After a few days of getting adjusted to the pace of things in the river, after another few days of getting over our frustration about the “beginning of the season” chores to get Madcap ready to go sailing, after becoming adjusted to a near constant state of dampness, we are noticing a change.

It started as we began to get things working on the boat, took a leap when we launched, and really became noticeable on our second night at anchor here in Shell Bay (so named because of the Shell Gas Dock, I presume.) As we sat in the cockpit at dusk with the noise of trucks gearing down to go over the big bridge, with brakes squealing as they descended the other side, we remembered our fascination with this little part of Central America. That bridge handles all the road traffic moving from south to north or north to south along this Caribbean coast. Every truck carrying goods from the Peten to the city crosses it. Every bus from the city to Flores and Tikal crosses it. Every collectivo (mini van carrying anywhere from 12 – 24 passengers) carrying workers and travellers to and from Puerto Morales crosses it. Yes, it is noisy. Besides being a thoroughfare, it is a social and recreational spot. I have never seen a bridge used as a meeting place, but especially on the weekends, food vendors set up their stands on both sides of the road at centre span. Tuk-tuks and cars park all along the sides, narrowing the traffic to 1 lane. Sometimes the Bungy Jumpers are there too and we watch people make that death defying leap over the railing, but we haven’t seen that yet this year.

This little bay is ringed with marinas and boat yards – the big ones, RAM and MAR and Nana Juana, and a half dozen smaller ones with an assortment of large motor yachts, sport fishing boats, sailboats ranging from 20 ft to 50 ft and a wide range of runabouts. A half dozen of us are anchored out in the middle. Lanchas (open fiberglass boats with outboard motors on their sterns zoom back and forth to the marinas and pull in for fuel. Some are small, 14 – 16 footers, and some are great long things 24-26 feet. Some are loaded with local families, some with tourists, some with fishermen and some with workers at the marinas. That night when it all came together for us, I saw a small boat ghost by in the reflection of lights from the gas dock. The neon lights shone brightly enough to illuminate the figure of a fisherman standing in the bow and casting his big circular net into the water.

We have risked life and limb to go shopping in the little tiendas and produce stands that line the street in town while cattle trucks, buses, tuk-tuks and motorbikes roar by inches from our toes. We’ve been meeting up with friends; we checked out the wonderful thin, thin thin crust pizza from the newly reopened Sun Dog Café; we’ve seen Gone Girl and Guardians of the Galaxy at Mar Marine movie nights (where you have dinner or a drink and watch it on the big TV over the bar); we’ve had massages in the tree house at Tortugal Marina from Blanca - the best masseuse in the business – anywhere.

Tomorrow we head down river to Cayo Quemado where we will tie up to Casey’s dock to finish the getting ready – including installation of our new batteries – and then we’ll anchor in Jennifer’s Bay to swing with the breeze and jump into the water for swims, and visit with our friends, and life will be quiet and the boats will be mostly dug out canoes, and there are no trucks because there are no roads.

But for now, we are deep into Appreciation of what IS and letting the Irritation of what ISN’T wash away. Maybe that rain is good for something after all!