Lighthouse Reef: Half Moon Cay 2004

Monday, April 5, 2004

017-12.600 N
087-32.400 W

Ahoy from Half Moon Cay which is part of Lighthouse Reef, Belize,

Yes, this is the 2nd report from here. What can I say? We just love it so much that we keep coming back. I've attached a photo of the anchorage showing the view from the top of the mast. I took it yesterday when I went up to clear the VHF antenna out of the way of the wind instruments. It was a perfect day and I wanted to capture the essence of why we come here. After taking it the anchorage rapidly populated with large power boats from Guatemala. It seems that Guatemala shuts down Easter week and they stream out of the Rio Dulce and come here. You never see power boats here otherwise.

We've been having a great time with 2 boats from Texas: Querencia and Lone Star Love. We've been diving 1-2 times per day and having rotating dinner parties at night. So far we've done Chinese and pizza on BlueJacket, Mexican and blackened fish on Querencia, and fried fish and fish soup on Lone Star Love. The only issue with this is that we're all over eating due to the fact that it's *so* good and everyone makes enough to feed the entire anchorage and then some.

The biggest problem that we have is that my dive compressor seized. The 4th stage piston is welded in it's sleeve. One of the live-aboard dive boats offered to bring it out with them, so I had it shipped to their agent and hopefully it will arrive on the boat today. In the mean time we've been having the tanks filled by the dive boats. Quite honestly I'm just as happy having them fill the tanks as I'd be running the very noisy compressor for 20 minutes per tank and I'd have to fill close to 8 tanks per day. The next problem is that it appears that someone stole Sue's dive fins. They've disappeared and the probability that both were lost is next to nil. We don't have a spare set, but she's borrowing a set that's a bit too large for her.

The diving has been very good as the winds have been relatively light. On one day the seas were flat and the water was like glass. It was delightful to fly over the top of the reef watching the coral heads undulate below the dinghy. I'm shooting lots of photos and saving the gathering for the other boats.

Today we're headed back to Long Cay where we hope that my part will be waiting. Oh, we're flying back home on 4/21 and will return here on 5/5. We're looking forward to seeing lots of folks when we return!

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 479