Our story

Well this month has been a bit muddled up. Usually August is party month because both Maya and Colette have birthdays, but this year we got blown away, literally. Since we have kept you all visually stimulated with tons of pictures, we are now going to tell you our hurricane story. We have received so many emails from friends, loved ones and a few we're not sure about how they got our email address, but never mind - that we wanted to write a little bit more than 'we're fine' and tell you about the experience.

So, we'll start by setting the scene. Colette had not had a birthday because our life was chaos. On the day of her birthday, we ordered pizza and had some wine. We sat under scaffolding in our new livinig room where the builders were coming every day to put in a new ceiling. Now don't get us wrong, we are grateful for a new ceiling as it means insulation and coolness but two dogs (one of which hates all builders), us, scaffolding and up to 3 or 4 men in a small, very hot space is hardly conducive to having a party feeling. Our friends all think we are miserable bores, but the living conditions we are currently in mean that we lay low. We can't cook, so we eat out every single day. Sounds decadent? Well, Colette thinks she might be growing a second set of boobs from all the steroids in the cheap chicken she's eating. Chicken beans and rice, Chicken rice and beans, Chicken with white rice, Fried Chicken, BBQ Chicken and Chicken soup. Before we moved here, some friends who live on the mainland said 'The Mennonites(who produce most of the poultry in Belize) won't even eat the chicken they sell because of all the steroids and chemicals'. We have no idea if it is true, but it makes you wonder.

So in the midst of this, Hurricane Dean starts looming. At first we all joke nervously, and as the days pass, the joking becomes planning, shopping for a hurricane kit, trying to get information, wondering if you've got enough and for how long it will last you. We needn't tell you that the hurricane kit for the dogs had been prepared months ago. Ours wasn't bad but we still needed lots of extra stuff.

We are very fortunate that we have a lovely friend, the wonderful Capt Jeff, who allowed us to use his condo in case of a hurricane. This was the time to take him up on it. Capt Jeff's place was boarded up properly and in a complex that was built to withstand serious hurricanes. Even better is that the local head of the national emergency services is a neighbour (and hero). Even better than that, he built this complex. Even better than that, he was staying and that indicated to us that we would be as safe as we could be.

It is hard to explain the way you feel when there is the possibility of impending doom. Life threatening situations, fortunately, are not common to us and there is no doubt that this was potentially very life threatening. Particularly if you were listening to CNN, who dubbed the Yucatan Penninsula 'THE KILL ZONE'. The funniest thing is that while we were watching the news updates on the Hurricane, we were wondering how many of our friends know that we live on the tip of the Yucatan Penninsula. This must have been very confusing, because if you listened to the newscasts, Belize pretty much did not exist. They hardly mentioned Belize during all the news items we saw. They were very interested in Cancun though. Can't imagine why?

What was amazing was how everyone in our neighbourhood worked together to make sure that everyone who could be protected, was protected. Our little wooden rental house was boarded up safely. We were appalled though that the hardware shops had doubled the price of plywood in the few days leading up to the storm. Now when a hurricane is coming and you live in a little wooden house and all your furniture is brand new, you do not leave anything in there that you care about. So we had to move out our sofa and our new mattress. We reckoned that the hardwood bed would survive anything and piled everything we could in the loft and onto the bed. Everything else was moved out.

Then to Capt Jeff's. Now his place is a truly luxurious hurricane shelter. It even has a jacuzzi and we were glad of this because we filled it up with water to ensure we had enough water for washing and flushing. In fact, the whole condo was filled with buckets and bottles of water. Colette tried a bit of the cheese from our hurricane kit (it has never been near a cow) and announced that she will have to be starving before she can eat it again. Our great friend JohnnyB had all our fish stashed away from our last big fishing trip with el Capitano. So, we invite all our friends to share fish and chips at Banana Beach. Their restaurant do a great job battering and frying up the fish for us. Everyone was tired and emotional and drinking. This made for an entertaining evening, especially as we had an uninvited gate crasher turn up. So while we were much too cowardly too ask this person to leave, our drunkeness meant our inhibitions were down and sarcasm was the rule of the evening. Very entertaining for us if for no one else. Tee hee.

No matter how luxurious the insides are, it is tough when you are completely boarded in. No natural light. Makes you a bit crazy. So, we're in, we have as much hurricane kit as we can muster. Neighbours who are evacuating come round and bring us their flashlights and other useful stuff. By this time we are wired on adrenaline and exhausted.

