Finally, we made the decision to leave Puerto Aventuras. After days of intense scrutiny of the weather apps Larry arranges our exit interview with immigration. We are more than ready to go, as we provisioned days ago, and I don’t think Chris has any streets left to explore in this fenced-off and gated village. We leave the following morning at first light and make it out of the narrow channel just fine.  This overnight cruise is much further south than we had originally scheduled, as we must take advantage of the weather window while it presents itself. The first day of transit starts nice enough with three foot following swells and playful dolphins. The swells soon build to four footers but are still following and then become a bit larger and more confused through the late afternoon. Finally, the sun sets and darkness comes. There always seems to be a bit of anxiety at these last few hours of daylight as we prep the electronics and cabin for darkness. With building seas and winds the night passes slowly. We all take shifts at the helm staring at the radar screen and looking out to the black horizon on this moonless night. The large swells and stern wind have given us quite a push and we arrive at the mouth of the Belize shipping channel (Buzzard Shoals to the Eastern Channel) before daylight. You might think that we would be very happy to arrive anywhere early on these long cruises, but for once, this is not the case. The channel is thankfully, large, wide and deep but very twisted, which makes the markers a challenge to decipher at night. The moment of commitment comes when Larry has to make the starboard turn driving us into five to six foot swells and chop with a 20 knot wind all at our beam. This was more than exciting and we are all snapped to attention as the adrenaline courses. The captain throttles up the Independence and she takes her lashes as the bow digs deep into the swells and the water, full of seaweed, crashes onto the lower helm station windows and deck. The channels’ twists and turns are thankfully heralded by our Navionics charting system and Larry takes them in measured course not appearing disturbed by the intensity of the situation. To me, this is when Larry is at his best. I do not truly know if it is a moment he would reflect upon and say he enjoyed or daresay would want to repeat, but the intensity seems to suit his character and I am very happy for that. We finally enter the Main or Inner Channel of Belize as daylight, calming winds and seas make the last hour seem like a fever dream.  Now we have a moment to arrange ourselves to the fact that we are in a new country and must begin contacting immigration, etc. officials and preparing documents for clearance. By one o’clock we are anchored in Placencia Harbor and Settlement, Belize (250 NM) making this a 30 hour cruise.  As tired as we are, we still do a cursory fresh water wash of the Independence and then celebrate our safe arrival with a cold beer.

It is one thing to cruise into a new country and a completely different thing to find the immigration agents, etc. that are to grant entrance into their country without leaving your vessel.  Come to find out, you can go ashore to accomplish this task but before we have organized ourselves to this we are paid a visit by a ponga, the ‘Hokey Pokey Ferry’. Evidently immigration and the requisite entourage of Health and Customs had received Larry’s calls/texts (or seen our yellow quarantine flag) and six officials board our boat. Within forty minutes, a barrage of questions/paperwork to the captain and a nice wad of cash we were legal visitors of Belize. We hoist our Belize courtesy flag and put the tender in the water to start our explorations.