February 5, 2022
Weather squalls throughout the day ..highs of 81 low 68

In the water… dockside at Ram Marina, Rio Dulce, Guatemala www.rammarina.com

We got splashed yesterday which is a big deal for us. Living on the boat up a 20 foot ladder amidst the noise and the life that goes on in a boat yard was necessary but glad we are through that stage.Today we awoke to lots of rain and decided it’s a day to be indoors. Diesel John came by to work on the engine this afternoon so hopefully there are no glitches there.
My first 2 weeks here have been spent acclimatizing to the heat and sorting out the inside of the boat. Following the advice I read on facebook - the best way to organize a space is to get rid of stuff. Dejunking has been fairly easy to do as 2 years on a boat has taken its toll on supplies. Decluttering makes it so much easier to find the important stuff like tools and safety equipment and snacks hahaha.
The Rio has changed since covid. In some good ways. There are many food service deliveries that just did not exist BC. We have met some cruisers who were stuck on their boats for 8 months and relied on the kindness of the staff at the marinas for the basics like food and fresh water. The local restaurants stepped up with services to provide both income for their staff and food for the stranded. We have also met some who were caught in limbo - out on the sea and unable to get into a port or go back to their anchorage. They relied on other cruisers to plead their cases and support them while they waited for the wheels of government to provide them safe harbor.
The downside of covid has meant that many lost their jobs and families are struggling. Pass it on - a cruiser lead charity continues to help with the mountain people. In the past they have brought solar panels, building supplies, medical assistance and equipment. It is getting harder as cruisers no longer have the leisure time they once had. Everyone is scrambling to get their boats seaworthy and get out.

Getting out- Zarpe scmarpe and feeling like a Hostage.

To leave here we need to be in good standing with the Port Captain and our boat visa. If that were the case, we would be issued a Zarpe - exit papers for a fee - and be on our way. At our next port of call the Port Captain would see we were in good standing and allow us into their country.
Like hundreds of other boats, those 2 year visas expired due to Covid. While we all hoped a minor fine would be imposed,- $2-300 and then a Zarpe issued, it seems that is not the case. There are high level discussions going on between the Marina owners, federal government and the Port Authority regarding the fees to be charged to all the overdue boats. We wait and see with fingers crossed. Friends have returned to the marina having been told they need to import their boat since their visa is expired. Importing is not a viable option for most of us. It is a long 1-2 year process and costly -25% of their assessed value of our boats. Worst case scenario for us is we sail out discreetly and go directly to the US where no Zarpe is required for our US registered boat. I am not sure we could do that many nights at sea-7-10 nights. We are hopeful there is a resolution to this captivity soon hahahaha.

In the meantime, we will sail down river to Catamaran Island Resort www.hotelcatamaran.com and hang out in the jungle. It is a gorgeous resort with a sports bar, pool and restaurant. We may even catch the Super Bowl tomorrow.

Till then we are safe, healthy, well fed, and in the company of helpful, friendly people. We are loving being back here on the water. The gentle rocking of the boat, the waves lapping at her sides, the cool breezes through the hatches, the quenching drinks of soda, the beautiful sunsets and the peaceful sleeps are a tonic to our psyches.
Till next time….

June 7, 2019 The Reserve, Stann Creek

A quick recap of our time at Antigua and Lago Atitlan- we both got the flu and I fell and injured my ribs. The lake is a very restorative place to hang out and we had found ourselves a lovely place to call home. Our room looked out to San Pedro Volcano, Santiago and Cerro …We enjoyed many mornings having breakfast on the deck and afternoons listening to live music our host Travis would bring in. We enjoyed a visit from our friend from Isla Mujeres now living in San Pedro. Off the table were trips to the Pacific or northern cities like Xela. The focus was on healing so we could return to sail. A few days back in Antigua for a goodbye to our favourite places -Maya Papaya, Freida's, the town center with the Buddy Bear exhibition and a lunch at Caoba Farms - no doubt the best salad and buffalo burger ever.
After a few weeks we packed up and headed back the same way we came- Van ride to the airport, taxi ride in Puerto Barrios to the water taxi, James Bus line ride to Maya Center and finally a pick up by Delaney from The Reserve. Back on the boat we started preparing to leave. Remember way back when I said cruising is boat maintenance in exotic places? Yup we got back and found our stove not functioning. The salt air and water are once again the culprits. It is the one piece we apparently don’t have in the spare box. Lucky for us most places we hope to sail to have resorts and restaurants so we may get a cooked meal from time to time. We shall see how we do with PB and tuna. ETD is Sunday June 9.

