The China Town Hotel AKA hurricane refuge had served it's purpose, time to move back to the beach. It cost us twice the price but it was the safest place to be. Cable TV and air con was nice while we had it but the hotel was just another impersonal characterless place. I don't really like hotels, sure they are comfortable but you don't get that personal community feeling.

We had a look for a place to stay up the beach towards the split. The split is literaly that, a water filled split in the island created during a previous hurricane. Here we found Mara's Place right on the beach and the same price of the first place 20USD (pretty much as cheap as it gets here). However it had two important inclusions: a kitchen and a hamock that pretty much sold it without further looking. Other factors
concreted the deal: it's own private pier with hamocks over the water (that I cannot pull Liz away from). Also cable TV, on suite bathroom and wifi that unfortunately we cannot yet connect to. This is the kind of place that makes you feel right, the kind of place you would go to write or simply to be at harmony with the beautiful surroundings. In more tangible terms they are simple painted wooden summer house type places with a deck out the frount.

The place however was discovered first by the Aussie Girls who are probally still stuck in Belize City after being evacuated there. Ironically they got the full force of the almost category 2 hurricane (simply because that is precisely where it was heading). Power lines are down and there is no chance of getting away as all the boats had been taken away for the huricane. Belize city is prone to flooding which is normally one of the big problems with hurricanes other than the wind of course. If you however retreat to the hills then you run a greater risk of flash floods and the big killer out here - landslides. OK they have a hurricane shelter but any none low lying concrete building in good condition would suffice for cat 1 or 2 hurricanes. I am chuft we made the right decision to stay put for the storm.

Instead of being stuck in nasty Belize City I swam across the warm waters of the nearby split to explore the other side. On the way there I saw a wierd jellyfish with what looked like minute adder snakes going off in all directions.

There was not a lot on the other side, lots of mangroves and no signs of life apart from what appeared to be a fait path heading through the mangroves. I followed it through brimy water for a while but mangroves wiff a bit and the sun was cooking me. I was about to turn back when I saw a sign for an artist place. Strange place for a sign, who reads it, and how coincidental that it is there just as I had almost given up proceeding further. I continued on past some disused huts and a wooden tourist building with six or so large rooms and a sign outside saying property for sale $100. The place looked like it had hardly been used. Further on I past a mass of copper coloured butterflies feeding off small blue wild flowers and the noise of a dog barking. Someone did live over here but there was nothing to indicate that it was anything other than a private home. I puzzled over it as I headed back with the new objective of trying to swim to the end of the pier and scare Liz reading a book on the hamock.