Another Successful Passage Over the Bar With 1 Inch to Spare.
Well we finally untied our lines from our home at Mario;s marina in the Rio Dulce and removed all the cobwebs that keep us secure to the dock and headed down the river back to the sea. Travelling down the river is gorgeous . Our plan was to stop off at this place called Texan Bay for the night and leave the next morning at high tide around 9 in the morning but another boat radio us as we were meandering down the river and asked if we wanted to go early so we meet up with them in Texan Bay and started to get the boat ready to leave that day. Well about ½ an hour before we were to leave Cheryl stepped over the combing and her back went out……Karen of course said that is what happens when you get old. So the idea of bouncing around was not particularly appealing to Cheryl so we stayed until the next weather window.
Well we made it safe and sound to Roatan, with an average speed of over 6 knots. There had been some problems at an anchorage we passed so we ran dark along with Samarang . At one point we were going 8 knots with one sail up...of course that is when we had a squall go throw and it started to rain of course on Karen's watch . We had confused seas after that for about 4 hours and Karen got launch onto the table while she was trying to sleep. I thought she was practicing for some table dancing. She is okay just a sore toe.
Checking in to Roatan was interesting as the Port Authority Captain had taken the key to the filing cabinet that held all the check-in forms to the mainland so the assistant port captain went and got the local thief, that happened to be hang around by the police station, which is adjacent to the port authority office, to see if he could open the cabinet. He couldn’t get it open either, maybe that is why he hangs around the police station because he is not very good at being a thief. Well Karen came up with an brilliant idea why don’t you get the main land to fax you copy of the form….so they did… buy the way they don’t have a computer so that the assistant port captain manually typed the forms. So now we are all legal again for the next 3 months.
Well it is like old home week as there are 5 boats here from Mario's marina. So we are shopping, visiting old friends and now getting ready for Karen's brother to come down for Christmas.
We have not gone diving yet as it is so cooooold. But we can't complain we just got an e-mail with pictures from our friends in Ontario where they have 3 feet of snow. We think we like our type of weather better, at least you don't have to shovel it. By the way it was 69F last night…where are my socks????.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
A Day on the Rio
The Rio Dulce, which means Sweet River, is where the cruisers go to play. They say it is like a cruiser’s day camp and they are right. There really isn’t a typical day for us, some days we had to be off the boat as work was being done in the main saloon and we would play a game of mar jongh, volleyball at 4 p.m. and a dip in the pool to cool off then of course happy hour to follow the hard day of fun. Other days we started working when we got up and stopped for volleyball, or worked through until 6pm.
Our first week on the river we tried to organize some boat work projects, like: getting our forward diesel tank replaced and general cleaning of the stainless steel. The marina offers workers at $4 US an hour to help out, so at that price Cheryl was very happy to give someone else the job of cleaning the stainless steel. Some jobs you do yourself: Karen and Cheryl spent the morning removing the foam around the old diesel tank. Then Marvin worked with Cheryl to finish the job as Karen and Cheryl had agreed to go for an afternoon sail with a couple, where the woman had not sailed before. This women is from Colombia and her and her husband just bought a catamaran and she had no idea on how to sail so Karen gave her a crash course for a half day.
To give you an idea of where we have been staying, it is about a 2 mile dingy ride into a little town call Frontiera where you can buy most anything from fruits and vegetables, meat to motorcycles. There also seems to be a large number of pharmacies, almost one at every corner. As our 2 dingy engines have been acting up we decided we are going to buy a new engine, so off we went to town and bought a new 8 hps Yamaha Enduro engine. What a difference 4 more hps makes, now we can go so fast Karen can dry her hair on the way into town. Zoom Zoom… Frontiera has a large bridge that spans the river, apparently it the longest and largest bridge in Central America so it has become a local attraction, when you reach the high point of the bridge most buses and even transport trucks stop to look around and take pictures, you can even buy juice and peanuts at the top as a local entrepreneur has set up a makeshift vendor stand. It is certainly worth the walk as the view from the top is amazing. There is always a lot of traffic in town, a great deal of it trafficking in cows in open trucks. So we don’t eat from the road side food stands.