Paradise Revisited

'Let's pack up and go to Lago Atitlan' says Ron. Oh my, I had been thinking the same thing but was afraid to suggest it to The Captain. He had been looking daily at the wind and weather - hoping for the right moment to sail south to Roatan. None had presented itself and we were getting a bit stale at the The Reserve. The Beach Club had provided great afternoons around the pool and the people there were super friendly. Jim Slocum -Google" Curiosity- Plane crash"- invited us over one evening to see his unique home on the Reserve. It is exquisite -totally constructed of Bamboo and owned previously by a Canadian. And for sale. Others generously shuttled us back and forth to the Club for dinner. Some days we rented a car and visited Hopkins - a small seaside community of restaurants, guesthouses and the best Italian restaurant we have been to since Vancouver days. But our time was slipping away and with no chance of getting easily to Roatan we set off for the highlands of Guatemala. A chicken bus ride -2 hours to Punta Gorda, a water taxi -1- hour to Puerto Barrios and a 45 min flight to Guatemala City, took us within easy reach of Antigua and the highlands.
We have blogged before of Antigua and its history and beauty and a second look was no less moving. This time there was a United Nations touring event called Buddy Bear, promoting peace and understanding around the world. Do we ever need that. It was inspired by the Cow Parade a few years ago. It was impressive. We had a great time listening to the adventures of the young people - mostly Irish and Canadians - we encountered at Maya Papaya. I think the world is in good hands.
Next up Lago Atitlan.
We mused to each other what the heck did we do for 5 weeks at the lake. What will we do for one week this time? All was revealed as we sat on the edge of the lake looking across to the oh so familiar skyline of volcanoes and hills. As the breezes wafted over us so did the feelings. We will chill. We will breathe in and out. We will read and talk and relax. We will absorb this place into our pores. Not to sound too crazy or like we have drunk the Kool-Aid, the lake has a mystical vibe about it. It is hard to resist. A familiar story told time and time again is " I came for 2 weeks" and 2-3 years have passed.

My 68th birthday April 24,2019

North Long Coco Caye is that elusive caye that we have been told about by friends. A must not miss they say. We could not find it identified on our maps. And then we find ourselves onboard The Reserve motor launch with 20 others heading out there on of all days - my birthday. How cool is that! The Reserve owns the caye and occasionally they take homeowners out there for the day and lunch. Ron arranged for us to join them. We settle in for the 3-hour ride, chatting to the others on board. The lawsuit that hangs over them all dominates the conversation of the men. The women talk about their new homes, floor plans, mold, the next neighbourhood party and who is due back to the Reserve. They are an outgoing crowd and we become included in the chatter as we learn that some are cruisers as well. Gordon, the owner of the Marina and the M.V. Mariah tells us some history of the caye. The first owners of the Reserve bought this caye, which was then a very uninhabitable place. The reef ringed the island and it was sunken in the middle with brackish water and garbage. They dredged it and loaded sand onto the island filling the cavity and forming wonderful beaches all around the coastline. Nearby Rendezvous Caye was clearing its land and the Reserve gathered truckloads of discarded sprouting palm trees- and transplanted them onto their own caye. Their caye is now a beautiful grove of palm trees 15 feet high on beautiful white sand. There are several palapas off the shore with tables and chairs, swings in the water, picnic tables, lounge chairs throughout with washrooms, fresh water showers, a bbq and roughed in serving tables and bar. The Reserve hauled coolers and food and booze and water out to the kitchen for our day. There is wonderful snorkeling around the caye. We enjoyed it all and even saw a ray hunting in the shallow waters off shore. As we prepared to leave a large Cat dropped its anchor off the shore and waited their turn on this lovely island in paradise. We arrived back to Namaste as the sun was setting, feeling like we had experienced something very special and having met some interesting folks.

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Laughing Bird Caye-April 10,2019

We ready the boat for a sail that means shutting everything away so nothing shifts or falls about while we are under sail. The winds are very light and the seas almost glassy. Unlikely we will be sailing the 4 hours -22 NM it will take us. There are no shallows enroute and we arrive at the Caye about 2pm. It is a small caye – about a 5-minute walk end to end and a 1-minute walk across. It is inside the barrier reef. We find a nice sandy spot to anchor about 25 meters off the beach. The caye is a park and named for the gulls that gather there. Their calls are indeed like a laugh. Wilbert is the caretaker of the caye and tells us where to snorkel. It is a popular destination from Placencia for tour boats offering daily snorkel guides. Three such boats leave as we arrive. The small caye has an elevated structure for Wilbert who tells us he lives here 3 weeks on and one week off. Pretty solitary existence. We don our gear and explore for the first time the Belizean the coral and fish.

