Fancy Free Marina & Remote Anchorages, Post 26-19
- sondrawinter
- May 10
- 5 min read
Updated: May 13
While staying at a very nice free marina, we met several cruisers heading to Guatemala. From there, we headed out to some remote cays to enjoy very quiet anchorages.
Friday, May 1 through Thursday, May 7, 2026
Red Rock Marina
Friday - Monday
Pelican Cays to Red Rock Marina Friday, April 26 | 13 miles | 12 NM Once we were free of the mooring ball, we backtracked our way between the shallows to reach the deep waters of the Inner Channel. Just a few hours later we entered the Sapodilla Lagoon and traversed our way through what was apparently a cut through mangroves to reach Red Rock Marina.
We opted to come to this marina for a couple of reasons. One being that poor weather was in the forecast. The second is that the marina has a free dockage offer ongoing at the moment.
Red Rock is the new name of an development that failed under a prior owner that is encouraging boats to come to the marina. Their website is focused on selling property, so I suspect that a marina filled with boats is a better selling point than a ghost town marina. The only cost to us was our power usage. It was great to have a free garbage dumpster, and availability to coin laundry, which we also took advantage of.
There were a few cruising boats at the marina whom we had met before, then we met people from a few other boats while at Red Rock, also coming in to avoid poor weather. We chatted with these cruisers on the docks, at the most incredible “marina” pool, and during an impromptu potluck under an awesome palapa which was at one time a bar.
Laundry & bathhouse | Jimmy getting a haircut with a pretty view
Well maintained grounds | Former bar palapa now a cruiser hangout
With only a few houses constructed in the giant development, all of the commercial entities in the development were shut down, yet the grounds have been kept up very well. One of the other cruisers said it felt like were sneaking into a rich person’s backyard, especially after visiting the pool which is reached either by a 2-mile walk or 1 mile dinghy ride.
The pool is adjacent to the sea and is surrounded by palapas to hide from the sun.
Eventually the poolside restaurant will re-open, but in the meantime, we enjoyed bringing our lunches and beverages. For the first several hours, it was just cruisers at the pool. Then sometime after lunch the residents began to show up, and they were all so welcoming, friendly and happy to chat with the cruisers. This may be an upscale neighborhood, but they certainly do not have the exclusive Fort Lauderdale vibe. From a quick glimpse at parts of a video that was suggested to us by a few people, I can see that the realtor representing the development has a sense of humor which fits with the easy going vibe of this community.
Another benefit of staying at this marina was having land access. We took a few walks accompanied by lots of birdsong. However, we did not linger often to get a better look at the birds because the mosquitos and biting flies encouraged us to keep moving.
North Long Coco & Rendezvous Cays
Monday - Thursday
Red Rock Marina to Rendezvous / N. Long Coco Cays Monday, May 4 | 26 miles | 22 NM We left the marina around 10:30 a.m. following our path back out to the deeper waters of the Inner Channel where we raised all three sails heading southeast to Rendezvous Cay. Upon approach the cay we began to douse the staysail, however the furler locked up with the sail halfway rolled up. We pulled the sail back out to try again, however, once fully pulled out, the sail would not roll up at all. Thankfully we still had some deep water before reaching the cay, and both of us went up on deck to manually pull the sail down and lash it to the deck.
Rendezvous Cay
Rendezvous Cay is a private island operating a resort called Rhythm Reef. There is a bar that can be opened upon appointment and the giant catamaran with many, many people onboard did just that. The cay itself is very pretty and the water clear. Jimmy jumped in after anchoring to check the set. He found a shallow layer of sand on top of hard rock and asked me to turn the engine back on and back down on the anchor at a higher than our usual anchoring rpm. He said it dug in a little bit deeper and was comfortable with the set.
I didn’t get off the boat until the next morning after we took apart the furler, reset the line and reattached the sail. The furler is looking a tad aged and probably could use some special TLC this summer. Once that project was completed, we jumped into the water to cool off. Shortly afterwards we fired up the engine to move to another anchorage less than a mile away with better weather protection after finding the predicted winds did not match actual conditions.
North Long Coco Cay
The anchor was set at North Long Coco Cay before lunch on Tuesday and we spent the afternoon swimming and snorkeling around the cay. The cay appears to have a few houses with no shore access to cruisers.
Close to the anchorage we found some healthy looking coral patches that were over 6’ in depth, attracting a variety of fish giving us a superb snorkeling experience.
We’ve been happy to find little patches of good coral here and there in Belize, but we certainly have seen many more areas filled with unhealthy coral. It is a tricky balance of admiring these reefs and protecting them. At the urging of a few marine experts, we are using reef-safe sunscreen in places along with covering up as much as possible to reduce the amount of sunscreen needed. Anchoring itself is also something that can weaken coral, so we try to find places where our anchor rode will not sweep coral on the sea floor as winds and tides change.
Return to Placencia
Thursday
Rendezvous / N. Long Coco Cays to Placencia Thursday, May 7 | 19 miles | 17 NM Mid morning we weighed anchor and headed southwest towards Placencia. We crossed a few low lying areas along the way where the depths quickly go from 100’ to 10’ deep. The water is so clear that you can see the bottom 70’ below the boat, and the 10’ deep sections look much shallower than they are.
We’ll stay in Placencia long enough to replenish the our stores, to fill up our dinghy gasoline tank, and to pick up some paperwork needed to exit Belize later in the month.
Post 26-19
Looks like you have reach perfect cruising mode.