Going to Market, Part Two

After finishing the shopping and errands in Indy, our taxi driver took us back to the public dock where we boarded Houdini and set out for Placencia.  Placencia is the name of the village at the tip of an 12-mile-long, narrow peninsula also named Placencia.  The peninsula runs essentially parallel to the mainland from north to south, with the village at the southern tip. 

Starting from the Indy public dock (purple asterisk), we traveled along Mango Creek to the Placencia Lagoon and headed toward the southern tip of the peninsula.  It is about 5 miles by boat.  If you look closely, you can find the blue marker for the Plaencia airstrip almost due east of the Indy public dock.

In the center is the canal that runs along the airstrip.  Small, 12-passenger prop planes land here.  It is serviced by 2 commercial airlines - Maya Island Air and Tropic Air

Partway across the lagoon, we were passed by the Hokey Pokey water taxi making its return trip to Indy from Placencia.  By road that trip would be 42 miles instead of 5 by water.  The road down the peninsula was paved just a few years ago.  Prior to that the 12 miles was a dirt road full of pot holes and ruts.  That was not a trip to make lightly!

The Hokey Pokey Water Taxi in mid-lagoon.  They do a thriving business.

We accessed the lagoon-side of Placencia by navigating into a canal along which numerous houses, vacation properties, and businesses have docks. 

The purple arrowheads mark our route along the canal.  The red asterisks mark the Shell Carver's canal-side outdoor studio and another location of Ming's Store.

 We proceeded slowly down the canal, which is a "no wake" zone.

The entrance to the canal from the lagoon.  Vacation rental properties abound.

We pass small, unprepossessing holiday accommodations, Belizean homes, expat homes, and second homes.

This is a nice Belizean-style home.

Lots of sail boats and motor boats.  The sailboats are pleasure boats, for the most part, either owned by expats or rented to vacationers.

Assorted boats are docked at this small resort.

 We pull up at the MnM Hardware store dock, just behind the Hokey Pokey dock.

The MnM and Hokey Pokey docks are adjacent.

We buy our fuel, both gasoline and diesel, at the MnM dock. 

Richard lines up the fuel carboys for filling.  You can see that Houdini is a very basic fiberglass boat with 2 builtin bench seats with plywood flooring between them.

 From the MnM dock we can walk to various stores, restaurants, and produce stands.

We can walk from the MnM dock (purple asterisk) to Main Street.  Today, we stopped at Wallen's hardware and homestore (yellow asterisk) and a produce stand (red asterisk).

Even though there are some produce stands in Indy, the produce at Placencia is more varied, fresher, and higher quality to cater to tourists.  Placencia is definitely a tourist and expat village, whereas Indy is not.  We go to Indy because the basics are significantly cheaper there.

Our favorite produce stand in Placencia.  Grapes, asparagus, eggplant, yellow and red sweet peppers, fresh mushrooms, leaf lettuce, endive, and spinach are things we can find in Placencia but not in Indy.  Watermelon, cantaloupe, limes, oranges, star fruit (carambola), hot peppers, plantains, bananas, onions, carrots, okra, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, corn, avocado, mango, celery, root vegetables, and many other things are also available.

In the 10 years we have been spending time in Belize, the variety and quality of produce, and really all goods, has increased to an amazing degree. But we still get excited to find Brie cheese, Italian pasta, real port, triscuit crackers, brussel sprouts, nice apples, bread flour and many other things.

Roadside muffler repair.  Another casualty of the potholes and ruts.  This is in front of Dawn's Grill-n-Go restaurant where we pick up lunches to go.  Her fishballs are excellent!

 On our way to the produce stand, we stopped at the Grill-n-Go to place an order to pick up on our way out.  This time we got the fried chicken and mashed potatoes, which was wonderful, but her fishballs are even better.

The inside of the Grill-n-Go decorated for the upcoming holiday.

The Belize flag with the enigmatic motto "Flourish in the Shade"

September is the slow month for tourists, so many restaurants have closed for the month.  Omar's is open, though. 

Omar's has very attractive decorations and smells great when we walk by.  We need to try it out soon.

 After picking up our to go lunches, we walked back to Houdini. I decided to keep walking north on Main St to another Ming's store.  This one in Placencia has items not carried at the one in Indy.  I got 2 kinds of Brie, goat cheese, and some other treasures. Back in the boat, we went back up the canal and made a stop at the shell carver's studio for some items Joy had commissioned to sell in her gift shop.

The shell carver's open air studio next to the canal.

A boat repair yard is next to the shell carver's studio.

 From the canal we went out to the open sea and soon passed the channel markers for Big Creek. 

Big Creek channel marker.  Maya Mountains are visible in the distance.

Soon enough, we recognize signs of home. 

Great Monkey Cay is flanked by our neighboring SteppingStones and Monkey River Village.  Our place is hidden by the key.

Home at last. We arrived at noon, 4.5 hours after we set out.  We still have to unload the fuel cans and all the groceries and other supplies that we brought back. By 12:30 we are through and can enjoy our take away lunches in the shade on our veranda.  It took the 4 of us 5 hours to get set for another week.  No running back to the store to pick up a forgotten item; that will have to wait until next week.

