Belize CAYE CAULKER history photos!

Cap´n Ray Auxillou in the 1960´s. I would have been about 25 years old then. Oh to be young again with what I know now. The amber jacks were caught in a wire heart shaped fish trap, just off the beach of the house, in about 5 feet of water. We ate them, salted the fillets, or sold them for six for .25 cents in those days. Or just gave them to friends and family.


RC School teachers house in earlier half of 1960´s where the Auxillou family lived. Rent free as the wife was Principal of the Caye Caulker primary school ( 90 homes on the island ) and I was a teacher, but the salaries were insufficient to live on. This house was plagued with sandflies that bred underneath and all around the house.
**** This was my 24 ft cabin cruiser built of pine lumber beside the teachers house and took a couple of years to build. Buying lumber $5 or $10 at a time when sailing into the mainland every month to collect the teachers salary. I built this boat ( the 2nd or 3rd ) from a HOW TO BUILD 20 BOAT MAGAZINE, popular in those days, using the instructions. I powered it with a one cylinder 7 hp Volvo Penta diesel and the boat never could get up to hull speed. It ran around 4 to 5 mph. The diesel was difficult to get as it cost me $700 Bz at the time to import from Sweden at the factory, which I got cheaper as the Volvo Penta Distributor. Holy Redeemer Credit Union refused me a loan to buy the motor and I took more than a year and a half to save the money to buy it. I have been angry with Holy Redeemer Credit Union ever since. The boat served me well and was shallow draft and I did river, reef, atoll and blue water cruising in it. I started the tourist business with this boat, going on weekends to the Belleveue Hotel on weekends to talk people into a trip to the islands. The boat was destroyed by Hurricane Fifi, tied up in front of the beach house and high waves pushed it under the house which eventually broke it up until the boat disappeared completely. The people on board are Esther on the left, her sister and my wife Ilna in the middle and Tony Whelen, British soldier on the right. I guess I took the photo? This had to be early 1960´s near Caye Caulker. Tony and Esther married.
**** This is me Cap´n Ray Auxillou in my late 20´s building the 34 foot twin diesel motorsailer in another photo here, beside our house on the beach. Around 1965 is my guess? That motorsailer gave me the freedom and adventure for the best next 13 years of my life.



*** This is Wendy, Sharon, Diane Auxillou and Rosy ( cousin) sitting on the little pier to the toilet over the seas, in front of our beach house. Must be early 1960´s on Caye Caulker.



It has been a wonderful life and if I had to do it over, I would do it again, exactly the same way. ( Ray Auxillou today at 73 years old, known in his younger days as Cap´n Ray, or as RAYMUNDO the magician.)


Master Dive Instructor, Licensed Boat Captain for ocean travel. Tina Auxillou, the rebel of the four Auxillou girls, and she traveled all over the world exploring. 2010 photo by Caye Caulker.


Island girls of Caye Caulker around 1975 maybe? I recognize Andrea Gomez, Tina Auxillou, and Rosanna Marin. They are probably in their forties now with grown children of their own.


Tina and Dad at the wedding of Daughter Sharon Auxillou to David Urscheler in Miami. The wedding took place on a chartered TALL SAILING SHIP windjammer, by the Captain. Maybe 1988?







*** Prime Minister Barrow parties with two Auxillou girls, Diane and Tina Auxillou. Compare this to the baby pictures of 1964. The two girls now have children of their own going to University in 2011. From baby pictures to adults, having passed through a lot of lifes trials, joys and tribulations. All of these four Auxillou sisters will be grandmothers themselves probably in the next 6 years, while I may be dead by then?


Our family home on the beach at Caye Caulker, 1964 thereabouts. Sharon, Tina, Wendy and Diane, from left to right. Momma Ilna Auxillou in the middle.


Ray Auxillou, 73 years old, the taller guy on the left in 2010, lives in Santa Elena, Western Belize. He runs a small private, Auxillou family hedge fund.


Ray Auxillou ( Cap´n Ray ) on right with sailfish catch back in 1967. Caught outside the barrier reef.


Famous motorsailer, 34 ft ATOLL QUEEN, a wood boat from 1969 and our Island Traders Ltd., company Hideaway Lodge on the beach in the background at Caye Caulker. We bought the property and lodge by creating a start up company and selling shares to tourists who became family friends. Nellie Price in the port at the time, drew up the company charter and Mr. Anderson, the manager of Royal Bank of Canada taught me how to control the shares and Board of Directors of the company for the future, by creating an A class and common B class set of shares to sell.


Most of our tourists in Belize and for Caye Caulker, practice SNORKELING at home like this, before coming to tropical Belize. This guy lived in Chicago.


Caye Caulker aerial photo in 2010 has grown as a 46 year old favored, world famous tourist destination. Automobiles are banned on the island and bicycle, feet, or golf cart are the means of travel.


Today this split in Caye Caulker, which was formed by tidal waves of Hurricane Hattie, which swept across the island, destroying 84 houses and a school building, in 1962 was 20 inches wide. I used to step across it to get to my coconut plantation a mile to the North. Fishermen dug it out more, to get speedboats through and a politician reputed made it even larger for bigger boats to access. The tide sweeping through the cut twice a day, did the rest and made it what it is today.


Caye Caulker front beach in 1967, the toilets you see were on a pier over the water in those days before more people moved to the island.

This was the swimming spot behind North Point of Caye Chapel in the late 1960´s. Ray Auxillou, or Cap´n Ray and wife Ilna,with kids in front of the skiff.

BELIZE - 45 YEARS OF HISTORIC PHOTOS