Living off the land.

Fresh conch in coconut cream for dinner?

We met an old fisherman named "Cricket" at Northern Turneffe Atoll who showed us how to open and prepare conch. It's quite a bit of work for the novice, but well worth the effort as conch is ohh so tasty.

Fishing in Belize

The last several weeks we've been sailing in the outer atolls of Belize. We feel like we are again sailing in the South Pacific. Pristine reefs and so few boats.

The weather is pretty much perfect and just cool enough to be refreshing, but not too cold. Each reef is unique and it's rare to go for a snorkel and not discover a few new things. Reef squid are a new discovery, a curious creatures with big eyes of which they appraise you an equal amount. I was also gifted with a close up encounter with a rare and endangered Napoleon Grouper. I accidentally scared him out of a hole in the reef and he in return scared me with a quick dart past my head.
It's no surprise that the best spots to snorkel are in protected "No Take" areas of the reef. Once outside these areas we look for dinner. Our favorites are conch, non-endangered grouper, grunts, and hogfish. Needless to say we are very much enjoying eating lots of ultra fresh seafood. Too bad lobster is out of season or we truly dine like kings.

When we are sailing in the Big Blue (i.e deep ocean water) far from land we troll lines for pelagic fish such as Tuna or Mahi Mahi.

Below is a nice size Mahi Mahi also know as Dorado or Dolphin depending where in the world you catch them. Regardless, this fish tastes great! The first few days it's sashimi or sushi rolls then from there out we cook it. Simple pan fried Mahi mahi is awesome and needs nothing in terms of seasoning or sauces. I'm convinced that many seasonings and sauces were invented to hide the flavor of OLD fish. After about a week we are ready to go fishing again.

Keeping busy

We've been having some engine trouble and after numerous frustrating attempts to locate the problem, Dave finally discovered that it was something called the stater.  Evidently some of the coils where slightly burne, but not totally so sometimes it started and well sometimes it didn't.  Depended on it's mood I guess.  We ordered the part from the U.S. (they don't have those types of engines down here).  We really had no idea when it would get here, going through customs and all and making it to the island of Caye Caulker.  So we've been keeping busy, laundry, hiking, swimming, wedding planning, the usual.  After one particularly stifling day Dave decided to install the air conditioner which entailed cutting a whole in the bulkhead (he loves cutting holes in the boat)!

Today, Miraculously the part showed up!  After less than a week after we ordered it.  Now that we are free to move about we might head back out to the atolls tomorrow.  

Dave installing our AC
Laundry drying aboard 'the gypsy ship'