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Bob Turns 62

It has been awhile since I posted and a good time is now.

April 22nd, Bob turned 62.  Just a young'un.

I spent the day getting pretty, had my hair done, pedicure, manicure, the works... Happy Birthday Bob!!!

We made arrangements to go to Tranquilo on Placencia Caye for dinner.

First stop was Barefoot for pre dinner cocktail.

 

Here is Blake waiting to take us over.

 A great sunset shot.

 The Lost Reefers were playing.

 Yes, we were entertained by the dolphins.

Bob being the Happy Birthday Boy.

We had these incredible Mango Margueritas.

 Appetizer was Gazpacho with a side of corn chips.

Can't forget the Sunset Shot.

Blackened fish on a bed of mashed plantains.

Yummy yummy shrimp also on a bed of mashed plantains.

Geoff made us a special dessert but we ate it so fast I didn't get to take a picture. 

There was lots of people we knew there and it made for a very lovely evening indeed.

When we were ready to leave Blake took us back to Placencia and we made our way down the sidewalk with another stop at Barefoot where Brice treated us to a double double Smurf.  Delicious!!

I hope you had a great birthday my love.

2013 Beach Olympics

We had our Beach Olympics on Sunday July 7th and I went down to check it out.  It was a great day, blue sky, no clouds and hot, hot, hot!

There was food and drinks for sale.

One of the teams was the Firefighters and it looks like Tommy and Shannon are ready to burn up the sands!

One of the Greek Gods (Goddesses) of Placencia.  Dionysus (also sometimes called Baccus) looks like she is ready to rock and roll.

Same team, Stephanie is getting the beer funnel ready.

Keith the Toga guy, I noticed throughout the day that he kept changing shoulders.  He later told me it was so one shoulder wouldn't burn more than the other.

I think Stephanie is ready.

Patrick was tending bar, never did figure out the reason for the helmet.

The water bed wrestling.  Now to be honest, this was before the event.  Yes, that is Kareem practicing his head plant in the water.

Here we have the Firefighters lined up against the Scotia Bank team.

We have some broken noodles, but the fight goes on.

Lost noodles and teams seem to be trading noodles back and forth.

The winners of the first water bed wrestling (?) match is the Firefighters.

Keith seems to have misplaced his toga.

Here we have an example of the Jaws relay as shown by Lynn and Eugene.

Starting line up of the Greasy Watermelon Pass.

An example of the Flipper Race.

There were a lot of teams:
Firefighters, Greek Gods of Placencia, Scotia Bank, Atlantic Bank, Wallin's and Tropic Air just to name a few.  There was so much going on that I just could not be everywhere at once covering everything.

Everyone had a great time and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Kudos to everyone who worked so hard to make it a success.  I can't wait for next year's event.

2013 Lobsterfest

Wasn’t that a Lobsterfest!!!!

 

We had three days of non-stop lobster, music, parades, marching bands, more lobster, duck races, games of chance, more music, and even more lobster.  Did I say there was lobster?

This past weekend was Placencia’s 15^th Annual Lobsterfest, and I think it was the best one yet.  I know for sure that the weather was the best it has been since I started coming to it in 2009.

It all started on Friday morning with a ‘Walk for Cancer’.  I didn’t get up early enough for the start, but I did see the finish.  Three Cheers for the walkers. 

We had a parade with a real marching band.  They came all the way from Corazol just for us.  Then things just got busy.  We had lots of different bands playing constantly, they come from all over the country… as well as some local talent and some jams.

There was a duck race, which was a little different.  I had only seen them put into a river before.  The water was flat calm and it took a while for them to get started.  Once they did, there were five winners.

There was a lobster cook off, now how cool is that?  We had Thai lobster soup for lunch, grilled lobster for dinner Friday night, Saturday we had lobster/snapper/shrimp bouillabaisse for dinner, and on Sunday night we had lobster skewers.  That is probably enough lobster for this week.

There was a Placencia Lobsterfest Trivia Challenge, a steel band, the Seine Bight drummers and dancers, a Lionfish Cookoff, a great fire dancer, the T-shirts were the best yet, and so many other things were happening, it just couldn’t all be taken in.  One would just have to come back another year.

Placencia Sailing Regatta 2013

Well, yesterday was the first of two days of the Placencia Sailing Regatta.  We walked down to check it out and take some photos.  I got a great shot of the halo around the sun.

Halo around the sun

According to their face book page "The Placencia Sailing Club is located in Belize. We are the 4th sailing club in the country. We teach children how to sail in optimist boats and race in regattas."

In actuality, they do far more than that.  I was watching the people yesterday and it was a drawing together of the community as a whole.

Preparations underway

The kids were great, and determined.  The waves were high and it was difficult to launch the boats off the beach, there were boats swept over and kids tossed out.  But to give credit where credit is due, they flipped their boats over, climbed back in and bailed the water out before starting off again.  Some couldn't get back in so they pushed or pulled their boats back to the shored, emptied the water, reset the rudders and center board and off they went again.

He's down

He's back and bailing

Sometimes the waves just won't cooperate

But perseverance wins

There were a few unsung heroes, one of them our friend Keith from Above Ground Coffee.  He was out to his neck with a boat, helping the kids launch off the beach.  He got that one off and went to the next one.  It was then that I found out that he can't swim, but there he was up to his neck in waves helping one after another.  Keith wasn't the only one either, there were a number of helpers all doing it for the kids.

Lots of volunteers 

And the race is on

Everyone on their way.