Hi, Chris here, my turn to blog.

Finally, the pictures we promised are posted to this blog.

One of our guests, gazing into the water off our dock recently, casually asked us if we knew we had sea horses in residence! Sure enough, when we looked we found pretty little sea horses feeding off the algae on the piles of our dock. This was a revelation because they are so well camouflaged they can easily be missed, as we had proved! So in addition to the snappers, barracuda, needlefish, Nemo (the black and yellow stripy one) and the rest, we have yet another resident species.

Talking of needlefish, we have quite a few tiny baby needlefish around the dock feeding on microscopic fry and larvae. I spotted one last night which was all of three inches long and had grabbed a tiny fish which was way too big for it to swallow, so it was swimming around with the unfortunate fish clamped across its jaws, obviously unsure what to do next! Big brother needlefish however had no such problem. He (she) spent yesterday afternoon stalking a huge shoal of baitfish that appeared from nowhere, picking off the stragglers at the tail of the shoal. We were on standby, rods at the ready, in case some larger predators followed the baitfish in. This time however, nothing showed up. A big baitfish shoal is a magnet to blue runners in particular, and they in turn attract other bigger predators within casting range.

One visitor we did get was a full size, solitary dolphin, which cruised slowly by, about sixty yards offshore the other morning. Quite a spectacular sight in flat calm water. Dolphins seem to come in very close along our beach, and we frequently get an escort of three or four around the boat as we run out to the reef. It could be that they are hunting in the fish rich waters at the mouth of nearby Monkey River. Certainly the kingfish come into the shallow river estuary to feed as Spud Woodward, one of our guests back last summer proved, when he had one take a bait right at the river mouth.

Currently we have John and Amanda Bennet staying with us. John is a keen fly fisher who until now had never fished warm salt water. We promised him a crash course in screaming reels and hooped rods. Well first cast on his first day out he hooked his first permit, but as sometimes happens, the fish surges off and a knot slips. It happens to all of us sometimes, but very frustrating for all that. John went on to get amongst the bonefish, and next day finally got his longed-for permit. Not a monster, but as Ian says, a permit is a permit. John also got an 8lb jack which towed him all over the place before coming in. In between boat trips with Ian, John has been exploring Great Monkey Caye which lies about 700yds off our beach dead in front of Steppingstones. He moors the kayak, and then wades the small flats at the northern tip of the caye. This has produced snappers, barracuda etc for John all on fly.

This type of approach often yields an unexpected bonus, in John’s case, a close encounter with a manatee (aka sea cow) grazing the extensive grass beds that surround the caye. Belize has quite a population of manatees, and here in Southern Belize we have one of their major breeding grounds. In many parts of the world manatee are under threat from man, most often because of collisions with fast moving boats in shallow water. Apparently the manatee which spends all its day grazing on sea grass, has poor hearing and cannot hear approaching boats. The locals here are well aware of the importance of this protected species, and everyone watches out for them.

Rambo, our resident handyman, has just got back from a short kayak trip to get a couple of snappers for his supper. He fishes with a baited handline local style. I used to sneer at this until I saw how successful he is! This time he came in having had both his lines broken by big fish in the channel right in front of us. I suspect this may be groupers straying from the reef, as I had the same thing happen in the same area. Whatever it was it just bolted into a coral outcrop and that was that.

On another front, Sue and I have been planting sprouting coconuts all along the highwater mark on the beach. We discovered that coconuts cannot be successfully transplanted once strongly rooted, but a sprouted coconut will turn into a viable palm tree within three years or so. It is the nature of a wild uncultivated beach that coconut palms eventually fall down into the sea unless well-rooted. So we decided to give nature a helping hand by planting “sprouties” all along the beach, to replace the ones which have fallen in over the years.

We still have plenty of mature palms, and a vast excess of coconuts. We use the palm fronds for shading of our chicken run, the husks and shells as barbeque fuel, and the nut meat for eating either raw or in dishes like curries etc. Some people enjoy the milk from the green coconuts, this is not a taste we have cultivated ourselves. I have learned how to chop a coconut open with my machete. This is a job which requires concentration and a good eye, otherwise your fingers are going to be at risk.

Ian stopped by last night and brought us Black Cake to try. This is a traditional Belizean Christmas treat, and is almost exactly like Christmas pudding – delicious. So we will be having that with custard some time soon. Ian’s arrival coincided with my making a large batch of piccalilli, so Ian is on a promise for a jar of that. He also went away with some of my special fruit cake – it’s become quite a foodie exchange! However we couldn’t persuade him to stay to dinner – liver and bacon – not a Creole favourite. Anyway, while he was here, we decided to do some fishing together this weekend.

Today’s plan was to explore the upper reaches of Monkey River, where tarpon had been in abundance earlier in the week. When we woke at 6am it was wild and squally, so we thought Ian would probably call it off. However, the weather brightened up, and at 8am Ian in Opportunity drew up at our dock. We scrabbled everything together and proceeded up the river.

