Ramond Auxillou, better known by his handle Captain Ray Auxillou, one of the more colorful characters on the Belizean scene in the sixties and seventies, passed away in Miami on 27 March 2013 at age 75 after a short battle with squamous cell carcinoma.
Mr. Auxillou who said he was of French extraction was born in England at the end of World War II, and eventually ended up in Belize via Canada. He will be be best remembered for the Blue Hole Monster Hoax of the 1970s that for some years had tourists and Belizeans, including the local press, intrigued by a huge sea serpent monster Mr. Auxillou claims he had sighted when diving at the Great Blue Hole off Belize's coast. In an era before the Internet and Myth Busters, the hoax made for good tourism business, an activity that Mr. Auxillou was pioneering in the island of Caye Caulker where he lived at the time. In interviews to the local press Mr. Auxillou claimed the Blue Hole Monster was bigger than the Loch Ness Monster.
Raymond Auxillou Obituary By Tina Auxillou - Posted On The Belize Culture Mailing List By Wendy Auxillou
RAYMOND DENNIS AUXILLOU Jr., my father, was fondly known as “Captain Ray” by the local Reef community of Caye Caulker & his Sail buddies worldwide; “Raymundo the Magician” by some of his oldest & dearest friends who remember his brief early years as a traveling magician; the familiar “RAY” or “DAD” or “Grandpa” as his children & grandchildren referred to him, was 75 at the time of his death, after fighting a valiant battle he eventually lost to Cancer.
Ray is one of three children of Tina & Raymond Auxillou, Sr. born on November 11, 1937 in Sheppards Bush, London, England just before World War II. He recalls his childhood, playing in bombed out ruins of brick buildings & of being buried alive twice with his mother during German air raids, eventually being dug out by rescuers alive due to small steel cages people had in their basements.
In 1945, his father was a Senior Colonel with the British Army posted in Vienna, Austria and his family was allowed to join him. He lived in Austria from 1945 to 1949 which led to additional war stories prevalent of his childhood. His father Ray Sr. immigrated to Canada with the family when Ray Jr. was 12 years old & the young kid was about to start a new life.
Once in Canada, the family settled near Woodstock, Ontario where the ice on the one room cabin walls were an inch thick, Ray Jr. recalled, yet he noted they ate better than in Europe or England where people were dying of starvation and therefore life was decent.
By the age of 15 in Canada, Ray entered a Boy Soldier Program which led to joining the Reserve. He stayed a period of five years & made it to the rank of Sergeant. During these young years, Ray fathered two children, Mark Auxillou & Steve Auxillou., Ray's beloved eldest sons were raised in Canada & each fathered him a granddaughter, Tamara Auxillou who gave Ray his first Great Grandchild to date, precious Gemma & Isabelle Auxillou, whom he loved very much. Isabelle spent many months helping him to build his final home in Cayo , and he cherished those moments with her. She is the daughter of his predeceased son Steve.
Ray's childhood spent in different countries had already created a wander-lust in him and he wanted to see more. He often hitch-hiked around California & other cities in the US & Canada, singing for his supper with a Ukelele. Adventure made him happy & he desired a way to make his dream come true. A wild holiday at the Tropicana Hotel in Cuba in 1959 saw him with Castro as they entered Havana. This fateful trip changed the course of his life forever. He fell in love with the joy of life of the exotic people, the mesmerizing colors of the sea, the warm weather; the overall sounds and flavors of the Caribbean. He fell in love with the life of a revolutionary & imagined it.
Not enthused with the idea of returning to iced walls in Ontario, Ray extended his three week vacation to Cuba permanently & made a mad dash for adventure. He hitch-hiked his way to Mexico by boat & eventually ended up in British Honduras via route “the gringo trail”, which led him to Caye Caulker. He arrived flat broke in 1960 and never returned to Canada or England. Belize was always the place he returned to.
Newly arrived in British Honduras, & the “God forsaken, fly ridden island of Caye Caulker”, then with a tiny population and few families just minutes from a most sensational Barrier Reef, he found his nirvana, never mind the island was covered with pestering mosquitoes he learned to tolerate. He felt welcomed on this tiny island & met an island beauty, the daughter of an original settler to the isle, they were soon married.
Hurricane Hattie, one of the most destructive Hurricanes to hit former British Honduras, pounded on the isle and Country shores in 1961, not long after he had arrived. Ray maneuvered himself useful & became the Governor’s representative for Caye Caulker in the aftermath & rebuilding process.
