Sailing from Caye Caulker to Placencia

Caye Caulker is a really pleasant beach town that will feel like home pretty quickly. Meeting people is no problem and it is easy to get into a groove of a whole lot of “chilling”. However, one can only do so much “chilling” so we decided to continue our journey after about 4 days. We found a sailing tour through Raggamuffin tours that goes from Caye Caulker down to Placencia. We were planning on heading down to Placencia anyway by hot and sweaty bus rides so the idea of sailing down was really refreshing.

Day 1: Caye Caulker to Rendezvous Caye

After a short intro to the boat consisting of the captain telling us there are life jackets, a fire extinguisher and a few other safety devices but he couldn’t locate them…We set sail. Minutes after the sails were up Emily found out that she is prone to sea sickness and spent all time on the boat either throwing up over the side or fixing to throw up over the side (she really only threw up once but it was in fabulous style). We took a snorkel break about three hours into the trip which one allowed us to see some pretty amazing marine wildlife and two gave Emily a much needed break from the rocking of our boat. We were fed snacks, lunch and a 5 gallon jug of rum punch was made by our fearless captain. We arrived at a tiny island named Rendezvous Caye (about 1/4 of an acre) and set up tents that were provided. We snorkeled and goofed off on the beach while the guides made a Shrimp Ceviche appetizer and Barracuda steaks that one of our shipmates caught earlier in the day. Over rum punch and food we got to know our tour group fairly well and capped off the night with a bonfire and roasting marshmellows.

Day Two: Rendezvous Caye to Tobacco Caye

We set off after Emily took pills that helped relieve her sea sickness. (the guide walked over told her to take a pill and mumbled something about making her feel better on the boat). We went past the island that Queen Elizabeth used to send traitors to be hung at which is now supposedly haunted for that reason. Guests that stay on the island have been known to find themselves outside on the beach near the tree that was used without any recollection of how they got there…so says our guides. We had a couple of snorkel breaks snacks and more rum punch. We eventually found ourselves at Tobacco Caye. A larger island which is home to about 50 year round residents and a booming scuba diving scene. We snorkeled around the reef and saw a 5 foot long Green Morray Eel, seeing the mammoth of a beast was enough and I was happy to not freak out in the water much less than think about taking a photo of it. We ended the evening with amazing food cooked by our guides, this time more ceviche and a Barracuda curry and listening to traditional Garafuna drumming. No kidding, I looked up from my rum punch and saw a guy pouring gasoline into a metal bucket on the beach and light it for “atmosphere light” and one of our guides playing the drums on a turtle shell!

Day 3: Tobacco Caye to Placencia

Mostly more of the same, snorkeling, eating, sunning on the boat and drinking. We made it to Placencia as a storm was coming in and quickly found a decent hostel where we were finally able to take actual showers. (up until that point we had been taking showers from well water which is salt water.)

We have since left Placencia and are in Punta Gorda a bit of a dump of a town. We will check out some Mayan ruins at Lubaantun tomorrow and the day after we are off to Guatemala!