Once on the river the sun came beaming out, there was a cool breeze, and the water was good and low. The wildlife turned out in force, we saw dozens of different birds including magnificent ospreys, a pygmy kingfisher, which we hadn’t seen before, and a large flock of parrots squawking away to themselves as they flew overhead.

There were lots of sandbanks, so we were keeping our eyes peeled for one of our favourite denizens of the river, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before we spotted what looked like a log on a sandbank up ahead - a log that got up and swim into the river. As we passed the spot, we saw the creature’s two eyes examining us, before it sank to safety below the surface. A few minutes later, we spotted a small croc in the margins, pretending it couldn’t see us, and further on we just saw the ripples that a real big fellow left as he slipped out of danger.

Crocs aplenty were around, but no sign of the tarpon. We motored slowly up the river until we came to where Monkey River branches to become the Bladen and the Swazey rivers. Taking the Bladen branch, we stopped at a likely place for a cast or two. I made my usual choice, a jointed Thunderstick, old and battered, but still effective. Ian suggested we try some surface lures, so Chris hauled out his old favourite the Top Prop in fire tiger.

Now, Ian loves to take the mickey out of our lures, and he is occasionally right. “That would make a good toy,” he laughed when he saw Chris spinning the Top Prop. “Ian,” I said, “I give you a friendly warning, don’t laugh too soon.” Sure enough, first cast, and Chris was into a small yet feisty machaca, a local freshwater fish. We caught nothing else at that spot, and carried on up river. Then the clouds gathered, and it began to rain. Really rain, the way it does here. “Who packed the waterproofs?” Well actually, in our rush to get out, nobody had. We had two pairs of waterproof trousers, one of which I wore as a combination hat and shawl, very chic, the other as standard trousers. Chris just got wet. In the end we were both so wet it didn’t matter, we just carried on fishing in likely spots.

But the tarpon were nowhere to be seen – it wasn’t going to be our day. So we made our way back down river, the sun came out, and we amused ourselves drying out and spotting iguanas. At this time of year the males are easier to spot as they are in their rusty orange mating colouring. We are certainly getting better at creature spotting as our eyes get use to the jungle. The iguanas tend to rest in the fork of a tree; we saw some pretty big ones, including one which was so surprised by our presence that he fell with a loud splash into the water – an iguana escape route.

Turtles were perched on logs sticking out of the water, we saw six the size of dinner plates sitting solemnly on one log. They plopped one by one into the water, they are rather shy. The whole scene was quite idyllic, and despite no fish and having got wet to the bone.

So, not a vintage day for fishing, but a really enjoyable morning on the river none the less. Tomorrow, weather permitting, out to the reef!

This will be a shortish message; I just wanted to share some pictures from Steve Wade and Steve Polley, our most recent guests – we miss you guys! Just for the record, Steve Wade's tarpon was estimated at 45lbs and like the double figure jack crevalle caught by Steve Polley, took a lure. Also have the promised chicken pictures of the new punk girls, Holly, Ivy and Tinsel, Tinsel is the baby with Wozina, her adopted mum.

Last night I cooked for the first time a Belizean delicacy, gibnut, sometimes known as Royal Rat (because it was given to the Queen to eat when she visited here). This particular specimen was shot by our friend George whilst it was raiding his vegetable garden, digging up yams. Various of George's friends and relatives got a piece, and I was forewarned by Joy, George’s granddaughter, that this particular gibnut must have been about 90 years old, it was so tough.

So I decided to try a little science, and knocked down a few wild papayas from our tree, broke them open, and smeared them all over the meat – a piece of belly I think. The idea is that the enzymes in papaya act as a tenderizer. After a couple of hours, I rinsed the papaya goo off and marinated the joint with sesame oil, brown sugar, chopped garlic and fresh orange juice for a couple of hours. Then it was cooked in the oven on a low light for about three hours.

The result? Delicious and tender! It’s a bit like pork or maybe more like wild boar. Anyway, it’s very good, and just a pity that we don’t get it more often. They are wild animals though the odd one is kept in the village, as pets I think. It would be interesting to know why they aren’t farmed, though I have heard that there are some plans to set up smallholdings with gibnut farming. I have a permanent request with the local hunters for “Gibnut please!” but so does everyone else!

We managed to hatch just one egg from the latest clutch, and I was pleased to even have that as Wozina deserted the nest midway through to look after Tinsel and I didn’t notice in time. Spotty was put on the nest to finish the brooding, and she has been rewarded by a beautiful little baby of whom she is very proud. Now it seems that I may have yet another chicken going broody, must be a dry season phenomenon.

