Floatchella 2023, Popsicles and a Pesky Crab

I had never heard of Floatchella until August last year (along with frogs that sound like ducks). Apparently, it’s a popular thing, not just in Belize, but other parts of the world too. How did I not know about it?

Back then, it was too late to participate as that would have required me to import a (decent) floatie from North America, which takes a month or so. But we participated in a different way by driving to all the stops and watching the boats and floaties coming in and socializing. It was fun, but I made up my mind then, that I would participate this year – and I did.

Floatchella is a fundraiser for The Peninsula Volunteer Fire Department and is, basically, a floating bar crawl through the crystal-clear Caribbean Sea around picturesque Placencia. Floaties are tied to boats and to each other, and pulled along stopping at various bars and restaurants along the way where rum punch is dished out before moving on to the next stop.

Friends of ours provided the floatie which was big enough for 5 of us – definitely more fun.

The day, a Sunday, started off at Buba Wubas at 8:00 am where I had my first rum punch. I was a bit hesitant as it’s, well, 8:00 am, but this is Belize and it was for a good cause and I wasn’t planning on doing anything else that day except float down the lagoon and on the sea in a floatie.

Before long, we were ready to go and the boat captains got us all organized and tied us all together without too much entanglement.

And then we were floating gently down the lagoon enjoying the scenery and the beautiful day.

First stop – an inn and poolside bar called The Other Side.

We claimed our free rum punch, ordered some food and socialized until the organizers told us it was time to go back onto our floaties, and down the lagoon we went towards the Caribbean Sea. This time, we were a lot more, er, lively due to the rum punches (I think there was a beer or two involved in between).

Second Stop – Alan’s Paradise Hotel

and some inelegant scrambling up a flimsy ladder to the dock. More rum punches and socializing

and then on to the next stop – The Placencia Yacht Club. More inelegant climbing up the ladder to the dock. I think, this time, it had a lot more do to with the rum punch! (and the beers). Can you see a pattern emerging here?

More rum punch, more food, more socializing and I played a game where I won a beer cozie!

Finally, we floated off to our last stop – Barefoot Bar – where we had yet another rum punch, a couple of vodkas, some more food, and socialized some more to the beat of reggae music.

All in all a really great day and definitely the most fun!

Our popsicles are going well and I’m having such fun with them.

We got an order for 60 popsicles for inclusion in drinks at a wedding and they were a real hit. We would be thrilled to do more events like this. I’ve been experimenting, too, with poptails – popsicles with alcohol in them. I made a tequila sunrise one a few days ago, and it was really good.

A couple of days ago, I happened to be leaning over my patio wall when I noticed something different against our garden wall. It looked like it could probably be some kind of creature and it looked liked it was trying to flatten itself against the wall so as not to be seen (our dogs were going back and forth). The more I looked, the more I could see what looked like a crab claw. I went down to have a closer look and there it was a blue land crab trying to make itself as inconspicuous as possible so as not to attract the attention of the dogs. This image is not the actual crab, but he (or she) looked just like this one.

As we approached, he (or she) reared up like the one in this image

and then, armed with a kitchen ladle and a plastic grocery bag, Michael managed to scoop it into the bag after giving chase for a few minutes, and then we let it go in the bush.

I added this to the list of “never in my wildest dreams…”