The Hattie recovery was a time of candle lights, lanterns, and Outhouses perched over rickety driftwood docks. Ray found plenty of time to have children with his new wife Ilna Alamina Auxillou, a series of girls in quick succession: Sharon, Wendy, Diane & Tina Auxillou, who eventually gave him another 10 grandchildren.
He had married into the Alamina family of boat builders & was quick to acquire knowledge of the trade as he was with every other trade he self taught & tried over the years. It wasn’t long before he was seen on the beach building himself a sailboat, then another, perhaps even a dozen which he sailed from Cozumel to Honduras and regularly out front his home at the Barrier Reef & surrounding Atolls with gregarious young adventurous tourists. He would snorkel & dive for sport and profit long before it became popular & the mainstream of island income. Before that, he was a School Teacher at the Catholic Primary School on Caye Caulker after obtaining an Associate Degree from a local Teacher’s College in Belize, around the same time dabbled on the side as a Magician. “RayMundo the Magician” would perform shows with his Magic Illusion and Tricks for the local community as well as had the opportunity to travel to several Magic Conventions in US & UK in the 1970’s, once performing at the Marco Polo Hotel in Miami Beach.
Ray bought a piece of beach land in the village Center of Caye Caulker next to his new extended family in the early 1970's and built himself one of the first hotel’s to exist on Caye Caulker. With a passion for sailing & fishing aboard his prized "Atoll Queen", he gave his children a deep appreciation for nature and the Reef with constant extended family trips at sea. He decided to venture into the unchartered Tourist Business on Caye Caulker, a place where few hippies would come get lost throughout the year. He reinvented himself as Hotelier; Tour Guide, Dive Instructor before those were common trades.
In his own effort to publicize the Blue Hole as a destination for tourists in the 70’s, he and a group returning on a long sail back to the Caye from a dive trip, humorously concocted a story for the media about encountering a “Blue Hole Monster” complete with signed affidavits from the tourists. Ray imagined he could gain worldwide media attention for Belize, the former British Honduras, and tourists would flock to the Blue Hole & islands with similar effect as “Nessie” did for Lockness & Scotland. British Honduras back then was quoted as being “in the middle of nowhere & on the way to nowhere”. The story was carried in the National Papers but not by the International Press. Older folks who remember, still joked about the hoax with him to the end.
He obtained his Merchant Marine Captain’s License & sailed the Caribbean Seas with cargo aboard the “Winnie Estelle”; became a Scuba Instructor; Marine Diesel Mechanic by force to service his small fleet of sailboats, piloted small aircrafts, Paraglided off the French Alps in his 60's and broke a leg upon landing which did not deter his passion for flying. He spent a few years in Miami building himself a Pipenol airplane in the back yard & taught himself several musical instruments. Ray found a new love in writing and over the years chronicled some of his adventures and self-published about a dozen novels or handbooks all set in British Honduras or Belize. He enjoyed all the above as an amateur.
The hotel burned at the end of 1979, about the same time his wife got fed up that he was more often away sailing than at home, and they divorced. Ray left Belize for a period & took off on an extended voyage to discover other islands, living on a beach in Dominica for months until he built himself a boat to sail & discover the nearby islands which he did for a few years.
Around the mid 1980’s, he settled in Miami. Fresh from sailing the Caribbean and back in a big city life after so many years, Ray couldn’t bear to live in a house and persuaded a friend of his to live on his yacht in a harbor at Coconut Grove. He often made trips to the Bahamas Captaining this boat with his friend. During this time, he had a relationship with a Canadian & she bore him his last child, a son Ryan Andrew MacKenzie.
While in Miami, he met his wife Sylvia Pinzon who became the love of his life. I envied their relationship, it was of pure love, admiration and respect for each other and he was very happy the last decades of his life he spent with her, eager to settle except for one last move.
Ray convinced Sylvia to retire & move back to Belize with him. They purchased a home in San Ignacio where he lived a quiet life of retirement. To pass the time away, Ray morphed into a Day Trader, organized Marimba Festivals, grew a vegetable garden & started a blog called “Western Belize Happenings”. He was passionate about Belize and loved to be a part of the culture. He and Sylvia took time to travel the Region and he loved his dogs which were also good company.
Raymond Dennis Auxillou, Jr. lived a full interesting adventurous life, exactly as he wanted and said if he had to do it over again, he would change very little. He was the first to inspire us to travel and lead independent lives. I am very much now like my father was then, with a deep appreciation for the simple beauty of life, joy to live & desire to see new destinations. He has left a deep impression on me. He is sorely missed by all those who loved him. (Picture Above: Raymond Auxillou and daughter Diane at his home in Hillview, Santa Elena, Belize.)