For a bit of exercise you can go for a walk behind the marina. You walk through the village where most of the marina staff live. You also go through a rubber plantation. Great views from the top of the hills.
What do you do when you are tired of board games and volleyball well you get a bunch of cruisers from your Marina and go explore one of the side little rivers. So off we went covered in bugs spray, with camera in hand and a full tank of gas. 8 dinghies went exploring and we felt like we were bold new explorers trying to find a new world. The river was so thick with little water plants that we had to paddle for some of it and as one dingy blazed the path ahead, the plants would close up again in seconds it was like no one had gone ahead of you. It was quiet except for occasional sound of the Howler Monkeys saying “hi “.
Our next excursion was a trip to Guatemala City, a 5 hour bus ride on nice air conditioned bus almost as good as our buses at home and the roads have as many potholes as our too. Guatemala City is divided up into 25 zones with 4 million people living in the city…talk about traffic jams. The tourist zone which is where we spent most of our time has sidewalks made of Guatemalan green marble. The drivers are nuts here though, they have these raise speed bumps where pedestrians are supposed to cross but for the Guatemalan drivers the bumps are just there to launch their car in the air and if there is a person there who cares. Even the sidewalks are fair game for cars and motorcycles. So when you walk around, which we certainly did a lot, we had to have our eyes and ears open to make sure we did not get hit by a car or motorcycle. We don’t think they would really hit you but it sure looks like and we don’t want to test that assumption. We went to Guatemala City to do some shopping and exploring and sure enough we found most everything on our list even the things we thought we could only find in Canada. And guess what, it was way cheaper than Canada. They have large stores like a Costco or Walmart and a million hardware stores (okay only a few) and we probably went into all of them at least it seem like it. Like every city, probably everywhere there is McDonalds, but here they deliver!
We forgot to mention the people here are very friendly and helpful, an example of this was one time we were standing in front of a car dealership with a map and both of us thought we needed to go in two different directions, okay we were slightly lost, so this guy who overheard us asked if he could assist us, we of course where miles away from where we need to be so he asked if could give us a lift. He said his driver and car was right there and if we would like he could give us a lift. So we took him up on the offer. No we don’t usually go into strangers cars but this guy seem to very nice and he certainly looked like he had money. As we were driving he asked why where going to a hardware store and we explained that this what all cruisers do when they go into town. Not only did he give us a ride he recommend this great restaurant, he felt it is the best in all of Central America, called Don Mikel. He said make sure you are there by 6 pm or you will wait in line for hours. So after our day of shopping and getting our hair cut we went to the restaurant he recommended and boy was he right, the food was amazing and yes by 6:15 p.m. the line-up was huge.
We had been invited to spend a couple nights in Antigua with some cruisers that we know from our marina, who had rented a house for a month. Maggie and Paul picked us at our hotel in Guatemala City and off we went to Antiqua via taxi but first we need to stock up on some food and wine.
Antiqua was the capital of Central America but earthquakes and volcanoes damaged much of the city, many buildings have been rebuilt, but some of the churches had not been. The streets are cobble stone and very narrow with walls all around. But behind the walls is where the hiden treasures lie, usually you will find a house with beautiful courtyards and fountains and Maggie and Paul’s place was magnificent they a 2 story house with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, formal dining room, library, sitting room and 3 courtyards all with fountains. Each bedroom had a fireplace and boy did you need it because Antiqua is in the mountains and it is cold up there at least for us, okay it was 55 F. We spent 3 lovely days with Maggie and Paul, eating out and exploring the sites. We even went to the local market where the average size of most of the people there was less than 5 feet so Karen felt tall. We wondered around the market and dreaming up ideas for appetizers and bought the ingredients for a fabulous appetizers night. Oh yeah the wine was good too. We said our goodbyes to Maggie and Paul and the city of Antiqua knowing that we will be back to spend more time in this beautiful city.
