The Río Dulce or "Sweet River" in Guatemala is part of a lake and river system that has become a popular cruising sailboat destination. We planned to use this location to keep the boat for the hurricane season and during this time visit our family and friends in the USA and use it as a base for intensive traveling in Guatemala.

In our last blog we described that after we spent 3 days in Cayos Cochinos we motor sailed to Utila and that we had to use for the first time during our trip due to bad holding in the bay 2 anchors. The evening and night time until about midnight the wind was very strong and every night we had to be on anchor watch. This cut enormous on our normal sleep pattern while we were at anchor. Then on Sunday night just before sunset we ran off the anchor and slipped 200 ft. in a matter of seconds. Luckily the anchors set again without interference but our two anchors were now very close together and with a lot of swinging could easily get entangled. We were also now in the ship lane of the ferry that would leave the dock at 6:30 the next morning. So we started early in the morning to raise the anchors to find a better spot and our fear came through the anchor chains of the two anchors were tangled. We called Jacques from s/v Panache and woke him up but he came to help and we found a better spot to anchor with a lot better holding.

Utila has some beautiful dive stops and an incredible amount of dive shops. I signed up for morning dives but had to cancel everyday due to lack of sleep. We also did not enjoy the island as much as it deserves since we did not want to leave the boat alone for some time and discover it was slipping.

Utila is located approximately 18 miles from the Honduras mainland and it is just 7 miles long and 2.5 miles at it’s widest and surrounded by vast coral reefs with prolific undersea life and is the smallest of the major islands in The Bay Islands group. It is considered a back-packing island with small hostels and mostly very young tourists. We met a group with an age difference with us of about 45 years but they made us feel so welcome and we spent a lot of time with them. One lady of the group was completely covered with body art with piercings and tattoos. She is Canadian from Dutch descent and very nice and although I donot like the kind of body art she is beautiful. When I finally took my 2 dives on Tuesday morning she went with me and I dove with her and Jen a very nice dive instructor from London. Yvonne is special in every aspect she also makes nice wood art and dives with a single fin like a mermaid. See my pictures and see what great company I had.

Utila provides a rich and diverse cultural experience from the Payan Indians, to be a British Colony, now part of Honduras which created a blend of British, American and Spanish heritages. The island borders on the Mesoamerican barrier reef system, which is the 2nd largest reef in the world after the Australian Great Barrier Reef and has some very beautiful beaches and coral reefs. With over 60 different dive sides, including caves and numerous wrecks it is a great place to dive and I enjoyed my two dives. Unfortunately I did not see a whale shark which is migrating through the waters of Utila. The whale shark is the world's largest fish. The slow moving whale shark is a harmless zooplankton, snapper egg and shrimp eating fish which grows up to 12-18 meters in length.

We wanted to cross the mouth bar of the Rio Dulce I Guatemala with the highest spring tide which was May 25, 2017 at 7:30 AM. Not directly needed for Island Girl with a draft of 4.5 ft. but for sure our buddy boat Panache with Jacques and Annet with a 6 ft. draft. We checked the weather and I even called our Caribbean weather guru Chris Parker. No west wind and no squalls and thunder storms in the forecast. We departed at 12 noon to arrive at 8:00 in the morning in Tres Puntas 12 miles from the mouth of the Rio Dulce and passing the coast of the mainland of Honduras with some pirate activity in the night time. At sunset the mountains on the mainland started lighting up with the most incredible thunderstorms which stayed overland. It was impressive and a little scary. But then the wind started blowing from the mainland and we had wind up to 30 knots beam reach. With reefed sails we could handle that but then the waves on the beam started growing to unmeasurable heights and with no moon or stars it was pitch black and you did not see them coming. Dorothy was scared and I have to admit I was not very happy to say the least. Then the wind started turning to the west with the same high short wind waves and our speed went down to 1.7 knots and it was very uncomfortable in the boat. We reached Tres Puntas and decided to stay overnight to rest and have an early start for the Rio Dulce bar. However, the pattern from the night before repeated itself and it was hard to sleep in a rolling and pitching boat. So we were happy when it was morning and we motored to the Rio Dulce bar.

The mouth bar on the entrance of the Rio Dulce makes some very shallow water and it has only a very narrow area where you can enter the river. A mouth bar is an elevated region of sediment typically found at a river delta which is located at the mouth of a river where the river flows out to the ocean. Sediment is transported by the river and deposited, mid channel, at the mouth of the river. This occurs because, as the river widens at the mouth, the flow slows, and sediment settles out and is deposited. After initial formation of a river mouth bar, they have the tendency to prograde to eventually create a sand bar that has the potential to extend the entire length of the river mouth and block the flow.

When we passed the bar with a spring tide we had according to our depth finder only 0.1 feet underneath the keel. A boat with a larger draft than Island Girl had to be pulled on the mast side-wards to lower their draft (see our pictures). We followed our buddy boat Panache who hit the bottom but pushed through. We stopped in Livingston to clear customs and immigration and while we waited for our paper work we walked through this very special town.

Livingston is a typical Garifuna town with a rich history and their distinct customs, food and music set Livingston apart from the rest of Guatemala. Being the only major settlement on Guatemala's Caribbean coast, Livingston used to be the country's principal Caribbean port until Puerto Barrios was founded in the late 19th century and relegated Livingston to the second league. As there are no roads to Livingston, the town can only be reached by boat and the few cars there are, are brought in by a barge.

The Río Dulce is for the most part not really a river but a series of lakes connected by more narrow parts. The exception is the last 6 miles from the lake called “El Golfete” the river mouth where the river meanders in a spectacular gorge. The sides of the gorge rise up to 300 ft. on both sides and are covered with teak, mahogany and palms. Wild flowers bloom throughout the foliage and howler monkeys and toucans can be seen. Waterfalls flow over the lip of the gorge after rainfall.

Just after the river flows from Lake Izabal it is spanned by one of the biggest bridges in Central America and the marina where our boat is moored is just next to the bridge. The bridge is very high and a lot of the large trucks passing the bridge have trouble to make it to the top and use a lot of braking power to slow down on the other side. This is up till now the only drawback of our location: the noise the trucks are making. On the other side of the bridge is the town of Fronteras, the local center of commerce for the area and has a local vegetable market, attracting locals from the countryside who arrive in dugout canoes and fast power boats.

Next week Island Girl will get out of the water to the maintenance yard to get the damage fixed caused by the reef we sailed onto in San Andres. The boat will stay on the hard until our return on July 26, 2017. Until our departure we have many maintenance jobs to do and not a lot of time to visit the country. How this goes we will report in our next blog page.