These 21 days of location Blogs chronicle a boat repair foray to "After The Storm" on the hard in Belize that occurred the end of February 2007, to mid March 2007. The assignment like most of my interesting work these days came via the Internet where Charlie and I exchanges ideas for over six months before I ever stepped on a plane.

The picture to the left is the view from my bedroom window overlooking shrimp pond #1. It would be this or a similar view that was the first image at dawn and the last fleeting glimpse of the horizion at night.

I had originally been introduced to Charlie by a friend who had visited him the year before and the more we talked the better I liked the man. Charlie is best described as a Canadian son who embraced tropical entrepreneurism 25 years ago. He has a large shrimp farm outside the edge of town perhaps 20 kilometers from Belize City where much of the story is set, the Highwayman gas station and general store, a construction comapny with a small fleet of aged construction equipment, much of it in poor repair. To finish it all off Charlie lost an arm years ago, eaten by a crocodile if you believe him. Charlie says he moved south as he can conduct his affairs pointing with his stump. Overall it is impossible not to like Mr. Charlie. He is one of the last free spirits.

Overall this was a long needed break away form the cold and snow where my body behaved itself and let me get some work done. That is enough preamble it is time for me to get to the Blogs.

February 22, 2007

This will be a long day as I have only had a few hours of sleep before begining my journey to the airport. As Murphy would have it there is a heavy wet snow falling heavily enough to white out ones vision. The tirp in was uneventful as it should be and I was parked in Park & Fly, to stand in line a good two hours before take off. Waiting in the departure lounge it the only entertainment was watching the crews try to remove the relentless snow. For all the new security I thought the clearance and boarding went quite well. De-icing was compleatly overwhelmed and the snow removal crew working full bore.It was one and a half hours before we slid onto the de-icing pad and the first jets of de-icer washed over the Airbus 319.

Mexicana Airline did an admirable job of setting the tone with a open bar and decent meal. Our flight path crossed into the Gulf of Mexico at the Mississippi delta then dicecting the offshore oil fields as we crossed the Gulf of Mexico. It has been years since I flew over the Gulf and I was blown away at the level of offshore oil development. You fly for over an hour and it looks like a welll organized parking lot below.

Mexico City February 22, 2007

After loosing time to the de-icing in toronto there was no time to do anything but hang out in the cantena in the main hall of M exico City Airport. I had come south with a suitcase full of Sitkaflex for After The Storm's deck. When we reached Mexico City there was all the security of LAX or NYC, all checked bagage was x-rayed and opened and the dozen tubes of Sitkaflex must have looked interesting when combined with a selection of tools. Old concerns surfaced as I imagined starting my trip as a guest of the Federalies.

But my declaration was already in and if the bag was inspected my goose would be cooked and I would be paying a Mexican official. Fortunatley my bag was checked to Chetemal where inspection was limited at best.

21:00 hrs. February 22: Chetemal, Mexico

Charlie was nearly as tired as me and the first order of business was catching something to eat and a couple of beer. For whatever reason we spent a couple of hours wandering the roads of Chetemal looking for this pizza place. It had been a while since I had been exposed to what poor conditions and shanty houses people in other countries live in. The narrow streets were alive and packed with people going about their after work routines. There wer huge contrasts in the town which sported impressive new infrastructure in the way of overpasses and road work. We never found the pizza place and ended up in local Cantinas having excellent tacos where the real steak was cooked in front of you in an open kitchen. A bowel of pan fried steak chunks and peppers are then served with a warm container of soft shell tacos and a selection of trimmings.

After several beers and a fine feed of fresh tacos we finally found our way out of Chetemal and on the road to Belize. As a final thought Charlie picked up a Big Mac as a carry out for his girlfriend Kim back in Belize. Checking out of Mexico and into Belize was painless and it was not until the first police checkpoint that I really knew I had arrived in the tropics.

As we were ready to leave the checkpoint a local cop asked for a ride back south which was fine. The realization I was not in Kansas was when he offered us a beer. So we all set off drinking and driving through the night. As it turned out we ended up having to give the cop a ride back to his place as it was too dangerous at that time of night for him to walk. Hint #2 you are not in Kansas any more when the cops are afraid to walk home. It was not until the next morning that we discovered that the friendly fellow had scoffed down the Big Mac as well during the ride. Hint #3 you have entered a different reality.