One of the cruisers friend (Jimmy on Blue Water Cat) organized a Full Moon party and race up to the lake about 4 miles beyond us. This is one of the advantages of being on the river, you don’t have to be stuck to the dock, as there are plenty of anchorages and rivers to explore. As we were heading home two days later we decided not to move Interlude up the river so we joined Jimmy on his catamaran, yes a boat with two hulls. We are still wondering why they need two hulls. We took our gennicker and had a great race. The party was held at place called Denny’s Beach were we stayed for 2 nights and played Karen played Mar Jongh and Cheryl entered a kayak race, played bocce, horseshoes and then it was time for volleyball of course! The next day we dauned our best riding duds and went for a horseback ride, that turned out to be about 4 hours and very aggressive, but a great way to see the countryside. The horses were better prepared for the ride then our butts.
Back to Canada. Getting back was not as easy as it should have been as Mexicana Air was going out of business. In fact we ended up on the last Mexicana Air flight, we did get to waggle our wings in a fly by of the Mexico City airport. Once in Canada something like 18 beds in 5 weeks! It was good to see everyone. We kicked off the visiting with a 50th birthday party for Cheryl. A great turn out and great food. We did the rounds of the doctors, visiting family and friends. Karen went to Winnipeg and Kenora and Cheryl went off to Edmonton. Cheryl had enough Dill Pickle chips to last her a few weeks, and as you can guess, she really didn’t share them. (Okay she shared a 1/3 of a bag)
Back to the Rio. We were to have had wood work done while we were away, needless to say that wasn’t done. And when we got back we found that the lid of the fridge had delaminated. The wood work and the repair work to the fridge is in our main saloon, so it made it very difficult to live on the boat while the workers where there. Basically our entire main saloon was in the V-birth. So 5 weeks later we have the new diesel tank in and filled. Good news is it holds 66 gals, which is more than before, so we are happy but the bad news is when Karen checking the tank she noticed that it was leaking! So our main saloon is only partially back together. Just in case you are wondering why we wanted a new diesel tank is the last one leak too!
We did celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. By the way there only 2 boats at our marina who are Canadians the rest are mostly from the states with an occasional Brit to add some flare. Everyone chipped in making their favourite holiday dish and marine provided the turkeys. Great food and great company!
We did a quick trip to Tikal (the largest Mayan city) and Yaxha, a few hours from the Rio. We went with cruisers from 3 other boats. We stayed in a lovely little hotel in Flores, an island town. You walk around Flores in about 20 minutes, which we did, then circled it again one street up. A very quaint, quiet town.
We had a guide for Tikal and Yaxha who did a great job explaining what life was like, he made sense of the ruins. Temple one from Tikal is used in the tourist brochures for Guatemala, and it is every bit as impressive in real life. Tikal once held some 150,000 people, only a small amount of it is excavated, which we are glad of as we walked and climbed all day. The views from the tops of the temples are amazing, but you have to remember not to look down. Two of our crew are birders and there are a lot of different birds to see, they added greatly to the trip.
Yaxha was a much smaller city, less was excavated, but it is still very impressive. It had a very different feel from Tikal, quieter, more laid back. Which is probably just about how it once was. We were there on Bruce’s birthday. Karen called from the top of temple 4! The ruins are in the middle of the jungle, so the only way you get cell phone reception is from the top of the tall temples!
The next party was Halloween. Cheryl dressed up as a can of deep woods off, the perfume of choice on the Rio. Karen came as a Gemini, an angle and devil. Everyone said that they voted for Cheryl’s costume as the best costume, but she didn’t win! Still a great time was had by all.
We continued with the boat work job list, then at the end of November we went off to Cuba to have a holiday with Karen’s brother Bruce. This was a special week for Karen’s parents as they often went to Cuba and this resort. The resort puts on a special week for all returners and Karen’s parent never missed it. Some of the returners at the hotel did not know that Karen’s Dad had passed away, so there were a lot of tears. This was also where we spread Dad’s ashes alongside Mom’s, and Champagne was added to the ground. It was a great week that went by way too fast. Cheryl is not tired of lobster, but had her fill. We even started to get tired of smoked salmon!
Quite a contrast coming back to Guatemala City. The traffic! In Cuba the roads are almost bare, a few horse drawn carts/wagons, a few bicycles, even bicycle taxis, but very few cars. Guatemala City on the other hand has a huge number of cars and therefore lots of traffic jams.
