Rainy Days 2

Another day of non-promising beach weather, so we decided to head north this time.
Between Hopkins and Dangriga, there is a little shop called Maria Sharp's. "Mama Maria" is known across Belize (which, I remind you, with a population of about 300,000, over 22,000 square miles, is rather like being well known across Vancouver Island), because she is the producer of the Nations #1 Hot Sauce. It was rare to sit down at a meal in Belize without a jar of one of her sauces in front of you, it is the salt and pepper of Belize. She also makes jams, chutneys, and juices, but her habanero pepper sauces, from mild to Belizean Heat are her...uh... Is "bread and butter" to confusing an analogy?.

We tasted some samples, and took a tour of the factory, where huge vats of mashed hot peppers towered over where some the boredest-looking assembly-line bottle-lid-fasteners sat all day. We also chatted with Maria and bought a few jars of the good stuff.

After Maria's, we rolled up the Coastal Highway, which is really neither, being a twisty gravel road through the jungle. The "back road" between Dangriga and Belize City put truth to the definition of a short cut as the most difficult route between two places. However, about half way along, if you take the right at a completely unmarked turn-off, you end up in Gales Point,
where you can see Manatees. Sort of.

Gales Point is a one-road village strung for several kilometres along a 50-metre wide spit extending into a large lagoon, separated from the ocean by a few kilometers of mangrove. This is a Creole town, but it has seen better times. The local economy is limited, the youth are moving out to get jobs in the Cities, and even regular bus service to the village has ended. Add to that a couple of recent hurricanes, and the place is pretty beat up.

However, pulling into town, we got flagged down by John Moore, and John had a boat and figured he could guarantee us seeing manatees. All we had to do is run him over to the store to buy some fuel, then run him over to the dock, and he would hook up the motor to the boat, and get a battery from somewhere and... Well, a half hour later we were out with Captain John, wearing the only life jackets we saw during our time in Belize. And Manatee we did see.

Manatees are almost literally "sea cows" (although they are more closely related to elephants)in that they are the only living herbivorous marine mammals, they are big, and they are very, very relaxed. When we saw them, they were hanging out by a hot springs, not really eating or frolicking, just kind of hanging around the spot in the lagoon where the water was warmest. They breathe about once every 20 minutes, and this seems to be their only activity. So every 20 minutes or so, their snout, and if we are lucky, their head is visible above water for about 2 seconds. As you might suspect, you don't really watch manatees so much as you occasionally spot them. And I have a lot of photos of wide expanses of murky water with a random spot or two I will insist are manatee snouts.

John kept busy while we sat anchored by the hot springs noting random fleeting spots by fishing for Tarpin. He never actually caught one, but did get a good sized one on the hook for a spirited minute-long fight, but he got away.

It was a nice time on the water, though. Gales Point is located in a very beautiful spot, a long palm-lined sand spit on a shallow lagoon, with mangrove forests to the east and the karst landforms of the Mayan Mountains to the west, even on grey, cloudy day, it is a view to behold.