Belize Journey - Heartbreak Sea Wall (Part 2)

[Latimeria]

My alarm went off at 5:00 am and I was pretty stoked to run down to the water and see what I could see.  I grabbed my casting gear and headed down hoping to find some great beach to fish.  There was 100% chance of rain every day that week, so I didn't know what to expect, but I was hearing thunder in the distance.
I didn't even look at the house yet, but just grabbed my gear and went.  The park across the street seemed to call for me to get over there, or it could have been the howling wind through the coconut trees. 



I actually waited for the wind to die down at times because 25 mph NE steady winds in your face is hard to even cast a 2oz castmaster because of the backlashes with the wind arcing your line.  Besides, my shoulder was getting tired since I'm only at about 60% at the moment.
The water was just snotty looking, so I stopped every now and then before the winds finally died down.



Time to wait out these 20 minute period sustained winds that were relentless.  Hung out under a coconut tree making sure a coconut wouldn't hit me on the head if it dropped.



The water was 3 to 4 feet deep out for a ways and I just cast and cast and cast all over the place.  The low lying palm trees made the small area I had to cast a real challenge, and there was private property everywhere that I had to avoid.



It was getting monotonous, when out of the corner of my eye, I had a HUGE Flash of silver just leave a 5-6 foot footprint on the surface of the water and my line started screaming out like I hooked Ferrari!  By the time my mind caught up with my body with what was happening, the lure came flying out of the water like a bullet from 150-200 feet out!  WHAT THE HELL!!!!  I'm assuming Tarpon, but I never saw it fully, so I really can't tell what it was, but I'm fairly certain it was a tarpon from the size of the wake it left.
100 casts later and I was tired and decided to head back and see Elliot and Michelle for a tour and some breakfast.

The house was beautiful!  All the houses down there are made of cement block.  If it was made out of wood, it was made by the Mennonites down there, but subject to the craziest termites one has ever seen!

Left view of the road with the small park.



Right view of the road with the scary abandoned rappers building... I'll share pics in a moment.



My buddies house from the front.  My little casitas is on the right by the garage.



My casitas...



The BBQ/Bar Building.



They whipped up some breakfast which was basically leftovers made into anything that resembled a breakfast.  Apparently there are not many places to get fresh food, unless you hit the farmers market or go into town where certain homes supply certain foods, like The Egg Girl, or The Cheese Lady, or the Brama Guy.  Every day was going to be a new learning experience for me.

So Elliot is not a fisherman, nor has he fished in about 40 years, so part of the deal was to teach him how to fish.  He wanted to make sure I taught him to tie knots, clean fish, rig up correctly and how to read the water.  A big task for me that just wanted to run out and just start fishing, but I knew this was going to be his way to supply fish to them and his friends who support them in other ways like fresh cheese etc.

So I grabbed a few spinning rods and grabbed some Gulp Sand worms.  I rigged us up with some drop shots and figured there would have to be something hiding in those rocks at the sea wall.
As we were passing the haunted hotel, he explained that this house next door was totally covered in brush and vines and you couldn't even see what was underneath.  Apparently he said it was owned by some Rap mogul, but he didn't know who it was.  Apparently he was cheating on his wife and the project stalled.  No one has heard or seen from them again, except that someone was paid to clear the lot to expose the building.



We bounced the edge of the rocks when I get slammed!  Elliot seemed bewildered because he kept yelling "Is that a fish?  That's a fish!  Is that a fish?!?!" when I finally got it to the steps.  The steps are just concrete steps leading into the water from the sea wall so people could walk in and go swimming.
Man, I thought for sure it was a 2 foot shark, until I realized it was a monster catfish!  It didn't have the dorsal like a Gaffstop Cat, but after some research, it was a Belizean Sea Cat.  Elliot was stoked, but the steps were like ice from the algae on them.  I couldn't really step in so decided to swing it.  You can guess how that went with a 5 pound or more catfish on 10# spinning gear.  Elliot watched it pull the hook, bounce off the rocks and had a 50/50 chance to stay on dry land, but of course made the bounce to the sea instead.  Ugh.

Anyway, I gave him some pointers at that point as he was holding his reel upside down and I decided to concentrate on helping him out while casting my big castmaster every now and then to see if I could snag another "huge" something or other.  In the meantime, Elliot got his first fish and second fish and wanted to harvest them as his first official fish in Belize!  Game on!  Only big enough for 2 small tacos a piece for him and his wife, but I was totally down watching him pretty stoked on his catches.



We called it quits, because the Cheese Lady was coming over to drop off some fresh cheese she made.  In the meantime, I whipped up some Tequila Sunrise's for us and she was reluctant to have drinks at 10:00am in the morning, but we convinced her.  Later I heard that she got hammered off my one drink and would never trust me again when I said "It's a super weal drink, you'll be fine".  Hahahahaha

He brought me around to his friends at the Expat community and got to meet a bunch of them.  A little back story right here before I flew down to see him.  He told me to bring 6 Pay Day candy bars and instant butterscotch pudding... I asked why and he told me to just do it.  I only laughed and fulfilled his request.  Now back to meeting one of his neighbors....  He said here's half a Pay Day bar.  Just start eating your half when I start eating my half when we see my neighbor's wife.  I'm super puzzled, but realize that this might be a prank that will get me in trouble with the neighbors.  So we see Kip and walk up to say hello.  Kip fits right in as a big drinking /cigar smoking guy that has a quick smart ass reply at the moment's notice.  His wife walks out of the house and Elliot starts eating the Pay Day bar, so I followed suit with my half.   Her response was epic...  "You are a f@cking d!ckhead you bald little man... and you must be this scrotum's bigger friend"...  HOLY CRAP!  I almost choked on my Pay Day bar! 
I finally got the back story on how they tortured Elliot when he was waiting for his shipping container with all his furniture to arrive.  They sat out in their beach chairs at the edge of his driveway with signs saying "Your stuff is stuck in Mexico and is not coming" while they drank Rum Punches and watched Elliot writhe in agony awaiting everything!  Holy crap!  With neighbors like this, who really needs enemies!  LOL

Anyway, I'm going to have to finish this later as I came home to a mess (not literally) and need to try and get to grips with some things.  I'm in need of a c*cktail too, so I will continue the Belize reports tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

[sasquatch]

Looks like an amazing place.

[Tim524]

 The Cheese Lady....... that funny stuff right there

[jrodda]

Great read. I threw my web browser into full screen just for these posts for extra cinematic flair, and you're not disappointing! Can't wait for more.

[vdisney]

Perfect way to start my morning, great write up Tom.  Thanks for sharing

[skrilla]

Good read so far. It's like binge watching a new series! Onto the next part...