One day we had some 22 people from the marina go to a restaurant for prime rib. We went in the bigger power boats. The one we were in has a 175 outboard! You can see Cheryl enjoying the ride back.
We are planning on leaving the river on Monday for Roatan, maybe with a stop in Utilia, part of the Bay Islands of Honduras. We have the usual last minute things to do, plus we need to test the diesel tank for leaks again! TTFN
Our first week on the river we tried to organize some boat work projects, like: getting our forward diesel tank replaced and general cleaning of the stainless steel. The marina offers workers at $4 US an hour to help out, so at that price Cheryl was very happy to give someone else the job of cleaning the stainless steel. Some jobs you do yourself: Karen and Cheryl spent the morning removing the foam around the old diesel tank. Then Marvin worked with Cheryl to finish the job as Karen and Cheryl had agreed to go for an afternoon sail with a couple, where the woman had not sailed before. This women is from Colombia and her and her husband just bought a catamaran and she had no idea on how to sail so Karen gave her a crash course for a half day.
To give you an idea of where we have been staying, it is about a 2 mile dingy ride into a little town call Frontiera where you can buy most anything from fruits and vegetables, meat to motorcycles. There also seems to be a large number of pharmacies, almost one at every corner. As our 2 dingy engines have been acting up we decided we are going to buy a new engine, so off we went to town and bought a new 8 hps Yamaha Enduro engine. What a difference 4 more hps makes, now we can go so fast Karen can dry her hair on the way into town. Zoom Zoom… Frontiera has a large bridge that spans the river, apparently it the longest and largest bridge in Central America so it has become a local attraction, when you reach the high point of the bridge most buses and even transport trucks stop to look around and take pictures, you can even buy juice and peanuts at the top as a local entrepreneur has set up a makeshift vendor stand. It is certainly worth the walk as the view from the top is amazing. There is always a lot of traffic in town, a great deal of it trafficking in cows in open trucks. So we don’t eat from the road side food stands.
For a bit of exercise you can go for a walk behind the marina. You walk through the village where most of the marina staff live. You also go through a rubber plantation. Great views from the top of the hills.
What do you do when you are tired of board games and volleyball well you get a bunch of cruisers from your Marina and go explore one of the side little rivers. So off we went covered in bugs spray, with camera in hand and a full tank of gas. 8 dinghies went exploring and we felt like we were bold new explorers trying to find a new world. The river was so thick with little water plants that we had to paddle for some of it and as one dingy blazed the path ahead, the plants would close up again in seconds it was like no one had gone ahead of you. It was quiet except for occasional sound of the Howler Monkeys saying “hi “.
Our next excursion was a trip to Guatemala City, a 5 hour bus ride on nice air conditioned bus almost as good as our buses at home and the roads have as many potholes as our too. Guatemala City is divided up into 25 zones with 4 million people living in the city…talk about traffic jams. The tourist zone which is where we spent most of our time has sidewalks made of Guatemalan green marble. The drivers are nuts here though, they have these raise speed bumps where pedestrians are supposed to cross but for the Guatemalan drivers the bumps are just there to launch their car in the air and if there is a person there who cares. Even the sidewalks are fair game for cars and motorcycles. So when you walk around, which we certainly did a lot, we had to have our eyes and ears open to make sure we did not get hit by a car or motorcycle. We don’t think they would really hit you but it sure looks like and we don’t want to test that assumption. We went to Guatemala City to do some shopping and exploring and sure enough we found most everything on our list even the things we thought we could only find in Canada. And guess what, it was way cheaper than Canada. They have large stores like a Costco or Walmart and a million hardware stores (okay only a few) and we probably went into all of them at least it seem like it. Like every city, probably everywhere there is McDonalds, but here they deliver!