Farewell Father, Husband, Grandfather, Uncle, Brother, Son, Friend, may your legacy continue with the Auxillou Clan and May you find Rest in Peace.
He is survived by his wife Sylvia Pinzon, two sisters Annette & Louise Auxillou, Seven children, Mark, Steve, Sharon, Wendy, Diane, Tina Auxillou & Ryan Andrew MacKenzie; 12 wonderful grandchildren, Tamara Auxillou, Isabelle Auxillou, Stephan Urscheler, Marlise Urscheler, Justin Kuylen, Cody Kuylen, Dillon Kuylen, Tyler Auxillou Loeper, Giselle de la Fuente, Zoe de la Fuente, Bianca de la Fuente and Blayd Vernon; one great grandchild Gemma Auxillou. He is pre- Pre-deceased by his parents Ray & Tina Auxillou & his son Steve Auxillou. R.I.P
One Of Raymond Auxillou's Last Posts On His Blog
The following is extracted from one of the last posts Mr. Auxillou made on his blog:
Search for Merle MacKenzie, daughter of Ida MacKenzie formerly of Oakville, Ontario.
Searching For Merle Mackenzie ( the single name she used around 1982 to 1986 )? She was married to a Canadian gentleman.
She had a son for Ray Auxillou, at Trafalgar Memorial Hospital Oakville, Ontario. Merle was living in the late days of her pregnancy with her mother IDA MacKenzie. She was reported to have died and the house sold. The address of that house was 1250 Marlborough Court, a townhouse in Oakville. The new owner had no information on where Merle moved to, or what happened.
What happened to Merle and her baby boy, born in the Trafalgar Memorial Hospital is not known. Contact was lost about then. The year is a rough guess, about 1982 to 1986. She had spent a previous year or two in British Honduras, or Belize.
The crux of the story as I know it, was Merle MacKenzie a married woman had a baby by her lover at the hospital in Ontario. She conceived while adventuring with her grown daughter, on a 48 ft motorsport while in the Bahamas captained by Ray Auxillou.
The father Ray was there at the hospital for the birth, as was her husband. Ray's two grown sons, Mark and Steve were at the hospital and a photo of that even is on Ray Auxillou's autobiography webpage. ( the older Son has since died )
Merle went back to her mother's place ( Ida MacKenzie ) and told the father Ray Auxillou, that she would name the son Ryan Andrew Mac Kenzie. Ray went back to Belize, where he ran a tourist business. Never heard from her again and letters were unanswered.
A few years later when inquiring, he found out that the grandmother had died, the townhouse in Ontario, Canada was sold and Merle had moved with no forwarding address. It was rumored from friends, she had got a divorce from her husband and re-married. Anything could have happened. We don't really know what is on the birth certificate for the name for the boy, nor if she divorced and re-married if the name was changed again.
In February of 2013, the boy would now be about 27 years old.
Looking for a PROFESSIONAL with the skills to trace either Merle, the mother, or the baby boy, whatever happened to him. It is probably possible to trace the birth record. Don't know anything about Canadian bureaucratic systems, but the hospital, said such records would not be at the Trafalgar Memorial Hospital in Ontario by the lake. They referred me to Ottawa, Canada. Lack the means to do that, as I'm foreign living.
The Belize Blue Hole Monster
The following is an account of the Belize Blue Hole Monster as related by Raymond's daughter Wendy Auxillou:
" In the early 1970's, SCUBA diving was but a new sport, and boat transportation from anywhere to anywhere ranged from slow to deathly slow. Hardly anyone in this world, including Belizeans, had ever heard of the Blue Hole, much less been there, much less dived it. Yet, close to four decades ago when the world was largely unaware that it existed, a fearless group of scuba diving enthusiasts led by my dad went into the Blue Hole to explore.
"They were among the first adventurers in this world to ever descend into the Blue Hole with SCUBA tanks. Suddenly, at about one hundred feet below sea level, there appeared before them a 125 foot long underwater serpent-like creature with eyes like red flashlights, huge dorsal fins, semi-transparent and eel like in shape. The sea serpent created much apprehension in the minds of the divers. Faster than the speed of light, the adventurers ascended and rushed back home to tell the tale of this awesome underwater creature. Stories of the monstrous creature they had witnessed became the talk of the town both locally and internationally, sparking the curiousity of everyone, and later a visit by famous scuba diver, Jacques Costeau."