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As we worked south and past a river, we started to see a long, wandering peninsula. We expected Placencia to be on one, but didn't realize how narrow it was. Most of it looked to be no more than 100 yards. I thought I remembered the runway cutty across the penninsula from maps, and this wasn't nearly wide enough. I was trying to figure this out as suddenly the plane nosed over into final approach. We couldn't see the runway in front of us until it was under our wheels on a levee built out a thousand feet or so into the lagoon.
We got out and walked over to a small pre-fab hut that served as the office then stood on the apron until the second plane, another Islander with two passengers bound for San Pedro Sula dropped in and left our luggage. A bit later a van appeared to take us down the flooded red mud road to Robert's Grove.
The penninsula is rustic. It snakes about 20 miles down the coast somewhere south of Dangriga. There's a graded dirt road that goes down the center usually with either the Carribean visible on one side or the lagoon on the other. The road is graded regularly so that it doesn't disappear, as it was trying to do the day we arrived. It passes through Seine Bight, then is bisected by the runway (locals walk across the runway instead of detouring down the levee) and eventually winds up at Placencia as the land runs out.
For all the rustic nature of the coast, The Inn at Robert's Grove is an oasis. Beautiful white colonial building, lush landscaping, the best pool I've found in the Carribean, and the perfect beach. It turns out they also had the best restaurant in the area, and Deanne and I regretted that we hadn't taken the weeklong meal plan. Lynn and Cheryl did and had lobster every night. And ususally prepared differntly as the chef really knew his stuff. We'd planned on eating out some, but there wasn't much chice in Placencia, and the people from other resorts were coming over to Robert's Grove for dinner -- especially on nights when electricit was out and our kitchen was known for being able to run without it.
The weather was mixed the first day, but no boats were running out the 10 miles to the reef. We met Joe and his wife who were waiting to dive, and they had researched all the operations and told us they were going out with Rum Point as that was the only boat they'd really trust on the type of sea's we would be on. The Auriga II is a 42ft jet boat with twin 300 hp jets. Other operations, including Seahorse which the inn was booking us with, all had outboards. We decied to go with Joe and Suzanne with Rum Point
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On Thursday the diving was around Ranquana Caye, perhaps our favorite outing. Not only did we dive the wall, where you come over the edge and stare down as blue turns to black, with manta's and sharks sweeping up from the depths, checking out the top, and disappearing agin, but the surface interval was fun. The crew of the dive boat were also cerifing a new dive master, so they had taken the boat out for his training dives while we spent a couple hours on the caye. Someone started playing catch with a snall coconut, then I found a piece of driftwood that was sort of like a bat. And suddenly we were playing coconut baseball. We had to make up some rules -- if the coconut split all pieces could be used to tag runners or caught for a out. Then I pitched to Cheryl (aka Sluggo) who knocked me off the mound with a line drive leaving a bruise that lasted for months. (Years later I was at a party talking to a girl that said she had a friend that hadjust bought a small island in southern Belize, I was curious and asked more and she said it was Ranguana, to which I replied, "Oh yeah, Ranguana, I used to play baseball for them....)
Another curiousity was the people that were staying there in the cabanas. They had been out there fishing for three weeks and had one more to go. They were eyeing our left over bread from lunch. Seems like bread molds in almost no time and barring daily trips to Placencia they mainly did without bread.
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