We forgot to mention the people here are very friendly and helpful, an example of this was one time we were standing in front of a car dealership with a map and both of us thought we needed to go in two different directions, okay we were slightly lost, so this guy who overheard us asked if he could assist us, we of course where miles away from where we need to be so he asked if could give us a lift. He said his driver and car was right there and if we would like he could give us a lift. So we took him up on the offer. No we don’t usually go into strangers cars but this guy seem to very nice and he certainly looked like he had money. As we were driving he asked why where going to a hardware store and we explained that this what all cruisers do when they go into town. Not only did he give us a ride he recommend this great restaurant, he felt it is the best in all of Central America, called Don Mikel. He said make sure you are there by 6 pm or you will wait in line for hours. So after our day of shopping and getting our hair cut we went to the restaurant he recommended and boy was he right, the food was amazing and yes by 6:15 p.m. the line-up was huge.
We had been invited to spend a couple nights in Antigua with some cruisers that we know from our marina, who had rented a house for a month. Maggie and Paul picked us at our hotel in Guatemala City and off we went to Antiqua via taxi but first we need to stock up on some food and wine.
Antiqua was the capital of Central America but earthquakes and volcanoes damaged much of the city, many buildings have been rebuilt, but some of the churches had not been. The streets are cobble stone and very narrow with walls all around. But behind the walls is where the hiden treasures lie, usually you will find a house with beautiful courtyards and fountains and Maggie and Paul’s place was magnificent they a 2 story house with 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, formal dining room, library, sitting room and 3 courtyards all with fountains. Each bedroom had a fireplace and boy did you need it because Antiqua is in the mountains and it is cold up there at least for us, okay it was 55 F. We spent 3 lovely days with Maggie and Paul, eating out and exploring the sites. We even went to the local market where the average size of most of the people there was less than 5 feet so Karen felt tall. We wondered around the market and dreaming up ideas for appetizers and bought the ingredients for a fabulous appetizers night. Oh yeah the wine was good too. We said our goodbyes to Maggie and Paul and the city of Antiqua knowing that we will be back to spend more time in this beautiful city.
One of the cruisers friend (Jimmy on Blue Water Cat) organized a Full Moon party and race up to the lake about 4 miles beyond us. This is one of the advantages of being on the river, you don’t have to be stuck to the dock, as there are plenty of anchorages and rivers to explore. As we were heading home two days later we decided not to move Interlude up the river so we joined Jimmy on his catamaran, yes a boat with two hulls. We are still wondering why they need two hulls. We took our gennicker and had a great race. The party was held at place called Denny’s Beach were we stayed for 2 nights and played Karen played Mar Jongh and Cheryl entered a kayak race, played bocce, horseshoes and then it was time for volleyball of course! The next day we dauned our best riding duds and went for a horseback ride, that turned out to be about 4 hours and very aggressive, but a great way to see the countryside. The horses were better prepared for the ride then our butts.
Back to Canada. Getting back was not as easy as it should have been as Mexicana Air was going out of business. In fact we ended up on the last Mexicana Air flight, we did get to waggle our wings in a fly by of the Mexico City airport. Once in Canada something like 18 beds in 5 weeks! It was good to see everyone. We kicked off the visiting with a 50th birthday party for Cheryl. A great turn out and great food. We did the rounds of the doctors, visiting family and friends. Karen went to Winnipeg and Kenora and Cheryl went off to Edmonton. Cheryl had enough Dill Pickle chips to last her a few weeks, and as you can guess, she really didn’t share them. (Okay she shared a 1/3 of a bag)
Back to the Rio. We were to have had wood work done while we were away, needless to say that wasn’t done. And when we got back we found that the lid of the fridge had delaminated. The wood work and the repair work to the fridge is in our main saloon, so it made it very difficult to live on the boat while the workers where there. Basically our entire main saloon was in the V-birth. So 5 weeks later we have the new diesel tank in and filled. Good news is it holds 66 gals, which is more than before, so we are happy but the bad news is when Karen checking the tank she noticed that it was leaking! So our main saloon is only partially back together. Just in case you are wondering why we wanted a new diesel tank is the last one leak too!
We did celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. By the way there only 2 boats at our marina who are Canadians the rest are mostly from the states with an occasional Brit to add some flare. Everyone chipped in making their favourite holiday dish and marine provided the turkeys. Great food and great company!
We did a quick trip to Tikal (the largest Mayan city) and Yaxha, a few hours from the Rio. We went with cruisers from 3 other boats. We stayed in a lovely little hotel in Flores, an island town. You walk around Flores in about 20 minutes, which we did, then circled it again one street up. A very quaint, quiet town.
