When the Sky Falls in Belize

Worry woke me hours before the predawn flight, a character flaw I’ve never been able to tame. A global pandemic had quashed my previous trip to Belize, and a preseason hurricane of potentially catastrophic magnitude was on the horizon this time. Not one for staying indoors waiting for the world to fall apart, I’ve adopted an attitude that could be diagnosed with all sorts of psychotherapeutic jargon, but is best described as a case of the “fuck-its.”

The next morning, I stepped onto the bow of Oliver Garbutt’s panga in Punta Gorda, a mecca for the permit-obsessed. Oliver and his brothers, Eworth and Scully, share the crown as the best permit guides in Belize, and maybe beyond. After a 40-minute ride, we entered a lagoon north of Punta Gorda. We wound through a maze of mangroves until my internal compass spun in sweeping fits, clawing for some marker to establish true north. Forever doomed to pointless small talk with my guide, I asked, “You ever get lost back here?” Oliver responded, “When I was 12.”

Once Oliver killed the engine, I could parse east from west. An inland gale draped a blanket of stratus clouds over the rising sun, and those beyond promised heavy rain. We took our time donning jackets, contemplating the rain’s arrival as it swept inland slowly and methodically, transitioning from a smudge of blue-gray on the horizon to a front-line pelting.

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