Hey Dan,

I rate Belize as one of my favorite cruising areas I've ever been, I loved it there... Everyone says it's like the Bahamas were 20 or more years ago, and I would agree, it's very easy to get away from the crowd there - no Explorer charts yet for Belize, you actually might have to do some piloting, and trust your own lyin' eyes... (grin)

You might take such SSB net chatter with a grain of salt, however... When I was there a few years ago, Belize was supposed to be collecting an anchoring fee for whenever you anchored within designated national marine park waters, which cover a LOT of the area down there... While I tended to avoid the most popular spots, and never made it out to Lighthouse Reef, I did anchor in such places numerous times, and never saw any park ranger boat come by to collect any fee... They simply didn't have the resources to do so at that time...

However, if they're gonna charge a nightly fee based on the total length of your stay between checking into the country and clearing out, that could be a whole different ballgame, and could be pretty easy to collect if you needed to obtain clearance from the country...

Hard to believe they could be this shortsighted, but as they've displayed with some of the fines they've levied against sailors damaging coral reefs, they're certainly not gaining a reputation for being "cruiser friendly".... $3.4 million worth of damage to a reef done by a 38' catamaran???

http://www.reporter.bz/index.php?mod=archive&act=view&article=3515

Keep us posted on what you hear, I was thinking about maybe heading back down there next winter...

best regards,

Jon