What Lurks Beneath

This is the rainy season, but we have had some fabulous days that call us out onto and into the water.

Morning view across to Greater Monkey Cay, 0.8 miles distant.

Our new dock gate.

We had to put a gate on our dock.  You will soon see why.

Standing on the dock looking north.  Greater Monkey Cay is just of view to the right of this shot.  When it looks like this, the kayaking is great.

I have learned to get the kayak ready from the dock rather then on the beach, clipping in the seat, positioning the live vest, stowing water bottle, snack, and camera.  This is much easier without help from Barnie!

Poor Barnie can't come through the gate onto the dock.

It got worse for Barnie, too.  Before I got in the kayak, I put her on the chain in the shade of the seagrape so she couldn't swim out after me.  I could hear her howls of despair across the water as I paddled out.  Sorry, Barnie, until your new CFD (canine flotation device) arrives, you are not allowed to go so far from shore.

I had unearthed my old underwater housing for a little Canon PowerShot A95 camera.  My old and well-used PowerShot fritzed out some time back, but Dennis had found a refurbished replacement on eBay and squirreled it away for later.  As eventually happens, later became now.  I got it going with new batteries (thanks, Dennis!) and decided to try it out by just holding under the water.  What better place than the corals around Greater Monkey Cay.  I took the following photos by holding the camera down into the water while leaning over the edge of the kayak.  I basically shot blind and wound up with lots of worthless images.  But I did get a few keepers to show what lurks beneath.

Hard and soft corals near the cay.  The water is a little murky.

The PowerShot does OK.  It has a very small chip, so you can't crop the shots very much.  It does have an underwater setting that seems to work all right.  I still have to white balance the shots after the fact.

In bright sunshine and with minimal ripples on the water's surface, it does pretty good.

The fish moved too fast for me to get any good shots of them, but there were lots around.

Sea fans and brain corals. in dappled sunlight.

Now I must get busy learning the names and types of corals.

I was fairly pleased with the results.  I will take it snorkeling next.  This will be a good way for me to learn more about the local sea-life while getting more experienced with underwater photography.  Not sure if I will upgrade to better equipment or not; underwater camera gear is quite expensive.  For now, I am enjoying this setup very much.

My dog-loving blogging friends will be happy to know that after this trip I went back for Barnie and we spent about an hour paddling along in the shallows.  She is getting better behaved with each trip.

Dawn Rainbows

I know, I know -you're thinking "Not more rainbow and sunrise photos!"  But I think these are really special.  I glimpsed this most magnificent rainbow through the bathroom window while groggily brushing my teeth.  Grabbed the camera and ran up to the sunset balcony to try to get some shots. Then turned around and saw the sun newly risen above the sea and peeking through the rain clouds. The show was over in less than 3 minutes.

Never seen pink rain falling from a rainbow before.

Golden sunrise.

These shots are not enhanced - just cropped a little and darkened a bit to compensate for over-exposure.  I was still half-asleep and didn't even have my glasses on yet; yea for autofocus!

Groove Me, Ani

It's all groovy here in Englishtown, and some days are groovier than others, such as when the Groove-Billed Ani pays us a visit and stays for a photoshoot.  (Listen to the groove of Etta James by clicking here.)  The Groove-billed Ani is an easily overlooked medium sized black bird.  It is surprisingly snazzy when you catch it in good light.

Groove-Billed Ani - Crotophaga sulcirpstris.  The short fluffy feathers on its head are rather mane-like.  Take a look at the iridescent gold-green edges of the feathers on its shoulders.  

It was making some rather sweet sounds, which is what caught my attention at first, because it sounded different from the Great-Tailed Grackles with whom it was keeping company.  The grackles are very vocal, verging on raucous.

Great-Tailed Grackle - Quiscalus mexicanus.  This female emerged from inside the canopy of the tamarind long enough for me to get some good shots.  Their eyes are a startling yellow. 

Other excitement, at least for Barnie, was Joy cleaning fish out on the dock.  Barnie was beside herself, just waiting for fish guts and trimmings.  I am amazed that she didn't jump up on the dock, but she managed to behave.

Waiting for an escapee.

The dawns continue to be beautiful.  The sun rises so quickly, I have to be on the ball to catch these images.  No time for do-overs!  Until tomorrow, that is.

White ibises (Eudocimus albus), flying north from their roost on Little Monkey Cay.  5:58am.

