We spent the next three days island hopping with Rob and his two Canadian buddies. The trip was more interesting now that Colby and I had other English speaking kayakers to talk to. Chapel Caye, Longs Caye, Seargents Caye, the Queens or (Silks) are the names of just a few of the islands we covered. Some of the crossings between Islands were surreal, because you could not see the island you were paddling to, and when you turned around all you could see was the one you came from. Rob’s friends had to leave on Tobacco Caye due to some unfortunate information about one of their wives. Rob stayed behind with us. We were thinking about crossing the Bay of Honduras. However, Rob wasn’t too sure about that idea. We were soon to arrive at the last Caye where Rob was going to decide whether to join us for further adventures, or not.

At the Southern end of the island chain of Belize is Hunting Caye, next to Hunting is Lime Caye. Hunting Caye is the point where we get our passports stamped to exit another country. There was a small Military base on the Caye and as we pulled up three dogs ran toward us barking wildly, as military dogs will do. This woke up the officials who came stumbling out their wood camp huts half-dressed wondering what the dogs were barking at. We couldn’t see land in any direction except the three nearby islands so the officials were very surprised at our arrival to their camp. They were very nice and we had no problem getting our stamps. We thanked them and paddled to Lime Caye which was a short crossing. Once beached on Lime we introduced ourselves to the owner. He was an old, black, Belizian who wore the years of island weather on his face. We were about to try and cross the Bahia de Honduras. We were going to leave from Lime Caye and paddle on a bearing for Puerto Cortes, Honduras a total of 28 Nautical Miles in open water. He had run the Lighthouse on Hunting Caye for 27 years, and had never even heard of anybody trying it before. He thought we were completely nuts, and Rob knew we were. Colby and I were also wondering about our sanity, or lack thereof. We talked with him about the weather, currents, probability, and anything else we could think of. He told us that the conditions the next morning were going to be the best he had ever seen and that we should go then. We waited till nightfall to shot our compass bearing. We could see a faint glow of lights from Honduras’ largest port over 25 miles away. Sleeping on the sand that night eased us into dreams of open water, and the sound of the waves filled us with a childlike excitement of the unknown.

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