What about Belize?

[LakePirate]

I've been reading about Belize as a good place to retire. I haven't seen anything on sailing or living aboard though. Any experience here?

[sawingknots]

hey now someone has to stay and mind the store,will the last american that leaves plz bring the flag

[lshick]

We enjoyed Belize. They have a fascinating history as a tiny sliver of English-speaking territory in the midst of Spanish Mexico and Central America, and a complex mixture of heritages. Belize can make a good center of operations from which to tour the Mayan ruins in Guatemala and Mexico.

You need to be comfortable (or get comfortable) with sailing among reefs (eyeball navigation), know your anchoring, and, if you do the outer islands (Lighthouse, etc.), you'll have some narrow passes to deal with. But our experience with the people and the anchorages was all positive. You can click here for my wife's writeup on our time in Belize.

One "however" though: if your plan includes heading on to Panama, understand that by going down the Yucatan and Belize you're buying yourself a lot of miles dead to windward to get around Cabo Gracias a Dios, and you may want to think seriously about going straight from the Bahamas to Panama via the Windward Passage.

Good luck, and enjoy Belize.

[TQA]

Much bigger liveaboard community up the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. Lake Isabel is a big if you want to go sailing for a day or two.

[RonRelyea]

Originally Posted by LakePirate

I've been reading about Belize as a good place to retire. I haven't seen anything on sailing or living aboard though. Any experience here?

Lake Pirate ... You must have read the same article I did on yahoo ... it does sound like a great place to retire from that article! It's got me thinking about it too.

[Allanbc]

Belize if a great place to retire if you can live the lifestyle of Belize. Belize is an easy place to be poor. If you want to live an expensive lifestyle in Belize, you need to start with a large fortune because it will quickly become a small fortune. Belize has lots of pluses and minuses. I have traveled extensively in Central America for over 20 years and have spent long periods of time working on archeological projects in both Belize and Guatemala. (I am currently sitting in a hotel in Placencia Belize.)

Given the choice, I would choose Belize over Guatemala but that is just me.

[marshappynation]

My husband and I spent three weeks cruising the waters of Belize and had a wonderful time! We went back and forth between the mainland and the islands trying to see everything and ran out of time on our boat permit well before we were done. If you're going to sail Belize you really need a shallow draft vessel, especially in southern Belize and at the atolls (Even with 10" draft we nearly gored ourselves multiple times on lighthouse reef!). When we were there we saw almost no other boats (maybe because it was hurricane season?) with the exception of the wooden Sarteneja boats. The fishermen go out in groups of 10 or so for a couple weeks at a time and are usually very friendly and will advise you or help with any problems/questions you have while out on the water.

We alsovmade friends with quite a few retired americans living there and heard very little complaints. The main complaints we heard were regarding electricity costs and one sailing friend of ours had an incident with the port authority in Belize City which soured him on the country. Retirees have told us it's a great place to retire, but a bad one to try and keep working ("You can make a million dollars in Belize if you go down with two million")

The only problem we had was also in Belize City (an interesting place, but not very popular or particularly safe) where we became the victims of some terrible little rock/fish gut throwing boys!

Anyway, in our opinion Belize is great. Overall the people are laid back and friendly, there are vast areas of protected jungles, islands, reefs, etc. The atolls are indescribably awesome and well, I could go on all day. We really love Belize, but it is more expensive than its neighboring countries because they are so small they have to import a lot and their import fees are very high.