A lone Great Egret (Ardea alba), also heading north from Little Monkey Cay. 6:01am.

Homo sapiens, heading south. 6:05am.

We have a little construction project going on.  I call it the upside-down roof.  We are putting a roof under the decking of the sunset balcony.  Too much rainwater was winding on the ground under the cabana, and that is space that we use for an outdoor workshop and storage area.  Our hope is that this will keep the rain out of the area.  The new roof will have gutters, so we can direct the water into collection vats.  I will post more as it progresses, but here is a shot of today's work.

The underside of the sunset balcony. The balcony tapers at the north end.  The crew have put up some of the boards that the roofing metal (aka "zinc") will be screwed into from the the underside.

The light colored horizontal piece is a metal flashing that is secured behind the ledger board of the balcony.  We have one small section remaining to install.  It has to have a hole cut out of it for the whitePVC vent pipe on the right to go through.  The rafter and some lapboard equivalents are already screwed into place on the tapered section. It will be literally (in the true sense of the word) groovy when finished!

Falling On My Head Like A New Emotion

We could see it coming ...

6:30am - here comes the rain again.

6:54am - falling on my head like a memory.

7:00am - falling on my head like a new emotion.

Click here to dive into Annie Lennox's ocean.

7:00am - Rain over Black Creek to our west.

Blue-grey tanager getting wet in the tamarind tree.

7:06 - sun shining down on the eastern horizon.

7:27am - rainbow beyond Black Creek.

7:28am - A flock of white ibises flies across the rainbow.

Tamarind flowers in the rain.

Young pods mixed in with the flowers.

The flowers are orchid-like in appearance, but they are legumes related to peas and beans - as you might guess based on the seedpods.

The series of photos above was taken in the space of an hour during which a quarter of an inch of rain fell.  The day is now bright, sunny, and fresh with a light breeze.

September Stormy Nights Bring Calm, Glorious Days

Averaging more than 20 inches of rainfall, September is consistently one of the wettest months here in southern Belize, and this September is no exception.  Sounds miserable, doesn't it?  But it's not.  In fact it is fabulous - just look at this dramatic dawn sky.

We woke to this after a night of thunderstorms.

The nights are rainy, even stormy, and the days are calm and mostly sunny. The thunderstorms have been very intense and exciting during the night as we lie in bed surrounded by 8 (curtainless) windows and 2 glass doors of our cabana suite.  I am so glad we designed the cabana with 10 foot-deep covered veranda on all sides, or we would never get any sleep!

The view from front balcony is very moody and changes with the weather.  I have another post planned showing colors of the sea and sky.  The image below was taken at noon the same day as the dawn above.

The flat sea calls to me.  I just have to go wade or swim or kayak when it is like this.

The flat sea calls to Barnie, too.  Who is Barnie, you ask?  Barnie is our new dog.  I suggested the name "Bonnie" for her and in local style that has become "Barnie".  Barnie, she is.

Barnie - a rescue dog from the village.  At 9 months, she is still just a puppy!

Barnie expressed an interest in kayaking with me, so we are in the midst of doggie kayak camp.  On day 1, she managed to get on the kayak, with assistance from our neighbor Craig, and stayed on for about 2 minutes before she got spooked and jumped off.

Day 2, she got on by herself, but couldn't stop biting at the paddle.  She lasted about 5 minutes before, in exasperation, I made her get off so I could head out by myself.  She ran out to the end of the dock as I paddled out to the deep and let loose a heartrending howl before she flung herself into the water to swim after me.  I turned around to the shallow so she could get back on and we managed to paddle for another 5 or so minutes before I called it quits in frustration.  Then I got her back on the kayak and walked the kayak through the water while I kept one hand on her to keep her steady.  She liked that.

Day 3, a breakthrough day!  She hopped onto the back of the kayak with no prompting as I was pushing off and settled right down.  We paddled about 1/2 mile, all within 30 feet of shore.  Later that day, I measured her for a CFD (canine flotation device), which I ordered on Amazon.  It will be here in about a month.  Until she is wearing her CFD, we will stay in the shallows near the shore.  I can't pull her up out of deep water back onto the kayak and she is so dense (in a physical sense) that it is hard for her to swim any great distance.

Today was Day 4 and Dennis took some photos of us heading out and coming back.  Barnie is making great progress.

