Conch and Gibnut Lunch

The food here is really good and reasonably priced. When we do eat out we like to try anything local, including conch soup and stew gibnut! The conch soup was a little chewy, but the gibnut tasted like roast.

Church Friends

We had an overcast morning to ride our bikes the 5 miles to church Sunday morning. After church service, we were invited to go out to lunch with a few of our new friends. Then after lunch, we loaded our bikes into the back of David's SUV and drove into town to go to Tutti Frutti's for their famous gelato! It was a great day...we didn't get home from church until 4pm!

Geckos

There are geckos EVERYWHERE which is great because they eat the insects. Of course, the ones in the house tend to leave little packages behind...

Kayaking the Lagoon

We had fun exploring a small portion of the 16 mile-long lagoon and channel. If you look closely in the first picture, you can see the "crocodile" that totally freaked Julie out!! Gregg could barely take a picture because he was laughing so hard!

Beach Day

Fun in the sun! It's amazing to see so few people out enjoying the beautiful beach...and this is considered peak tourist season! A couple local boys (on Christmas break) wanted to check out Gregg's snorkel gear.

Sea Stars

Gregg picked up these sea stars right out front of our condo. They are about 12 inches long and are everywhere! Below is a bright orange and then a yellow one.

                       Top                                            Bottom

Nuff Said...

Condo Pics

We are very fortunate to be staying in this lovely condo! We leave the doors open and get a wonderful cross breeze...and surprisingly very few bugs! When at home, we spend most of our time on the front veranda doing computer stuff, eating our meals, and watching the traffic (that is boat traffic in the channel.) Since we are on the lower level, we do shut the doors at night, but have only had to run the air-conditioning a couple of times.

Local Boys Spear Fishing

Dogs

There are LOTS of stray? dogs that roam about town...many times in the middle of the street! They all seem friendly and pretty laid back.

Christmas Cookies

Julie decided to get into the Christmas spirit by making cookies to give to the caretaker's family and a few neighbors. A lot easier said than done! The first challenge was finding the all the ingredients, making substitutions (for example, 6 Belize chocolate bars in place of chocolate chips), improvising a rolling pin, and hand cutting dough (no cookie cutters!) Also the oven is Celsius, so needed to make a temperature conversion. Mission accomplished...the cookies were well received!

Christmas Eve Service

We were fortunate to get a ride with neighbors to the Christmas Eve service in Seine Bight! It is so wonderful to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior with fellow Christians in another country! Bonus...they even served Christmas treats!

Toadfish

Gregg was doing a little fishing from the dock when he caught this toadfish on Christmas Eve day. It wasn't until later that we found out this fish also has poisonous dorsal fins! Good thing Gregg had already learned his lesson with the leather fish and this time used a fish grip!

#2 (in case you thought the first one was an accident)

Flowers

All these pictures were taken on our walk into town. It's so beautiful here!

Green Eel

Taking my queue from Kenny, I have been setting night lines off the palapa to see what I could catch. Kenny had complained that his lines, even with wire leaders, were frequently broken off. I purchased a bicycle inner tube to use as a shock absorber for my rigs, assuring Kenny that would do the trick. After two broken lines with 25# braid, I decided to up the ante with 61# mono from a local shop. On the first attempt the line was obviously cut at the hook by something with teeth. Adding a steel leader resulted in this catch!

It was a shame to kill this beautiful creature, but it had wrapped the leader and line so tightly around itself it would not have survived simply being cut loose. I also wanted to get my hook back...

Brenda's

Brenda's, located at the end of Main Street by the pier, is a small but wonderful spot to eat! Brenda is the grandmotherly type who said, "Sit, I'll feed you!" Then brought us a plate full of delicious jerk chicken, hot tamales, slaw and fresh squeezed lime juice! But the best part was her coconut macaroon!! (pictured below) Gregg especially loved it...said it ranked right up there with Angie's Pumpkin Roll!

Pool

Wonderful pool and hot tub...beautifully landscaped all around. I even made a little friend with the caretaker's daughter!  I told her she was a little fish. She corrected me by saying, "No, I'm a little mermaid!"  Silly me...I should have known better!

Views from the Palapa

Enjoying the lovely morning from the Palapa.

We spotted this boat and the birds following it from a long way off! We think they were throwing fish scraps into the air. Pretty crazy to watch them stay with the boat going full speed!

The mangroves are interesting. Sunset Pointe left most of them as a natural barrier to shore erosion. Thousands of minnows hang out here. 

Chips-n-Salsa

One of our favorite snacks since coming to Belize has been this local brand of tortilla chips and home-made salsa. Imagine if Krunchers made tortilla chips with almost no salt and you would be close to their flavor. We are total salt-aholics but these chips taste great the way they are. Then the other day we struck gold when we found Sriracha at the furthest grocery store. Life is good!

Jellyfish

There are LOTS of jellyfish in these waters. Most look like the translucent white one with 4 inner circles knows as moon jellyfish. But one evening I pulled in my bait to recast and had two brown ones attached to it. I used a knife to flip them over and they had some purple tentacles. In the bottom-left picture you can see a tiny crab near the weights who was more than happy to get out of that tangled mess.

Calvary Church

Yesterday we rode our bikes into Seine Bight, a smaller fishing village about 5 miles from where we are staying, to check out the church we plan to attend while we are here. We received a VERY warm welcome and tour from Anna, missionary wife, and some local children who wanted their pictures taken!

Fruit Smoothies

Every morning we have been enjoying fruit smoothies. So far, we have used various combinations of coconut milk, pineapples, limes, papaya, grapes, cantaloupe, bananas, strawberry yogurt, oranges, watermelon, and cream. Yum!

We also bought a soursop to try. While it tasted unusual, it was interestingly good. It didn't make it into our smoothie though as it was seedy and slimy, and we just weren't sure how to deal with it. We are on the look-out for a little plastic juicer.

On the Dock

Alfred, a local fishing guide, returning from another successful fishing excursion.

Friendly pelican enjoying scraps from the cleaning of the day's catch. 

Beautiful evening at Sunset Pointe!

Bait Fishing

Bait fishing is fun because they're easy to catch AND you never know what you might get. Below at top-left is a mangrove snapper (a/k/a vampire fish), bottom-left is a grouper, bottom-right is very-cool-yellow-tropical-can't-catch-in-kansas fish (porkfish), and the silver with yellow tail is a leatherjacket (also skipjack or leather jack) that I caught on our first day. It was flipping wildly on the hook so I laid it down and put my hand on it to pick it up. I felt the sting of a fin poke but didn't think much of it. Then it really started to hurt and it began to swell and get red. Julie MADE me walk over and ask the local fishing guide about the sting.  He said never touch those because of their sharp fins. Lesson learned!

Sabiki rigs (multiple small hooks on a single rig) are great for catching bait fish in salt water. I discovered these while doing research on salt water fishing in prep for our Belize trip. Of course you can buy them, but what fun is that? It was our first full day when I decided to try making my own Sabiki rig with the 3 smallest hooks I brought. I bait each hook with a Berkley Crappie Nibble or shrimp bits and jig next to a dock post.  Below are pictures of my first bait fish caught on this rig, my first double catch, and finally I scored the perfect triple!

Update (12/20/2013)
I've already grown tired of having to put bait on each of the 3 hooks So I broke down and bought a commercial sabiki with 6 hooks and simulated fish skin. They "work as advertised", even caught a few sardines!