We had a guide for Tikal and Yaxha who did a great job explaining what life was like, he made sense of the ruins. Temple one from Tikal is used in the tourist brochures for Guatemala, and it is every bit as impressive in real life. Tikal once held some 150,000 people, only a small amount of it is excavated, which we are glad of as we walked and climbed all day. The views from the tops of the temples are amazing, but you have to remember not to look down. Two of our crew are birders and there are a lot of different birds to see, they added greatly to the trip.
Yaxha was a much smaller city, less was excavated, but it is still very impressive. It had a very different feel from Tikal, quieter, more laid back. Which is probably just about how it once was. We were there on Bruce’s birthday. Karen called from the top of temple 4! The ruins are in the middle of the jungle, so the only way you get cell phone reception is from the top of the tall temples!
The next party was Halloween. Cheryl dressed up as a can of deep woods off, the perfume of choice on the Rio. Karen came as a Gemini, an angle and devil. Everyone said that they voted for Cheryl’s costume as the best costume, but she didn’t win! Still a great time was had by all.
We continued with the boat work job list, then at the end of November we went off to Cuba to have a holiday with Karen’s brother Bruce. This was a special week for Karen’s parents as they often went to Cuba and this resort. The resort puts on a special week for all returners and Karen’s parent never missed it. Some of the returners at the hotel did not know that Karen’s Dad had passed away, so there were a lot of tears. This was also where we spread Dad’s ashes alongside Mom’s, and Champagne was added to the ground. It was a great week that went by way too fast. Cheryl is not tired of lobster, but had her fill. We even started to get tired of smoked salmon!
Quite a contrast coming back to Guatemala City. The traffic! In Cuba the roads are almost bare, a few horse drawn carts/wagons, a few bicycles, even bicycle taxis, but very few cars. Guatemala City on the other hand has a huge number of cars and therefore lots of traffic jams.
One day we had some 22 people from the marina go to a restaurant for prime rib. We went in the bigger power boats. The one we were in has a 175 outboard! You can see Cheryl enjoying the ride back.
We are planning on leaving the river on Monday for Roatan, maybe with a stop in Utilia, part of the Bay Islands of Honduras. We have the usual last minute things to do, plus we need to test the diesel tank for leaks again! TTFN
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Attack of the Bumble Bees
After spending a couple of days in No Name Point Belize where we had our nightly entertainment of a spectacular lighting shows we started our 35 mile motor down towards the Rio Dulce. As we made our way down between the reef and the coast we started to notice a few bees swarming us we were not too concerned until the numbers started to increase dramatically. Then the bees started to use our boat as a resting station. Karen armed with an old rag started to swat them away after a couple of hours of swatting we left the bee path and anchored for the night of the coast of Honduras.
Early the next morning we hauled anchor and made our way the famous bar in Livingston Guatemala. No we are not going drink at a bar first thing in the morning and no we have not gone off to Law school. The bar is a sand bar at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, it is famous because for those boat like ours you need high tide to go over it. So that morning armed with everyone’s waypoints plotted into our GPS we made our way nervously towards the bar. The theory is that you line up your course and go full speed ahead at near high tide and if you touch bottom you have enough momentum to get you over or really stuck. As we are approaching and are ready to line up for our run a group of fishing boats decide to drag there nets across our path. You have to understand we only have about 1 hour before we will lose the high tide and we would have to wait another day. After circling around and probably Cheryl’s evil eye scared the fishing boats away and off we went. As much as we are trained to go slow when you know it is getting swallow we toss caution to the wind and went full bore watching the GPS and the depth sounder. Yeah we made it with a few inches to spare.
We had made arrangement with this guy that all the cruiser use to organize all the officials need to check in to Guatemala and as soon as we radio he brought our a herd of officials. The whole process took 45 minutes with many forms to be signed and we were then free to come to shore and pay the fees. After heading to the bank and paying our fees we were giving a welcome package from the Port Captain. This was one of the easies and nicest experiences we have had checking in, although far from the cheapest.
