Puncture Wounds, Cold Showers, A Trip South, CBA Approval!

Rough re-entry into "real life" after living in "vacation mode" with all of our guests.

Vandam fixed our water leak as planned...but we weren't getting hot water. Nathan tinkered with the tank, checked the outlets, troubleshot everything he could think of - and then realized, we had a HOT water line leak - meaning, water emptied from the tank. The heating element burned up. Guess what's not on the island? A replacement heating element. Amazon sells 2 for $37, so they'll be here in 3-4 weeks...meaning, cold showers for us.

Walks on the beach have been less frequent compliments of the sargasso influx - it's really bad in some spots like coves, where it all gets caught. This is from the condo community just north of 303 Belize:

Thursday after work, Nathan and I went for a walk and I took a bag with raw chicken packaging in it to put in the dumpster. While trying to one-hand lift the lid - and also hold my water and my phone - I caught the wood lid with the fleshy, pinkie-end of my hand to have a rusty screw puncture deep into it. A rusty screw that hangs over garbage, rotting in the tropical sun. There's no telling what I'll catch from that injury - fortunately, I had a travel-size hand sanitizer with us, and we walked straight home with me leaving a trail of blood down my forearm and all over the ground. A doctor did talk me into getting a Tetanus shot before we moved. 

Friday I took a meeting with Alex, our architect, to go over cost-saving suggestions to bring the estimate on our build down. He had some high costs in there that we know will be much more cost-effective to import from China ($175kBZ for solar, for example) and he did relay that we won't have to re-apply for a building permit unless we expand stories or square feet, which won't be happening. We did get our CBA (Central Building Authority) bill, and sent our payment, which Alex said signals their approval of our plans. We should have our building permit within two weeks (Belize time).

Saturday we decided to drive to the very southern tip of the island, a trip we haven't made since...2020...? "South" of town is very popular for those with school-aged children on account of all of the private schools being down there; we don't journey that way often as there's not much for us that justifies the long drive. It was cool to see some new structures and progress; surprisingly the condos/resort at the very tip of the island had work going on! It was called, "La Sirene" and its Facebook page was last active in 2021. Not much progress since then, but there was a handful of construction workers there! PRO TIP: If you are considering buying a property before it's constructed, please understand that there is NO guarantee when - if ever - it will be finished!

On the way back we popped into the semi-new Hula Bar over the water for a cocktail and restroom break. It's really kitschy, as I presume all tiki-themed bars are, and fairly expensive - US$10 for a mojito or rum punch - but we rolled into Happy Hour from 2-4 daily, and my mojito was only US$5. Nathan ordered a very manly drink with boba and kiwi in it for US$9.

Yesterday saw us head out to Secret Beach - we did some weeding on our property - it's crazy how fast things sprout up, and this is during dry season! We had trimmed dead fronds off of our few remaining self-planted coconut palms, and overall, they look much better with some new growth. We pruned some of the other trees on this trip, but will need to bring back our battery-powered chain saw for the larger branches.

A little after 3 some menacing-looking clouds were brewing, so we packed up and headed home. Nathan has become fluent in reading clouds, as well as the time based on the sun's position. Around the Palm Market, the skies were DARK over the reef, and by the time we hit Pur, the skies broke! We had a good downpour for the rest of the ride home that continued a little after our arrival. Chilly rain made our cold shower feel better than normal, though! 

This week's "to do" list has us nailing down our builder on costs and agreement, I'm currently taking a break from TurboTax data entry, and I need to buy more white paint to finish painting our yard fence. We want to have black dirt delivered before the proposed ban on trucks through town takes place (if it actually does) as I'm sure the cost will go up if they have to barge trucks up and down the island. 

Enjoy your week!