Get in the back, Barnie!

 She hopped up like she knew what she was doing.

Now sit, Barnie.

She did sit, and we were off for a fine 15 minute paddle.  She sat most of the time, but got antsy after about 10 minutes.  I will make some alterations in one of the seat cushions to give her little more stability and comfort in the back.  More comfort for me, too, if it means she will stop breathing her hot doggie breath on my neck!

She is looking down at the submerged breakwater just beneath the kayak.

 Closing with a sunset shot.

A promise for an exciting night, whether we want it or not!

Of Storms and Zinc and Fallen Trees, of Toilets New and Rigs

Hard to believe that it has been six weeks since our hurricane dress rehearsal.  For us, Hurricane Earl was a non-event; not much difference between the "before" and "after" images below.  We hardly lost even a leaf from the trees.

The day before Earl.  The days leading up to a hurricane are generally incredibly calm and fine.  There is hardly a ripple on the sea.  The water is so clear that the submerged breakwater is quite visible running under the dock and parallel to the shore.

Six weeks after Earl.  For about a week after Earl, the sea was a little rough.  Since then we have had several series of 5 or 6 calm days then 3 or 4 rough and windy days, a pattern that is typical for this time of year.  

I went a little crazy taking photos before Earl thinking that everything could be blown or washed away.  I wanted to at least have photos to remember it by.

The new cabana as viewed from the old.  This was before Earl.  It looks jus the same now.  :-)

The old cabana as viewed from the new.  Also before Earl, and it looks just the same now.

Overall, we were pleased with how our hurricane preparations went, but we did find a some areas in which to be better prepared.  Along the entire covered veranda we put up hurricane shutters made from roofing metal, locally referred to as "zinc".  It took about 1 and a half days to get all the zinc screwed in place.

This what the zinc shutters look like from the outside.  

We had done a dry fitting of all the zinc sheets earlier in the year and spray painted numbers on each sheet for their location.  That worked really well.  What we hadn't done in the dry fit was to have all the wood pieces for the end wall shown in the above photo, so we scrambled a bit to get those pieces cut to size.  We also put zinc up on all the exposed windows and doors.  The zinc performed as expected in keeping the wind from driving the rain into the cabana.

Oddly, it was the day after Earl came through that we lost a big fig tree.

Just behind the generator shed, you can see the roots sticking up at the left side of the photo and the bulk of the canopy in the right half of the photo.  A little damage to the roof and to a lime tree; nothing major.

The water table is so high and the roots don't grow very deep.  It is actually hard to understand how the tree was upright to begin with!

 We will miss the shade from this tree.  I got seeds for an African Tulip tree that I want to get started to replace this tree.  I will plant at least 2 of those seedlings a little farther back and to each side of the shed.  They are well adapted to grow on swampy land and have big buttress roots to keep them upright.  Plus they have amazing flowers.

All of this greenery growing around the trunk of the fig is a cowhorn orchid, Cyrtopdium punctatum. We cut out that big section of the trunk and a smaller orchid-covered branch to try to save the orchids.  We put the trunk and branch in the shade of the cashew tree, but the orchids are looking rather sad.  Still, they might pull through.

This is what the flowers of this orchid look like.  I took this shot (and the next flower shots) the same day as the shot above.

These orchids have super long, 5 or more feet long, flower stalks.  Ants love the flowers and will defend them vigorously!

A closer view of a single flower.

 This particular plant is growing on a buttonwood tree about 40 feet from the fig tree.  We also have a lovely Brassavola orchid that grows here.

Brassavola nodosa, called Lady of the Night.

Not an orchid, but just as lovely, Crinum asiaticum lily flowers.  This lily, native to Asia (duh!) has naturalized in warm regions worldwide.

Getting back to Earl.  We had not yet moved into the new cabana when we heard Earl was headed toward Belize.  We moved in 2 days ahead of Earl for a couple of reason.  One reason was safety - the new cabana is built to much higher standards than the original cabana.  The other reason was emotional - if we were to lose it all because of a hurricane, I at least wanted to have slept there one night!  So Earl served to get us in gear.

We also set up the new composting toilet before Earl got here.  I feel a bit like John Gray of Going Gently, writing of toilets on the blog, but this Nature's Head Toilet is quite the thing.

Our new bathroom.