Capt Jeff has some icecream in the freezer. Knowing the power will go off, we distribute the icecream to our neighbours, make a few social calls and then go home to batten down the hatches. We've been warned the storm will start at about 8pm.

We had power for most of the night and we watched with horror, trepidation and poop in our pants fear as the record size Hurricane Dean headed our way. One little bump north or south would make all the difference. The forecasts on the television were horrendous. People were telling stories about 50 foot waves, someone mentioned 195mph winds, they said the barrier islands (us we presumed) were going to be wiped out and we were sitting up here genuinely wondering if we were going to die. We did have life jackets and ropes, but we only had one dog life jacket, so we were even trying to work out how to strap the other dog to us. All sounds crazy now, but when you have been exposed to all the tsunami and Katrina footage, nothing seems unbelievable. This storm was as big as or bigger than Katrina. We are on a tiny pile of sand, twenty odd miles off the coast.

So, we keep waiting for the storm to hit. Colette decides that there are so many people on message boards trying to get information about the place and their loved ones that she would stay up as long as possible and pass on info. Maya keeps sneaking out to take pictures and video. It gets windy and the waves lap at the steps. Suddenly the pressure dropped. Both of ears popped and it felt very strange. You could feel it all over our body. Other friends have reported opening bottles of Coke at that time and have them explode. Hurricanes are very low pressure. The power goes out and we both fall asleep, to be woken at 4:30 am by Colette''s mother phoning asking if we are OK. We presumed we were, but hadn't been out, so we went out straight away. Damage, but not devastation. Not for us anyway. North of the island got hit much worse, as did North Belize and some small villages on Mexico's coast. No one died here thankfully. Our house didn't float away.

Would we stick it out if another Category 5 storm came, would we stay? Hell yes. This is how much we love San Pedro.

21st of August - Images from San Pedro after Hurricane Dean

The next series of pictures are courtesy of our lovely friend and neighbour JohnnyB.

20th of August - Last images of Hurricane Dean from San Pedro

These are the last shots of the day as it is now dark. Dean is now Cat 5.

Yes those dots in the sea are people surfing!

20th of August - Images from the approach of Hurricane Dean

19th of August - Preparations on San Pedro for Hurricane Dean

Between doing our own preps and helping neighbours, we went around the residential areas to see what is happening. This is what we saw.

For emergency information on friends and loved ones, please go to the ACER Friends and Family Tracker at http://acerfriends.blogspot.com/

Hurricane Dean is on its way!

Good morning our friends, loved ones, fans and all you little people out there. We decided to stick up this blog early on so that you can worry about us. We know you love to.

DEANS PROJECTED PATH

Yes, we are staying on the island. No, we are not going to die. We have a safe shelter and a good stock of supplies. Enough dog food to feed a whole pack has been safely stashed away. Right now, the hope is that we will just get tropical storm strength winds and high seas. Our thoughts go out to Jamaica right now as they are about to take a hit. Very special thoughts go out to our friend Clarissa, who is currently in the Domincan Republic visiting family.

DEAN IS ONE BIG STORM - BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES

For those of you who are worried about us, our friends The Tacos will be updating their blog as regularly as possible so that people can tune in. Their blog is http://tacogirlblog.blogspot.com/

We'll update you from here as soon as we can. Today we are putting up plywood, moving valuables, tying down everything that moves and preparing to move into our shelter tomorrow. We'll probably also get drunk.

Ladies and Gentlemen ... The amazing smallest banana in the world

Welcome to our new Exploring Belize blog. We hope you enjoy the pictures and stories .

Stunning Tropical Fan Palm Flower - we pass it every day when walking the dogs

We've moved house. It has been so busy but even moving home in Belize is fun if you have the right attitude. We're going to tell you how it went for us and then you can compare it to how it is where you live.

This is the view we are leaving

How did we get so much stuff?

