Glovers Reef

Our sail from Guanaja, Honduras to Glovers Reef, Belize, was mainly motor sailing with intermittent times to turn off the engine. We were uncomfortably close to the east/ windward side of Roatan at night, not leaving much room for error.
The upside to the engine on, is that when run at 11,000rpm, it only consumes a gallon per hour and gives us lots of momentum (fake wind) AND I can sleep in our bed without the awful sound of the auto helm. I heard Brian moving about and making coffee, so I popped my head out the aft hatch to see the sunrise and instead saw the tension on fishing lines, yelling “fish on.” We reeled in two tuna, and Brian spent the next hour fillet them, while I got the coffee.
I was excited to visit Glovers Reef again, and see Island Expeditions. Ashlynn and I spent Christmas there in 2019. Sadly, I found out that they had just closed down for the season and the last boat left on the morning we arrived. I had emailed them, and the Manta Cay Resort to ask if we could have dinner with them and offer to teach yoga to their guests — that was a NO. Apparently they are an all inclusive, expensive resort!
We arrived around 2pm. The passage in through the reef was unnerving as the water was so clear I could see the reef below and it was hard to tell the depth. We anchored in eel grass and it held nicely for the whole week!
Shortly after arriving, the Coast Guard and fisheries arrived (with their guns). There was a $30usd/ week to stay in the Atoll. They also asked to see our papers… and we had to admit that we didn’t check into the country. It was never our plan too, as we were just going to transit the outer islands and continue on to Mexico. The check-in is on the mainland, which is at least 36nm away. They gave us a warning, told us that others might not let us transit through and told us we could stay for a week and be on our way. We were still considering going to Lighthouse Reef or Sandbore Cay…. Sunday looked good, but I had an FTHS board meeting, so we decided Monday — however, when we took a closer look, we realized that Glovers was a much better anchorage, so stayed put. Our plan was to go to Mexico, check in and wait for a weather window. However, when I started looking at the requirements (Mexican liabilities insurance, captains license, and 400usd to check in, and the same to check out…. Plus the blog posts about boats being boarded and inspected, and sailors charged import taxes for food and extra outboard, we decided to forgo. Next was to contact Chris Parker for a forecast….and finally deciding to race a FRONT (storm) arriving in Mexico on Sunday/ Monday — by leaving Wednesday (April29th) and heading straight to Florida.
Every day we went snorkelling and saw lots of Rays, porcupine puffer fish, lion fish, lobster, sea cucumbers, slipper lobster, angel fish, big ones, of varying colors (some with blue mouth others with white). The coral was absolutely gorgeous, the purple fans, wine and green and yellows speckling the underwater landscape, against the clear blue water. The shelf was our favorite and where we saw the most rays.
We didn’t do much boat work other than dig out the water drenched foam from below the issued water keel tank…. Scraping my hands in the process. I also hand washed our Calvin Klein’s and bathing suits. Otherwise, I was working on Freeing the Human Spirit things, and teaching RWW.
We were visited by bright yellow tiny birds and black ones with orange and yellow…. I love these visits 🕊️!
We made our way to Isla Corisal Resort on Southwest Cay and went to the bar, one of the staff told us we could walk around, and so we didn’t, finding our way to the Island Expedition piece of land with so many great memories. The tents were gone, but the pegs still there, showing how small our cabana was.
The following evening we returned to the resort for super and it was awesome. There was a group of 22 women (from the USA) along with an older couple from Flagstaff, Arizona who were staying at the resort.
The following day we returned as Jill, the bartender, had gotten permission to sell us some fresh fruit and vegetables (for $20)… we were SO HAPPY! By the time we reached Florida the only thing we will have left is frozen fruit (with a busted blender 🙁) and some carrots. It was very kind of the resort to give/ sell us some of there provisions. Brian drew a picture of Jill, and Eddie the owner (who we never met). They also made, by special order some zucchini bread which we picked up the next day, and dropped off the drawings. Brian has also been doing pastels of me.
On our final night we went back and had dinner again. The resort and people were so welcoming! I even got a picture with Mira who was Ashlynn’s dive master when we were there last.
Brian climbed up to the crows nest to try and capture the beauty of this island before we left (and I stole a screen shot from Marisol’s Instagram page) to show you why I’ll go back again someday!
Up at dawn and hoisted the dinghy, closed the hatched and portals and lifted the anchor to set off 720nm to Florida.Read more