Hi there everybody,

This blog is designed for what you could loosely call the Friends of Steppingstones - our friends, relations, guests, and those thinking of visiting. Here we will attempt to keep everyone up to date with the news, gossip and happenings down here in southern Belize - especially fishing news.

I'll start with a little introduction. Chris and I starting building Steppingstones in 2002 - working mostly at long range from the UK with the invaluable help of Sam and Martha Scott. In March 2005 we moved down here for good, and opened for business as a tiny fishing eco resort in November 2005.

Since then we have had a small be very select band of visitors, from the UK, Canada and the US, and these included Mike Ladle and Steve Pitts, who made a lovely DVD while they were here, and Chris and Spud Woodward, working on an article for Sport Fishing Magazine, Feb 07 issue.

Chris and I have been very busy with the seemingly endless tasks involved in building Steppingstones into the kind of fishing resort that we would like to stay at. And of course, this being Belize, we wake up every morning wondering what little challenge will present itself today!

For example, we have been having a bit of trouble with the starter motor on our launch, Patience, so we called in the excellent Houdeny, our mechanic from Monkey River Village to sort out the problem. He came and picked the motor up, brought it back a few hours later, refitted it, wasn't quite happy, so decided to take it apart on the dock.

Yes, you know what happened next - a small but vital spring fell through the crack into the blue Caribbean. So our starter motor is back in the village again, fingers crossed Houdeny will be able to find a spring that fits, or we will be forced to manual start - not an easy task on a 50hp outboard.

In the pic you can see that we have had Patience done up, and also built a nice palapa and a dock extension. The palapa has two hammocks and a couple of chairs, it's a lovely place to sit in the breeze.

So, I am off to cook barracuda and chips (fries) for dinner. We have had lovely weather recently, so we are planning to go out to the cayes tomorrow with Ian for some fishing. I'll be reporting how we get on in the next post.