Friends!

Monday, February 3, 2014.

Munchkin and I spend the day preparing for our friends arrival.  We scooted all over the place trying to get our bearings and pick up a few things we still needed.  The morning started with Brenda meeting the caretaker of the house next store Florenzio.  This fellow is a wealth of local knowledge, he has been living on Ambergris for 37 years.  He came here as the only policeman posted to the islands.  When he got here there was only one truck and a motorcycle, neither of which belonged to the police department!  Florenzio resigned from the police force when they were going to transfer him away.  He said that he fell in love with the islands and there was schooling for his children so he and his wife (44yrs together!) made the decision to stay.  He said that it turned out to be a financially sound move, he was making a whopping $25US/month with the police force and said that his next job was bringing over four times as much.  So, Munchie being the shrinking violet that she is asked Florenzio if we could use the pool at the mansion he looks after.  He said no problem as there was no one renting it until Friday.  (It rents for $1,000/night)  Florenzio has been the full time caretaker next door for the past 7 years.  He has 4 adult children, 12 grandchildren and 2 great grandbabies!  Florenzio is our man!  He has contacts for anything that you want to do here and he is strongly opinionated regarding honesty and right and wrong!

So after a few hours in the sun, we got ready to head into town and pick up Shannon, JT, and Dan.  They were due in on the 6pm Tropic Air, but were able to jump on an earlier flight and landed here about 5:30.  We picked them up in our chariot and made the journey to the shack!  Of course we had a small styro cooler of cold Belikin for the ride home, as I knew the boys would be parched!

That night proved to be an early one for JT and Shannon.  The rigors of the journey had taken their toll!  Daniel, however, was another story.  He hit the wall, but persevered, powered through it and Munchkin, Daniel and myself walked the breach trail down to the Palapa Bar.  Well, wouldn't you know it, Monday was a slow evening for the Palapa and as we stepped onto the pier, the lights went off.  We did walked up to Ivan and his crew, but no matter what kind of promises and veiled threats, they were not going to re-open just for us loud Canucks!
We walked back to the shack, got pelted by a sudden flash rain storm, waited for it to subside, then headed over to the Pirate's Treasure.  Its about 100 meters south of us on the lagoon side.  The PT was open and had two patrons when we arrived.  The couple at the bar were from the southern US and definitely had a few that evening!  They told us about a musician, Kelly McGuire, a Buffettesque performer who will be playing at Fido's on Thursday.  Once armed with this information, my darling bride, who was attempting to ensure that no bottle of vodka go unemptied, promptly invited our crew to join the couple at Fido's on Thursday!  As they left the Pirate's Munchie could be heard, by just about everyone, telling them to save us seats if they get there before us and we will do the same if we get there ahead of them!  Like that's going to happen!  Munchie did not recall that part of the evening the next morning!  After enjoying our lionfish nacho's and 18 frenchfries (that was all the cook could get out of the single potato that she peeled and sliced to make the fries), we said good night to the owners, Jason, bartender, food service etc, and his wife, Marisia, cook and head of the kitchen, we skipped home and called it a night.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014.
We woke to a blustery morning, lots of clouds, wind and the occasional rain shower.  The sun came out often between mini storms blowing through.  We spend the day next door at the mansions pool with Florenzio spending most of the day with us.  He is just a fantastic fellow.  JT and I were able to set up two tank dive for Saturday, compliments of Florenzio's son Rick, manager at Ramons Dive Shop.  The dive boat will pick us up at our own dock in the morning and then JT, me, and the divemaster will head out!  The price quoted was very reasonable as well!  We also had Florenzio set up a private charter for us on Friday.  The boat will come and get us at our dock, we will then head out to Shark Alley for some snorkeling, then over to Caye Caulker for lunch and shopping (prices are supposed to be quite a bit lower there compared to San Pedro).  After lunch we will head back by way of Hol Chan reef for more snorkeling then home.  The charter includes Belikin, water and pop!  The best part is we stay inside the reef where the going is smoother and no leg will be longer than about 15 minutes, so Dan should fair well on this one!

We walked down to the Palaba for a late lunch.  There were quite a few people there so we pulled up some nice shiny white stools from the sun and discovered they were out there for a reason, fresh paint!  JT and I both got some white on us, but not enough to dampen the spirits (and JT didn't get any on his HD T!)
After a few Belikins and the girls froo froo libations, we went back to the shack.  Florenzio had lent us a couple of fishing rods and Dan decided to try out his angling prowess.  Well wouldn't you know it he's getting bites!  He shouts to JT about his good fortune, which JT believed was a call for beer, and takes out a cold one to our pier fisherman.  When JT gets there Dan's got a monster on the line!  He is waging a Herculean battle with this denizen of the deep, JT steps up to lend a hand.  No sooner does JT take the rod, than, SNAP, the line parts and the battle is done!  Now depending on who is telling the story the reasons for the lose are a bit varied, Dan believes the less skilled efforts of his good friend factored into the results and JT just believes the fish was too damned big for the line!  You can decide for yourselves when you here the story from them!

We headed into town for a late dinner.  We pulled up to Elvi's and decided to give it a go.  Everyone we had talked to recommended it.  Well is was very good.  The three boys had the seafood special, lobster, crab, snapper, shrimp, conch, squid all blackened and served on a bed of rice with veggies and a starter salad.  It was a huge meal and was fantastic.  The girls had margerita shrimp and creole shrimp and both of those meals were awesome as well.  Our servers, Sean and Gilmar, were a pair of characters and looked after us well.
After the meal we headed back north, made a quick stop at the Pirate's for a Belvedere (brought in special by Jason to quell Brenda's constant chatter about not finding it anywhere) a couple of Belikins and a CR for JT.

We called it an early night and struck for home.

Side note:  a couple of locals adopted us and are now frequent guests on our beach, Budha and Banana.  There belong to a fellow who lives across the road from our place.  Very well behaved and calm.

2nd side note:  Here is a list of Brenda-isms, some are liquor induced others when she is stone cold sober!
"Crub Pall" (pub crawl to most) Backened Slapper (blackened snapper) Freezer Head (brain freeze) and Red Snatchers (red snapper)

One last comment on this post, forgot to mention our encounter with some members of the "Rider Pride".  Met them at the Palapa Bar.  They are awesome folks!  Would be remiss not to mention any meetings with Saskabushers, having so many in our party!  Cheers to the Riders!