Midas pretends to be a black bag

Well, we have no furniture to speak of, so getting some was a necessity before we moved. We had two weeks to prepare. Colette had to take a shopping trip and this meant flying over to Belize City. She spent the morning with a lovely guy we know there and hit the furniture shops. There are only three in the city. One of them is Courts, which seems to use it to get rid of all the stuff they can't sell anywhere else in the world. The other one we won't name but let's just say that we will not buy furniture from a shop that smells like a nursing home. That just left the good old Mirab's furniture shop. Impressive place and very professional. As good a range and as well displayed as any good furniture shop. Expensive though because everything is imported. Furniture is weird here. We have some of the best wood and carpenters in the world, but they just haven't grasped sofas. We'll be doing more furniture shopping later so hang on. Anyway, Colette picked the Paradox Cocoa and we've put up a picture here. This is a catalogue shot. Our new pad
Rain on our first day in the new placeHappy Hibiscus the first morning We are so grateful to finally be comfortable. Well almost. You see, the house is hot. Very hot. It got up to 41degrees celcius one afternoon inside the house. This is a problem. Not only does the house get hot, but the floors, the walls and furniture heat up too. This has made everything a little tricky for us, but we love the place and have a really nice landlady who is trying to help us sort it all out. It makes sure we spend a lot of time outside, which is great and we've got a yard here that we and the dogs enjoy.

Maya getting into having a yard

Cultivating aloe vera
Anyway, back to moving and furniture. So, we bought the sofa and asked for it to be delivered on a certain date the following week. Sofa was delivered perfectly on time and in great shape. We also had to get a bed. We figured that since we plan to buy a place and live here permanently, that we might as well invest in a really good bed. It just arrived in the middle of writing this blog and it hasn't been put together yet, but we've taken a quick picture of the headboard just so that we can smugly rub in what a beautiful tropical, custom made, mixed hardwood bed we've had made. We could also rub in how much we paid for it, but we'll just let you drool.

Our new king sized headboard
So, the bed was made beautifully to our specs, the sofa turns up on time and of course we need some men to move us. So Colette calls a number she has been given by a friend. She tells the guy on the end of the phone to bring two more guys to our address on Friday at 10am. He says fine. By Thursday we decided we didn't want to rush too much - which is the effect life in Belize has on you - and called the guy again. Can we change it to Saturday? No problem at all. They turned up on time and had us moved in within 1 1/2 hours. How is that for service? We also had the cable tv and internet all connected on the same day. Everyone came when they said they would and everything worked.

Belize Barbie greets you at our new front door

We are sharing our porch with this baby iguana
It's not been all work. We found a little dog on the street. She was so cute. After a couple of days of asking around we put up posters and ads and found her owner. Her name was Angel and she was adorable. After the poster went out, we got calls from people all over Belize, just wanting to find out if she was OK. Check out the poster and pics.

Devil meets Angel

The poster that got Angel homeThose of you who know Midas will also know that she is no Angel herself. Her new favourite sport is hunting, chasing and killing a really cool lizard called the Jesus Lizard. The reason they are called this is because they actually can run across water. They also are very good at playing dead and this is where Midas gets her thrills. She can kill the same lizard ten times and it just hops back up to life when it thinks she isn't looking. Shame some of Angel's disposition didn't rub off on her.

The Jesus Lizard

We also managed a fun snorkel trip with our wonderful neighbours and their family. We went with one of our favourite snorkel guides, Tulu. We have to pinch our own bottoms every time we get the chance to go out on the water. It really is like it seems on TV. Bliss.

The Caribbean Sea - there is nothing like it

During this trip Maya realised that we didn't have an unfortunate party picture to put up this month, so she has provided the shot.

Maya offers herself up as the unfortunate party picture shot

We have amazing friends here and they have been dropping by to see our new pad. One of them brought us a healthy little mint plant (thank you Cindy) and another has brought us a Basil (sorry Diane, no picture), so it will be Mohitos and pizza all round before long.

Our first herbs from Cindy

We've been spending a lot of time in the garden and it is so nice to be outside (especially when it is hotter indoors than out). We have bananas just about ready to pick. We can't wait. We eat a lot of fruit here, banana, papaya, mango most days. But to grow your own is just dreamy.

Bananas growing in our own back yard

This week we have banana pie, banana burritos, banana salad, banana bread...

We did buy some apple bananas to help us be patient while our own nanas grow. Check out the smallest banana ever. Maya had to eat it after we made sure we could share it with you by taking snaps.

Maya eats the smallest banana in the world

The smallest banana in the world measured up to a Bic
Well as it is so hot, it is time to put this blog to bed. More will be coming soon as August is going to be a jam packed month for us - both of our birthdays and lots of other exciting things. Not only that, we have a fab new blog site to play with. Stay tuned.