I had been to Belize very briefly in 1985, on my way to do relief work in El Salvador after a big earthquake. Since then I had always wanted to go back to Belize and really explore it... and this was the perfect opportunity. During my 4 months working in the Hillside Clinic in Punta Gorda, I had weekends free to travel around and check out this small Central American country.
Although we had no intention of doing ANYTHING of the sort, we ended up buying property on the Placencia Peninsula. For 3 years, we came down to our beach every few months and stayed in Cabanas we had built. These cabanas soon took on a "life of their own," and we started renting them out to friends & co-workers. So, The Maine Stay was born and has even expanded. Our beach cabana rental business is very gratifying... and growing all the time. The Placencia Peninsula continues its development. The entire Peninsula Road is now paved... finally. There were no condos and very few "high end" homes when we first came here... now there are more than a thousand built or under construction.
I officially "retired" mid 2004 and have been here full time since. Karen came down full time late in 2004 and although retired from full-time work, continues her part-time consulting in health care. The wonders of high speed internet communications! We sold our home in Wiscasset to our daughter... so the family "homestead" in Maine continues in its third generation.
The lagoon land (that happened to come along with the purchase of our 400 feet of beach front) has become Kokomo... our 7 acre gated community with 28 lots, marina and canal. These are selling well and new construction is ongoing. The beach cabanas "almost" take care of themselves, but it has been a very large expenditure in energy, time and money to get the Kokomo community developed. We just thought we were "retired!"
There are tons of photo links... that will give you a real "flavor" of what we are doing. Belize is our home now, and, despite the normal "ups and downs" of doing something like this, we don't regret a minute of any of it.
