Monkey Bay Marina
18 November 2012 | Rio Dulce, Guatemala
Monkey Bay Marina. Black or Gold at the top? The captain calls out, we are dressing Aluna again to be ready to sail off, the flag being the last item, after hoisting back the genoa, the safty equipment and all the other items you store inside when leaving a boat in a marina for a long time and not forget the polishing, that´s when you wish you had a smaller boat. It´s a bit like getting your house and garden ready for the spring season, raking the lawn, uncovering the winter protection of the roses, fertilizing and generally sprucing up every corner, thinking, do I really need all this? I could just live in a small apartment...
We stayed at the "Monkey Bay Marina", Rio Dulce (sweet river) in Guatemala for the whole hurricane season, almost 5 months of sweet water, high humidity, tucked away safely in the jungle. We left the boat for most of the time and travelled inland of Guatemala and Honduras, stayed 3 months in Germany. We expected mould, creepy crawlers and lots of other stuff on our boat, people warned us before. We had a dehumidifier running all the time and that obviously did the trick, everything was fine.
The harbour master told us, we were the 297th boat this year checking in the Rio Dulce, so far 518 boats by 20th November 2012, last year there were 470 boats . Big boats with high draughts can not pass the sandbank going into the river. So no cruise liners here, just a lot of launchas and dugout canoes. People live in lofty "Palapas", sleep in hammocks and cook outside on wood fires. Rice and black beans, tortillas and greens are their staple diet.