We killed a couple of roosters the other day, not my favourite job but it has to be done. Rambo and I do the dirty deed as a joint project, as we are both a bit soft (Chris’s function is chief taster). Turns out that we have an interesting variant, black skin chicken – actually more like grey, with dark flesh. This is highly prized by Chinese people apparently, cooked with ginseng it is supposed to do wonders. We will be serving it up as coq au vin to our next guests, should we warn them?

I have also found out that my punk chickens are frizzles, this is a genetic condition which makes the feathers stick out, and can be bred for. So looks as if we will have the frizzle strain in future chickens. I think they are cute, but as apparently it isn’t a good idea to breed frizzle to frizzle, it means we will be culling the frizzle roosters quite young.

Well, that’s all for today, off to do some work in the garden. More news soon.

Well after something of a busy time, I finally have a moment to sit down and wish our readers a happy new year. We have been full since the end of November and we now have a little break until our next guests arrive.

Fishing has been superb, with the highlight for us a 70lb nurse shark caught by Steve Polley from the end of our dock. Very expertly handled on 20lb line and a 2 3/4lb rod, and witnessed by an admiring crowd including Ian and his little girl Ariel, who had her first close up sight and touch of a shark. Steve Wade, Steve Polley, Sue Polley, Ian Zeffert and Larry Schlorff all had memorable fishing firsts, including snook, tarpon, bonefish, permit and much more.

Steve and Ros Wade stayed with us for five weeks, and they are now more or less part of the family, they are promising to come again next year. We had to examine their luggage carefully when they left, as they were threatening to kidnap Faye and Suzie Q, as did Steve and Sue Polley. I think the dogs were a little tempted by the thought of delicious Sainsbury’s dog food!

We had some rather chilly (by our standards) weather at the beginning of December, a low sat over the western Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and didn’t seem to want to move. The rainy season has gone on and on, but seems to have more or less ended now. By the middle of the month much nicer weather set in and we had day after day of very calm weather, perfect for fishing with just a little light cloud to cool things down.

One of the fun things which guests have been doing this winter is spending time catching pretty little fish from the end of the dock. These included a sea horse – one of two which we have spotted hanging around the posts of our dock. Steve P caught this by hand, though we disallowed this from our record list! Our little black and yellow pet fish, Nemo and Nemetta, resisted capture to the end. Probably the best small fish caught was a 10” long leather fish, caught by Sue P, quite a monster for this species.

The big news is, I suppose, that we now have our backup generator up and running. Having run just on solar seamlessly for 18 months, the day the generator was installed we needed to run it. A combination of a full house with some of the strangest, most overcast weather we have experienced meant that the solar couldn’t cope on its own – at least, not without having to cut back electricity consumption drastically, which is not ideal when we have guests. The generator has coped beautifully, it runs very quietly and the fuel consumption is excellent, so we are very pleased with it. It lives in the new generator building, which Rambo has built behind the old generator building, and which is surrounded by an area which will become a garden, with a cane fence. It is painted a fetching lilac colour, and actually looks quite nice.

Christmas was suitably jolly, with traditional Christmas dinner with turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, peas and yes, brussels sprouts! We also had Christmas pud surrounded by hibiscus flowers and carried out to the veranda in the dark, looking very pretty, finally cheese and port. Ian joined us for dinner, and he enjoyed the “white woman food” and the Christmas traditions.

So what lovely pressies did you get, I hear you ask? Well, Chris had two boxes of his favourite sweeties, Maynard’s Wine Gums, also we had a lovely Sunday newspaper and a dvd from Robert, and a cd holder for the truck from Sam and Martha, shortbread and Harrod’s jam from Steve and Ros, oh, and I got three new chickens.

The chickens are kind of punk looking with sticky out feathers, I spotted them at Maya Centre, the village where the jaguar reserve is situated, while we were stopping off to buy Maya crafts. I asked the lady there if she would sell me some, and went back and bought two hens, a black one and a white one. The lady gave me a small brown one as a Christmas present – not sure if it’s a rooster or a hen, I hope it’s a rooster. They are called Holly, Ivy and Tinsel.

Tinsel was put into the broody coop where Wozina was sitting on some eggs. He is rather small, so he was safe in there rather than being loose with the main flock. After a couple of days, Wozina abandoned her eggs, figuring that there was a lovely baby there that she could have for her own, without all this sitting around. I had to hastily put another broody on the eggs, hopefully I noticed in time that Wozina had left them, and they should hatch in a few days time. Meantime, Wozina thinks Tinsel is the most lovely baby in the world, and makes a huge mother hen fuss of him all day long. The pair will be moved to the main coop if we manage to hatch the eggs.

We have too many roosters at the moment, so next week we will be doing a bit of culling, not our favourite job, but we will have some nice coq au vin to show for it. You really can’t get sentimental about the chickens. We only name those we plan to keep as broodies or roosters, and some of the layers get named.

Well, now we are about to watch Man Utd and Newcastle on TV, come on you Reds!