from Belize. Remember, I was still under the San Pedro threat that I would have to pay $10 per day, per crew member. Not wanting to miss any weather windows, I was determined to get out of Belize and head south but if interpreted literally, $10/day per person would put my Belize exit fees near $300, and then some, to get out of Belize, only to get hammered again when I checked into Guatemala. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, so putting on my best face, I made my way to Big Creek, where the customs and immigration people lay in wait for me, a mere unsuspecting cruiser looking like a deer caught in the headlights. All my fears were laid to rest however when the check out fees ended up to be $65 BD, or $37.50 USD. Somewhere between San Pedro in the north and Placencia in the south, there was a large disconnect between the reality and the rhetoric.

San Pedro Shake Down