Not this year’s photo but the usual arrival at Sabal Beach is with supplies brought down (gas and drinking water), my suitcase and all the food bought for the duration of my stay.

Except for two weeks at Christmas, I have spent my time, since the beginning of November, at a rental in Placencia, Belize. It is a lovely, cozy, 1 bedroom house on the canal. I have a rowboat to paddle across the canal should I choose to bail it out and get into town. It has not been as relaxing as last year due to a 7 day a week generator at the house construction across the canal and, since Christmas, either a noisy power washer/generator or table saw going, again, 7 days a week at the house to the south of me. The construction starts most mornings at 8:00 am and stops for a two hour lunch and resumes until 4:30 or 5:00. The repair work/maintenance at the house south of me has started on occasion at 7:15 am but usually ends around lunch time – unless he doesn’t start until lunch time then works to supper time. About twice a week, there is a late afternoon, loud party at the small resort 2 properties to the north that shakes my floor with the base amplifier. Luckily, I have been waking at 6:00 am to enjoy an hour or two of quiet song from the birds in the palms of the front yard before the construction noise sends them on their way.

Needless to say, I have been longing for Sabal Beach – a very isolated, off-grid property near Punta Negra, a 45 minute boat ride (no roads) south of Placencia. On 06 Feb I made it here for 9 days and wrote this sitting typing with a view of the Caribbean through the gently rustling palms and the breeze that blows through the cabana.

I first came here in January 2014 when Sahib and I headed here from frozen New Brunswick for two weeks. In those days we were living in New Brunswick and United Airlines was flying from Moncton to Newark and there was an onward flight from Newark direct to Belize City where we were introduced to Tropic Air – the little airline that is amazing. They run 16 seater prop planes flying Visual Flight Rules (daytime only, last flight has to arrive before dark) on domestic routes and have since added a couple of Central American destinations as well as Merida in Mexico. How they juggle their schedule and provide amazing customer service is interesting to behold. Your flight is late? We’ll put you on our next flight to your destination. Your flight is early? We’ll put you on an earlier flight than you booked. In those days, our flight was booked by David, one of the owners of this property, and had to be paid for on check-in in Belize City. Now, it is online booking but the customer service remains the same: up to two suitcases are part of the fare and any hand baggage has to fit, and be held on, your lap. If you are really lucky, you will be asked to take the 16^th seat in the copilot’s chair where there is a notice to leave the controls strictly alone! The view from there is fabulous. Often, the flight stops en route to Placencia at Dandriga and it is a fast turnaround so that the whole flight only takes about 25 minutes. Getting to Belize City has been by many different routes and airlines. United from Moncton onwards, then Air Canada via Toronto with an overnight in Houston at a close-to-the-airport Super 8 Motel, West Jet from Toronto (direct) and now Air Canada direct from Toronto – but always, Tropic Air!

Our first time here, David had his taxi friend, Walter, meet us at the airport, take us shopping and meet Jason’s boat at the dock for the ride here. I still call Walter when I arrive in Belize City and tell him I am on the way. He picks me up and I go shopping – usually at Top Value Supermarket and then a vegetable stand – before I go wherever I am staying. Up until Covid, it was always down to Sabal Beach that I was heading. I have missed a couple of years – notably in 2015 when I was in Pakistan working, 2018 when I broke my knee just before Christmas and was still recovering and 2021 due to Covid. In November 2021 I rented a place in Placencia that David arranged when many Covid rules were still in place: you had to have a Covid test on arrival and stay in a Gold Standard lodging where Covid cleanliness standards were being met (not to mention the Covid test before heading back to Canada). I enjoyed that trip – my first travel since January 2020 but really missed Sabal Beach but it was a turning point and change for me as I was able to attend meetings by Zoom while I was there and it got me looking for places in Placencia where I could do the same and, when Covid rules relaxed, could get some Sabal Beach time in.

Sahib found it a bit too warm, as he had Mexico in 2011, and that there was not much to explore beyond the 7 miles of sandy beach one has to oneself. Since that initial trip, I have come by myself and can feel the tension slip away and relaxation start to slip in as I leave the dock in Placencia. Last February and now this year, I was pretty relaxed as I left Placencia and my little rental there so I am really, really a puddle of relaxation here at Sabal Beach.

As always, I am able to look at the little things here at Sabal and enjoy them. I found a tiny, one inch, tree frog in the shower last night and was able to send him on his way outside. The first bird I saw yesterday was a beautiful Baltimore Oriole and I am looking at a yellow warbler in the palm out front as I type. Huge hawks flew over last night and there were two pelicans bobbing in the water as I headed back from my yesterday’s walk as it started spitting rain, making it back before the deluge hit. Other fauna I find here I am relaxed enough to handle but in 2016 I got attacked by four nasty pit bulls who took a chunk out of my thigh before I retreated to the salt water and made it back to the cabana. Luckily, the salt water must have killed any germs and, because I lived in Sackville, the local hospital was able to give me my rabies shots when I got back, covered by the provincial health plan, instead of sending me to the public health offices in Moncton where I would both have had to pay for the shots and travel back and forth for them. Win-win. The brown widow spider I found one year climbing the cabana I was able to send on its way using a broom handle. Not so nice, being this far from a grocery store, was finding winged bugs in my recently purchased, unopened cereal this morning (Post’s Great Grains with Strawberries, in case anyone is wondering) that I had purchased to add to my morning yoghurt and muesli. I tossed it, unopened but heaven knows what their factory is like! I think I have enough muesli to last.

The sunset on the day I had arrived was, as some are, spectacular:

Soon, it will be time to head out for an afternoon walk up the deserted beach ….