 

We don't always go shopping by boat; sometimes we drive.  But when we drive, we can only go too Indy; Placencia is too far by road to make a day trip for shopping.  Our car, a Subaru Outback, is all wheel drive and can handle the mud on Monkey River Road.  But sometimes in the rainy season the ruts and potholes are too deep; only a SUV or truck can make it.  I'll do a future post on making the trip by car.

More Scenes and Birds from the Canal

The entry to the drainage canal from the sea is broad and flanked by low growing red mangroves.


Farther up the canal where the water is fresh rather than brackish, there are steep banks.
On the right bank, you can see ferns cascading down toward the water.  In my previous post, I had a photo of the ferns.  
Mixed in among the ferns were beautiful Lycopodium, also called club moss.
On the left bank, where the soil is bare, there was a spotted sandpiper scrambling along.




















It didn't fly off as I floated by in the kayak, letting me take some photos as I went.



It bobbles its tail up and down as it goes.
After reaching the end of the canal, I turned around and went slowly downstream toward the sea, eventually reaching the mangroves.  In a protected sort of bay surrounded by mangroves, there a number of herons and egrets.  
The light was terrible for photography, and it didn't help that the birds were far away and against the grey sky.
Never-the-less, the shots were good enough to ID this bird as an adult Little Blue Heron.


I was able to do a bit better with this individual that was considerably closer and cooperated nicely with the camera.
Its colors are quite subtle with some pale blues and pinks along the base of the bill.


The legs are greenish yellow and eyes are yellow.
It turns out this is a juvenile Little Blue Heron before it begins its color change from white to blue.

A lovely bird; one of the exceptions in which the juvenile is more striking than the adult.

A Bit of Belize: Land, Sea, and Air

A small selection of photos from two of my Belize kayak trips back in October and November; mostly to bring to mind a warm,sunny place on these cold February days when we are so ready for spring.  Spring is still a few months away for us in Minnesota.  :-( 
The two "land" photos were taken along the canal where I was surprised to see a couple of ferns growing just above the water line.  

I haven't keyed this fern out yet.  It appears to be a climbing fern that was growing profusely on the banks of the canal. I need to get photos of its spore-bearing leaves to help ID it.

Actually, I am not positive that this one is a fern, but I think it may be in the genus Ophioglossum (adder's tongue ferns) or maybe a tongue fern.  
I will have to go back to take a closer, more definitive look.   hmmm... a good mystery to work on next time I'm in Belize.
Seeing the ferns along this part of the canal made me realize that I was upstream of the tidal portion and in an area that is fresh water.
Back out into the salt water, I saw this sting ray making its way along the shallows.  This is a medium sized individual.
Closer to home in Belize, this little whelk was grazing in the shallows.  I love the way the sunlight is refracted by the little ripples on the water; you can see how clear the water is.

While paddling back in the mangrove marsh, I heard this  frantic flapping of a flock of birds that I disturbed as they went crashing through the trees.  When I was finally able to see them, I was surprised that they were doves.  There is no solid ground below these mangroves, and I am more used to doves that like to hang out on the ground.

They wouldn't sit still for a second so my shots are not very good.  But they were good enough for me to identify them as Pale Vented Doves, which are known to prefer mangrove habitats.  I would like to get some better shots of them.
Looks like I have work my cut out for my next trip.  :-)

Kayaking in Englishtown, Toledo, Belize

The weather was so incredibly wonderful when we were in Belize back in October.  The seas were mirror flat almost all day long every day we were there; perfect for kayaking.  I spent at least 30 hours kayaking, most of it by myself, although Sue and I had a nice morning out one day.  We set out from Chris and Sue's place in central Englishtown, since they had the kayaks.  We had started to head north along the coast, but soon decided to head east over to Great Monkey Cay (pronounced "key").  I took my snorkel gear and was able to get in a little snorkeling while Sue relaxed in the sunshine and recaptured my kayak when it drifted off.  ;-)   The water was flat enough to take a route to the outside of Great Monkey Cay and loop around to the south to visit Little Monkey Cay.  Little Monkey Cay is a rookery for assorted egrets, pelicans, and frigate birds that settle down there every evening.  Throughout the day you can find bird activity there.  Little Monkey Cay was almost demolished by Hurricane Iris in 2001.  It has slowly been coming back, although it is still nowhere close to its former glory.

Sue and I heading off to the north.

The sea was flat enough that I felt comfortable taking my cameras with me in the little "sit upon" kayak.

The map below shows the routes of the trips that I took.  The three thumbtacks mark the three households in Englishtown with full-time residents.  Note that the map is oriented with north to the right so that I could get more coastline in the image.  Great Monkey Cay is at the bottom in the center and Little Monkey Cay it to the left.  The route that Sue and I took is in red.  Right above little Monkey Cay is the entrance to Black Creek which runs behind our place marked with the leftmost thumbtack.  That kayak route (yellow) is a good one when the open sea is too rough for a  little kayak.  

Monkey River Village (labeled "town" in Google Earth, but at only 250 or so inhabitants is barely a village) is at the mouth of the meandering Monkey River at the left of the image.  Howler monkeys give the river its name.  You can see the Monkey River Road leading inland.  This dirt road is frequently impassable during the rainy season.

Two other kayak routes I took followed little creeks or dredged canals back into the marshes.  I spent hours nosing along in these little creeks.  Incredible birds, wonderful plants; never saw another person - my idea of heaven.