The toilet has a container (we call it the "pee jug") for collecting urine separate from the solids and that really keeps odors down.  There is also an exhaust fan (the tubing on the left vents the fan to outside).  So far, we like the toilet very much.  The solids get emptied every 2 weeks and the pee jug gets emptied every 2-3 days.  With our high water table, this makes so much more sense than a septic tank.

Other things of note include the return of an exploratory oil drillship.  It was anchored just outside the Port Honduras Marine Reserve that extends from just in front of us to the south near Punta Gorda, Belize.  I took a few photos of it with my wholly inadequate zoom lens.

It was heading south when I took this photo.

A rather pretty sight all lit up at dawn.  I sure hope they don't find oil, though.

I do hope this is the last we see of it.  The Meso-American Barrier Reef, the second largest barrier reef in the world, is only a few miles away.

On a brighter note, we have a better internet connection, at least for now.  Feels good to be blogging again.

Safe and Sound in Englishtown, Belize

We are safe and sound here in Englishtown, Belize.  Not sure yet how the rest of the country fared.  The last radar image we saw last night showed all Belize covered by Earl except for a tiny little triangle that happened to include us.  We had a little rain, maybe an inch or 2 so far - it's still falling, and lots of wind from the northwest.  A tiny bit of rain blew in the back door.   We hardly even heard the wind, but the rain on the tin roof makes for a noisy night!  Right now the sea is within normal for waves and tide height and the beach is intact.  Some branches down.  I am off now to take care of the neighbors' dogs.  It is still raining, but not too hard.  Details and photos later.  Things are good.

Updated 3 Aug 7:30 am - My Name is Earl

and I am a Tropical Storm hurricane-to-be with wind speeds approaching 60 sustained wind speed of 70 mph.

Looks like the center of Earl is still going to make landfall north of us on Wednesday night.  Chances are good that Earl will be a hurricane by then.  The best thing about Earl being north of us is that due to the counterclockwise rotation of the storm, the winds will be coming at us from the northwest, which is over land.  That means we shouldn't have a huge storm surge and that the wind speeds will be dampened a bit as the winds pass over land.

We decided to put up the hurricane shutters on all the upper level doors and windows and along the north sides of the verandas and part of the west side.  We got all that done today and are very pleased with the results.  Tomorrow morning we will put up the shutters on the exposed west side.  Depending on storm forecasts and projections, we may put all of the shutters up.  Hurricane shutters are up along the north, west, and south sides of the cabana.  We will probably put u the east-side shutters late this afternoon.  The latest map is at the bottom of this page.

Here is what Earl looks like at around 6:00pm, our time.

The little green dot is where we are.

We feel good about our preparations and need to see what tomorrow brings.  We will have to decide by 10:00 am if we want to evacuate.  Right now, evacuation is unlikely to be necessary, but things could change quickly.  I will try to post an update in the morning; it all depends on if we have internet signal.

Wednesday Morning Projection - We are located approximately where the lower edge of the white cone intersects the red hurricane warning line on the coast of Belize.

Will try to make a new post later in the day.

A Worrisome Disturbance

We are keeping a close eye on a "Tropical Wave" that as of this morning is tracking just south of Jamaica and is headed our way at ~20mph.  Here is a screen shot from the US National Hurricane Center as of Tuesday 2 August.

The center of that red X would be directly over our place if it tracks due west.  Fortunately, for us anyway, the models all project it tracking on a curve to the northwest toward the top of Belize.  Even then, the bottom edge of the storm will pass over us.   And of course, the models could be inaccurate at this point.

The "Tropical Wave" has an 80% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.  It will likely continue to strengthen and chances are good that it will become a tropical depression or even a hurricane before it makes landfall.  At this point, the least we are expecting is sustained winds of 45mph and heavy rain for about a day starting late Wednesday or early Thursday. It could develop into something more serious, so we are watching the forecasts very closely.

We are in Phase 1 of Hurricane Preparedness which means we are clearing everything off our verandas and removing things like fallen coconuts away from the building.  As the storm gets closer, we will seal our water vats.  If the storm develops in strength, we will enter Phase 2 and put hurricane shutters up all along the perimeter of screened in verandas and over all the windows and doors of our cabana and the caretaker's cabana.  We had a dry run for this a month ago, so we know that we have everything at hand.

I will try to post more as things develop; right now I better get busy locking things down.