February 18th At 6:00 am this morning I learned a good friend of mine had passed away. And I’m heartbroken. For 17 years Curtis Wolf was the executive chef of a luxurious hotel in downtown Greenville. In my world chefs are prone to jump back and...
Raymond is slapping his four-foot-long machete on the Cohune Palm then he barks to the tribe of Howler Monkeys racing across the treetops. His command was a husky “AhhRoof!” that he repeated six or seven times over. Imagine our surprise when one of the young...
Hello Google. How do I say “Which way to the beach in Mayan?” There’s four highways in Belize. No kidding. Four major highways crisscross this country of nine thousand square miles. The Philip Goldson, Western (George Price), Southern, and the Hummingbird Highway. If your destination is...
On our first morning here back in November we were excited by bird call from a host of tropical flyers. Squeaking Kiskadees, trilling hummingbirds, clucking kingfishers, warbling warblers, jabbering Grackles, boo hooing White Wing Doves, oddly quiet mockingbirds and the most provocative were the parrots....
Christmas to us, as a married couple, has always meant a big church service, our kids dressing up in new clothes bought just for the occasion, a fine meal and the company of friends and family. Although the years I spent working for hotels or...
The green torpedo burst into the air, exploding the water around it. It hung in the air, shimmering in the sunlight, flapping wildly, temporarily framing itself into its own watercolor. For one brief moment I was the sole admirer of a painting unlike any I’ve...
The “beach” here in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye is somewhat illusory. While most of the beach is public, the combination of sea walls, jagged shoreline, construction projects, and scattered bits of rocky terrain create a beach-ish puzzle. A walk on the beach in San Pedro...
The week of our arrival to our temporary home here on Ambergris Caye, the island received about 12 inches of rain courtesy Hurricane Eta. This island is very flat and of course we’re but a few inches above sea level. That means the rain water...
The first coral bed we approach is the size of a minivan and it pulsates with life, a magical alien life. It’s life one would find in a Dr. Seuss book; translucent purple leaves the size of a large pizza, scaly green and orange tubes...
“Well shit. Now what?” Sunday morning’s news wasn’t good. A tropical storm had formed in the Caribbean, it would strengthen, then head for Belize. As were we. Our home had been emptied off its contents and was safely stored, our cats had new homes, our chickens likewise,...