Ending on a high note is key (cay).










Tadd loses his shorts in this video, click to see it.
We were moored up for the night at Queens Caye, with a squall coming through. While we were enjoying dinner on board Stess, in passing, JR questioned whether our sister boat, Ocean Dreams, was moving. I calmly replied that it just looked that way, but it was just all the movement of the waves and turning on the mooring. But JR became progressively more insistent, until it became, “Missy!! That boat is moving!!!” As Tadd rushed over to hail them on the radio, it jumped to life with Capt. Nick’s voice… “Stess, Stess, Stess… this is Ocean Dreams.”
It turned out that, while dealing with a bunch of seasick guests and trying to serve dinner to those people not suffering, OD was bouncing around in the big waves out on an outer mooring. With everything going on they didn’t notice when the mooring line gave out from the sea floor and they began drifting. Sadly, they were close to a piece of reef and were on top of it before they knew it… bang!!! The sound of it apparently reverberated throughout the yacht.
The pictures are out of order, sorry about that. Here are our guests for the week, after we transferred the guests of Ocean Dreams on board and returned them to shore.
Now here are pictures of “the rescued” on the morning after…….
Our guests made everyone feel welcome, helped them dry off and cheered them up!
What an adventure we had together.
Another group… another charter… but not quite the same… Tadd turned 40 and got to be king for a day!!!
and Brian caught his fish!
This week was photographed more than usual. We are getting well practiced at the “routine” and have some more time to appreciate and share some of the highlights through Lindsay’s excellent photos.
After a rocky start, where one of the couples coming on charter with us didn’t make it through the snow storms in Houston, we finally welcomed them on board at Lark Cay, less than a day late… and just in time for some G&T’s and Caribbean chicken salad.
We enjoyed another week with Rick & Joyce, Jaques & Barb, and Doug & Cindy… and everyone’s friend Tanqueray!!
I managed not to kill Rick … though I did try to sneak in some Thai food… but him and his serious peanut allergy were not having anything to do with it… and he was kind enough not to complain when he was left with just eating the side dishes…ooops… one hell of a learning curve.
In any case, we had a great time with lots of fun snorkeling, while Jaques, Rick & Joyce got in some choice diving!
After our adventures in Belize City and beyond, it was back to work as usual. We had a fun mixed group out in early February with Ann & Rich, Dave & Lois, and our independent lady, Jean.
And we had a delightful night when a Moorings boat decided (against our advice… he listened to another useless captain nearby, who was only thinking of himself!) to anchor right next to Stess, so by morning, once the wind had changed direction, was a matter of feet off our stern!! He skulked off early without a word…. OH those lovely bareboaters!!!
Eventually the sun came out and the snorkeling was as amazing as ever.
All in all another great week. Our ladies set off home with their souveneer conch shells… but we soon discovered that, although stunningly beautiful… are also dangerous weapons! Or so the security people at Belize Airport claimed!! Ann was told she couldn’t carry her conch shell in her had luggage as it could be used as a weapon to slice somebody!!!
CONCH: tasty, beautiful… but potentially deadly!! Watch out for conch terrorists!!