Baron Bliss Day

From essay written March 9, 1992

Today is the Ninth of March, Baron Bliss Day, a major Belize holiday honoring one of the country’s great benefactors. A British gentleman by the name of Baron Bliss sailed into Caribbean waters in his yacht during the Twenties. He spent some time in Barbados, then set sail for Belize. A radio message was passed from one country to the other saying that the Baron was elderly, not well, and determined to leave his fortune to the country of his choice. When he arrived, he was met at the pilot station by the full complement of boarding officers, not the usual crew, but the Heads of Departments, bowing and scraping and welcoming him to the country.

The yacht duly entered harbor and anchored a hundred yards or so off what is now my veranda. The Baron, in his wheel chair, remained aboard, receiving a stream of ingratiating officials. A few months after his arrival, the poor dear dropped dead. His first and only landing in Belize was when he was brought ashore to be buried on a knoll overlooking the harbor, a couple of blocks from our house.

He left his estate in a trust fund for the country of Belize, with instructions that the Baroness was to received a set amount annually for her lifetime. One Ninth of March many years ago, the radio account of the Baron’s largess included the astounding comment that during World War II, income in the trust diminished severely and there was some problem paying the Baroness. The account continued, “Fortunately, the dear lady died…”

Baron Bliss funds have built our library/auditorium, the School of Nursing, the Fort George lighthouse, with an elegant black crypt for the Baron at its feet, and numerous other civic improvements throughout the country. It think the old boy would be pleased.

 

Baron Bliss Day is celebrated with a sailing regatta, a kite-flying competition, and bicycle races.

Alex always has been involved in the regatta. At one time he bought a dory, a local dugout canoe, outfitted with top-heavy sails, and raced by a three-man crew—one to sail, one to bail, and one to hang king-dola (hang outboard in a trapeze to keep the fragile craft from overturning).

Competition among the dories always has been hot. One blissful year, Alex’s boat sailed what the race announcer, a shipwright, termed “a perfect race,” leaving the others far behind after some split-second maneuvers around buoys.

Alex had a Belizean crew for the dory, but sailed his locally built sloop himself. He usually won or placed, until some of the people competing in that class started building very expensive boats purely to win races. He not only wasn’t interested in that kind of competition, but he had met María and no longer was that involved in racing.

 

I used to spend the Ninth of March watching the races from my veranda with the telescope Alex gave Bucher, his binoculars, a good book for the dull periods, and an occasional beer. It was fun when Alex was involved. Today, I simply glanced out from time to time and smiled at the familiar sight of boats of all sizes and shapes bobbing in the choppy waters, their multi-colored sails set for the strong March trade winds. I did not realize that Alex, for the first time, was crewing in one of the wonderful, heavy old sand lighters. These are forty-five-foot-long boats that normally carry loads of sea sand, dug by the shovel-full from bars at river mouths, to the Belize City seawall, where the men shovel the sand ashore to be picked up by contractors. The race of these behemoths vies with the dory race as the regatta’s most exciting.