Hatchet Caye- April 11-13, 2019

What a surprise as we approach Hatchet Caye. We see from the mooring field a dive shop, a well-developed resort with a restaurant, pool, bar, several guesthouses kayaks, seadoos and dive boats. We are anxious to go ashore and thrilled to try out their mooring balls. After one attempt into a stiff breeze we snatch the eye and tether our bow lines to it. Ashore we settle into the bar and meet the other guests. Some are a group of woman on a Yoga retreat – quite delighted in our boat’s name. 17 folks are a gathering of a family for a reunion. Pretty sweet place for that. And to our surprise Mary and Jeff Holt on SV Finte walk up the beach to join us at the bar. They are new friends from Placencia. They too are hanging out for a few days.

Enjoying the lounge and a few beers we look out to see Namaste adrift. Oh shoot. A mad dash to the dinghy ensued and between Ron and a skiff from the dive shop we grabbed Namaste and tied her up to another mooring ball. The tether on ours had chaffed through on the sea bottom and set us free. Lesson learned – again the hard way! Never trust a mooring ball. Pull back hard on them just like an anchor. Ron is aghast that a resort with a dive shop wouldn’t have mooring balls in better shape. Even after this, they said ‘yeah – we will dive the rest tomorrow’. (They never did!) We did reversed hard on this one but still had a restless sleep.

It is after sunset one night, dark and we walk out to the pier. The resort has turned on blue underwater lights to attract fish. What happens next is extraordinary. We look down and see 10-20 4-foot rays feeding on the fish. Their wings glide them back and forth in the blue-lit waters almost like a ballet. We marvel at the beauty of the scene below us and then slowly make our way back along the winding palm tree lined boardwalk to our dinghy and back to Namaste.

Life on the anchor March 26……..

We anchored in Texan Bay also know as Cayo Quamado. ‘Texas Mike’- another character with a distinct voice has a little restaurant on this Bay where you can get a good meal and great cold beer. It is stopping off point for cruisers both coming up and down the river. We need to be out of Guatemala for 90 days this year and the clock started ticking on March 27. The absence of 90 days allows the boat to stay in the Rio for 2 years without paying import duties etc.
Texan Bay is very tranquillo and we loved our time there. Every morning young school kids would come by in a launcha with ground coffee to sell or fruit or knickknacks. The bay is quite sheltered and the water like glass. Once we got our SOS systems up and operational we sailed out towards Livingston on the coast of the Bay of Honduras.-

March 30.
On a glorious sunny day with light winds we pulled anchor at Texas Bay and began
The spectacular sail down the Rio The water is deep often close to 100 feet with the jungle cascading straight into the river from heights of 300 feet. We passed by massive estates reportedly owned by Canadians and Americans. Juxtaposed to these opulent places were local thatched tiendas and homes of the Mayans.

Crossing the bar at Livingston.

Livingston is small town at the entrance to the Bay of Honduras. A sand bar across the entrance causes much concern with boaters. The depth is very shallow. At high tide it is rarely over 5 feet. Without a short draft and careful attention to the very narrow 7 foot wide channel many boats need to be leaned and dragged through it. It is a constant topic of conversation amongst boaters. One boater recently has mapped the sand bar with some specialized instruments. He provided waypoints to the community that have been incredibly accurate. Our draft is only 4’6” and with careful helming and adherence to these waypoints we motored through the bar with no trouble at all. And we are grateful as the sand bar can shift with the tides.

We headed to Tres Puntas to anchor and stay the night. It is spit of jungle into the Bay of Honduras, which offers protection from south east, and west winds. The area is quite built up since we were there in 2017. It now has a large resort including with water slides.

March 31……Placencia

The next morning 0700 we hauled anchor and headed to Placencia, Belize. The seas were flat and the wind was almost dead at times. It began to fill in later in the day and we were able to hoist our Jib and sail. We arrived in good time- 1600. We anchored in the channel amidst 17 other yachts. We had heard there were 30 anchored which could have forced us in to the lagoon far from the life in Placencia.
We spent a lovely evening have beer and meeting 10 best friends from Yakima Washington- almost neighbours! Some of them had won a week fishing and snorkeling trip to one of the cayes and atolls nearby. They were a hoot and we all had a good time.

We will stay here and enjoy the coastal community for a few days. There is a strong Caribbean influence here in the people, the food and music. The little town of Placencia with an airport nearby, is a jumping off spot for sport fishing and scuba/snorkeling. For the cruising community it is a provisioning spot before exploring the many cayes and reefs nearby. The beachfront is quite quaint. Much of it is built on a small network of interconnected boardwalks. The place is very colourful with brightly painted stores and restaurants.
We have run into friends Steve and Marion and faithful 4 legged companion Trotsky from Whitehorse. We met them in 2017 in the Rio. They are heading back to the RIO having completed their season. Good to hear about where they went and how they got there and what they saw.