Wanted: Lotus Esprit Amphibious Vehicle

I mentioned in my last post that the Monkey River Road was flooded.  Monkey River Village itself was flooded, too. Here is a satellite view of Monkey River Village, the end ofMonkey River Road, Black Creek, and Englishtown (where we live) just north of  the mouth of Black Creek, with Black Creek proper to our west.  

The sinuous Monkey River winds along south of the Monkey River Road.  At the mouth of Monkey River, the dirt road ends in a parking lot with a small dock.  On the south side of the mouth is Monkey River Village.  A handful of dwellings are on the north side of the river.  a little farther north is Black Creek .  Our place (red asterisk) is at the south of the area called Englishtown, and Craig's place (orange asterisk) is at the north end.  

The village has no paved roads or sidewalks (the road ends on the north side of the river and the village is on the south side), but does have houses laid out in lots along "streets" and paths across public areas.  

There are close to 40 households in the village along with at least 1 bar, 1 church, 1 school, 2 guest house/hotels, and several places you can buy a hot lunch.

Even lower than our place, the village is only a few feet above sea level and is also bordered on 2 sides by the river.  With as much rain as we had in just a few short days, it is easy to see how the village gets waterlogged.  Richard took the next 2 photos with his phone October 28th. 

 

 

Ironically, with the road flooded, the village ran out of "pipe water" (Belizean for municipally supplied water).  How did that happen?  It was only about 6 or7 years ago that the government provided funds for the village to install its own well, water pump, water tower, pipes, and water meters to the inhabitants of Monkey River Village.  The well and pumphouse are about 3 miles from the village on the site of a natural fresh water spring; otherwise, a well around here will hit a water table that is brackish rather than fresh.  The water tower is a little removed from the well and pump.  Prior to this setup, villagers relied on rainwater just like we currently do.  The pump is turned on and off manually, which means that someone has to go to the pump house to turn it on and then go back to turn it off once the water tower starts to overflow - a very low tech system.  The village has an official Waterboard who oversee the operation, meter reading, and bill collection. But with the road flooded, no one could get to the pumphouse to turn the pump on.  The solution to this problem?  Go by boat!

Take the boat up the Monkey River (which, remember, is in flood!) to the farm at the bend in the road.  Drive the boat up the boat launch and down the driveway to get to the road.  Then drive the boat down the road to the pumphouse!

The next 2 photos were also taken by Richard on the boat trip to the pumphouse.

Crossing the flooded farm by boat. 

Going down the road in the boat.

 They were successful in getting the pump on and water to the village.  You do what you gotta do, eh?

Meanwhile, back in Englishtown, we had a little flooding from Black Creek at the rear of our property, but it receded quickly.

Black Creek water edging onto our property from the west.

 And from the east, we were getting pounded by the sea.

The waves were so high, they were breaking over our dock.

The rough sea brought a lot of things to the beach.

This sea heart was deposited right at my feet by a wave.

Cubic yard after cubic yard of dead sea grass was washed ashore, along with plastic trash of all descriptions and some little treasures.

The lovely sea purse was mixed in with dead sea grass and a plastic bottle cap. 

We always have the sea grass raked up to use as a soil amendment.  Basically our "soil" is just sand, so organic material is a great addition.

The occasional golfball-sized Valonia ventricosa was in the sea grass too.

 I loved spotting Valonia ventricosa.  Valonia, also called sailor's eyeball, is a green alga that is normally attached to something hard like coral or rocks throughout tropical waters.  The stormy waters must have detatched quite a few of them.  They are very cool organisms.  Each ball is just a single cell covered with a cell wall that looks like glass!  I got a little carried away trying to take photographs that do them justice.

With a little help from Picasa photo editing, I tried to highlight the metallic sheen of the Valonia.

This single celled green alga is home to other organisms that grow on its surface.

After more than a week of stormy, rain-filled nights, we finally got some clear and calm weather.

I love the sea when it is calm and flat.  I can spend hours mesmerized by subtle greens and silver colors.

 After several days of clear calm weather, the roads and villages dried out.  And that means - 

The guys unloading our lumber.  This is boat-load 1 of 3.

 You got it - we can get our next construction materials delivered.  Work will soon re-commence on the cabana.

If anyone has a lead on James' Lotus (seen in "The Spy Who Loved Me") for a good price, don't hesitate to let me know!  I have some sea hearts and sailor's eyeballs I could trade ...

Rainy Days

The scene below, with the view of Greater Monkey Caye obliterated by heavy rain, has been with us off and on for the last 4 or 5 days.  And during each of those days (and nights), several inches of rain has fallen.  The good news is that our water vats are full.  The bad news is that Monkey River and Black Creek are full - and overflowing.  We hear that there are places on the Monkey River Road that are under seven feet of water!  Three or four sunny days with no rain is all it will take to dry out the road.

We run to lower the sun shades and get them lashed down when see rain like this approaching!  They do a good job of keeping the driving rain out of the veranda. 

The heavy rains and high winds have pushed in some higher than usual tides for us; a beachcomber's delight.  Below are a few of the items of interest that have washed up.  This site is wonderful for exploring sea beans.

Except for the green striped sea urchin, the rest of the objects are loosely called sea beans and are seed of various sorts.  There are 2 sea hearts (middle or top row and bottom right), 2 very different coconuts (top left and top right), a hamburger bean, Mucana sp. (bottom left),  bull's eye (bottom right).  Still haven't ID'd the one in the middle. 

During the rainy spells, we do chores inside the cabana.  Dennis is putting little foam sheets behind all the wall cover plates for electrical outlets and switches since they seem to be an entry point for small insects.  Behind one outlet cover plate he found these little pieces of shell.  They are gecko eggshells.  Apparently the geckos also realized that small insects where coming entering through the wall plates.  We love the geckos because they do eat the insects; we love to have them in the cabana.

Delicate shells leftover from gecko eggs fell out of the wall outlet.

It looks like all but one of them was successfully hatched.

The rain has not been constant.  In fact there has been some very pleasant sunshine.  I get outside whenever possible to see what is going on.  The sun drew out this wonderful pair of baselisk lizards.  They are also called Jesus Christ lizards because they can run on water.  They have an extra row of wide scales on the long third toes of their hind feet that give them this ability.  You can see the scales in the photo below  and on the photo of the female if you click on them to see them bigger.

This guy held his ground as I took pictures.

He let me get quite close for a good look at his crest, which is folded back here.

This female does not have a crest, but is more richly colored than the male. Look at the scales on the long toe of her left foot.  These scales enable her to run on water.

She, too, let me get quite close, although she was poised to run into the wood pile if I made any sudden moves! 

The rains also brought out lots of small flying insects, which brought out lots of dragon flies!

The air was thick with dragon flies! 

Nice photo ops when they would land. 

I have not delved into dragonfly ID's yet, but there are at least 4 different kinds.

During breaks in the rain, I managed to walk along the jungle path and saw a large butterfly or moth flitting along.  It finally landed and I was able to take the photo below.

Owl moth with a great eyespot!

Dennis came out of the generator shed after turning the generator off and said "get your camera!"  So I did, and followed him back into the generator shed to see another  impressive moth.

Ascalapha odorata, Black Witch moth.

This moth also likes to fly into our window screen at night when we have lights on. At such a large size (4 to 5 inches across), it looks and sounds like a bat or a bird trying to get inside.

With all the rain also come rainbows.  This one arched across Greater Monkey Caye and seemed especially broad. 

 

 At this point we will forego the pot of gold and settle for some dryer weather!  Of course, we will look back on this rain fondly when we are in the midst of the dry season, so I will try to enjoy the rain while we have it.