Monkey River Bay

Friday, February 27, 2004

016-23.940 N
088-27.540 W

Ahoy from the bay north of Monkey River, Belize!

We're currently located in the large bay north of Monkey River. There was a cold front approaching and we needed to look for a safe location to pull into. This looked ideal, and it was. It's a huge bay with protection from 360 degrees. Plenty of water, and great holding in mud.

We took the dinghy out to explore the mangroves which surround the bay and were amazed at the huge, deep channels and deeper bays. You could easily take a hundred boats in here and in the case of a major storm or hurricane, you could go into the channels and tie off to the mangroves. This is a *good* anchorage to know about!

In the small world category, we finally met up with a boat named Brandy. Brandy is a 1979 Gulf Star which is owned by Carol and Mark. Carol & are I are the same age. She lived in the next town over from me while growing up and we went to the same church and Sunday school. Our folks still go to the same church. We've spent a lot of time on each others boats and will probably cruise together for the next month or so.

Yesterday we took the dinghies up the Monkey River. You could see the howler monkeys up in the trees and when you shut off the motors you could hear them grunting in the distance. There was a tremendous amount of bird life and many of the calls were really wild; like nothing that I've ever heard of before. There are manatees in the area too, and while we haven't seen them, other cruisers in the area have.

Our plan is to go to Placencia today and get some fresh fruit and vegies and then head out toward the atolls tomorrow.

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser: Note that Little Monkey Cay doesn't exist any more. A way point between what was Little Monkey Cay and the point that sticks out there is 16-23.734N 88-27.808W.

Log ID: 451