Once you raise you anchor in Livingston you start your meander down a winding river with tall pine, palms and sheer cliffs with an occasional howler monkey hiding behind a tree branch saying “Welcome to the Guatemala”. We stopped of at an anchorage called Texan Bay where the Texan flag flew high above the trees. The Rio Dulce is a fresh water river so we both jumped in for a fresh water swim. It was like swimming in the northern lakes in Ontario except a lot warmer. Even Interlude enjoyed the fresh water as she had never been in fresh water before.
The next morning we hauled anchor to head to our new home for the hurricane season. We did notice that the navigation marks a little on the rustic side. In fact we have discovered that poles or stakes with the Pelicans on them are really the navigation marks marking the route up the river. We also discover if there is a Pelican on the pole which usually there was, if you look at the way he is facing he is showing you where the swallow water is. Who needs charts when you have a Pelican?
We arrived at Mario’s Marina to warm hug and kiss from the owner and some of our friends we have met over the past year. We knew we would have fun here because before we had our boat secure we were invited to play volleyball.
As with most hurricane seasons it is the time to spend fixing things, not that you don’t do boat work on anchor, but now you attack the big jobs. We have 2 leaky water tanks and a leaky diesel tank, those are priorities. Last season we dealt some big items like the water maker and electric windless. This season is about tarting Interlude up. She is going to be 30 next year and deserves a make over. New wood in the main saloon, varnish all doors, repaint walls and floors.
Early the next morning we hauled anchor and made our way the famous bar in Livingston Guatemala. No we are not going drink at a bar first thing in the morning and no we have not gone off to Law school. The bar is a sand bar at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, it is famous because for those boat like ours you need high tide to go over it. So that morning armed with everyone’s waypoints plotted into our GPS we made our way nervously towards the bar. The theory is that you line up your course and go full speed ahead at near high tide and if you touch bottom you have enough momentum to get you over or really stuck. As we are approaching and are ready to line up for our run a group of fishing boats decide to drag there nets across our path. You have to understand we only have about 1 hour before we will lose the high tide and we would have to wait another day. After circling around and probably Cheryl’s evil eye scared the fishing boats away and off we went. As much as we are trained to go slow when you know it is getting swallow we toss caution to the wind and went full bore watching the GPS and the depth sounder. Yeah we made it with a few inches to spare.
We had made arrangement with this guy that all the cruiser use to organize all the officials need to check in to Guatemala and as soon as we radio he brought our a herd of officials. The whole process took 45 minutes with many forms to be signed and we were then free to come to shore and pay the fees. After heading to the bank and paying our fees we were giving a welcome package from the Port Captain. This was one of the easies and nicest experiences we have had checking in, although far from the cheapest.
Once you raise you anchor in Livingston you start your meander down a winding river with tall pine, palms and sheer cliffs with an occasional howler monkey hiding behind a tree branch saying “Welcome to the Guatemala”. We stopped of at an anchorage called Texan Bay where the Texan flag flew high above the trees. The Rio Dulce is a fresh water river so we both jumped in for a fresh water swim. It was like swimming in the northern lakes in Ontario except a lot warmer. Even Interlude enjoyed the fresh water as she had never been in fresh water before.
The next morning we hauled anchor to head to our new home for the hurricane season. We did notice that the navigation marks a little on the rustic side. In fact we have discovered that poles or stakes with the Pelicans on them are really the navigation marks marking the route up the river. We also discover if there is a Pelican on the pole which usually there was, if you look at the way he is facing he is showing you where the swallow water is. Who needs charts when you have a Pelican?
We arrived at Mario’s Marina to warm hug and kiss from the owner and some of our friends we have met over the past year. We knew we would have fun here because before we had our boat secure we were invited to play volleyball.
As with most hurricane seasons it is the time to spend fixing things, not that you don’t do boat work on anchor, but now you attack the big jobs. We have 2 leaky water tanks and a leaky diesel tank, those are priorities. Last season we dealt some big items like the water maker and electric windless. This season is about tarting Interlude up. She is going to be 30 next year and deserves a make over. New wood in the main saloon, varnish all doors, repaint walls and floors.
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