We have finally torn ourselves away from the Rio Dulce.

We did it a little differently this year. On Wednesday, we went down to Livingston – in our dinghy – to talk with Raul Veliz (the agent we and many others always use -Naviera Servimar) and get the paperwork done for our departure. I do love the way things get handled here. We want to go across the bar on the afternoon tide on Thursday, spend the night in Graciosa Bay (still in Guatemala) and then head to Belize on Friday. But it is only Wednesday. “No hay problema!” says Raul. “I will just date your exit papers (zarpes) and passaportes for Friday!” And so he did. The Customs Officer wanted to have a look at the captain this time, so we accompanied Raul’s nephew to that office, waited while a half dozen papers were stamped and approved. We enjoyed lunch with new friends, French Canadians Chantal and Germain who have just arrived from Cayo Largo, Cuba, at the tiny and inexpensive place just under Raul’s office, then collected our passports and zarpe, paid the reasonable fee and left to go back up river, enjoying the magnificent gorge all the way. This pelican didn’t seem to mind having his picture taken.

By getting things done ahead of time, we emerged from the dense greenness and high cliffs of the gorge into the wide and shallow river entrance, and were able to cruise right past Livingston, across the bar to the Caribbean Sea. Because we have a six-foot draft, we always need to time our entrance and departure for somewhere close to high tide at the Rio Dulce entrance. This was our sixth crossing, and while the anxiety is no where near as high as on the first few times, our hearts still beat a little faster as we wonder how it will go. We use the waypoints from Freya Rauscher’s book, go within an hour of high tide and always make it through. Our depth sounder always shows 0.1 ft. below our keel and we may or may not bump or plow through the mud. We bumped a few times this trip but our speed didn’t drop below 5.9 kts so we were flying! (We have dropped to 1.5 knots at 2800 rpms before.)

Because there was some West in the forecast, and because we like to visit new anchorages, we motored south to Graciosa Bay, a little farther along than Punta Manibique or Tres Puntas where we have overnighted before. It is a huge shallow bay and we tucked around into the NW corner as far as we could – fully protected from W and N winds. We were the only boat there – and it was a little weird being all alone in that big bay that seemed so far from everything. We were certainly glad we tried it though, because we passed a boat bucking and bouncing on the lee shore off Tres Puntas as we headed north the next day.

With an 8 am start, our plan was to try out another new anchorage – New Haven – in Belize, or if it didn’t look possible to find our way in there, we would keep on going to Placencia. The wind was much higher than forecast at first and we tried out all our sails before it died down and we motor sailed the last few miles. Because the sky was overcast and there was no good visibility for spotting rocks, we were a little leery of it, but it had been recommended by friends as a great stopping off place and we wanted to give it a try. Once again, the waypoints in Freya’s book were top notch and we cruised in with no difficulties.

This is a smaller bay than Graciosa, but completely protected from all but S winds, and the cays off the entrance would provide some protection from that direction too. Although it would comfortably handle a whole fleet of boats, we have been surprised to find ourselves alone here too for the two nights we stayed. And this bay is a little different from most others we have seen in that there are no local houses along the edges, and no fishing boats passing through. From the time we arrived on Friday afternoon, until we left on Sunday morning, we saw not a soul. For some reason, it didn’t “feel” as lonely though. Saturday was mostly overcast with a shower or two, but we managed our first salt water swims of the season. The mornings have been coolish at 22C and we’ve been enjoying more chicken stew for dinners.

Sunday morning will see us heading north – with luck a south wind will give us a lift – for the 20 mile run to Placencia, Belize. We can almost taste the Tutti Fruitti gelato already!