2/16/2013 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Yesterday we made it to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Took a few hours to check in and once legal, went back to the boat and slept a long time... When we got up this morning, the cold front that had been predicted had started to hit and the north wind was picking up. Right now we have about 25-30 knots in the anchorage, hopefully it's close to max. We've been watching boats drag all around, luckily caught before any damage was done. We're well hooked but not getting off the boat until probably Monday. Then we'll start to explore :-)

Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom

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We're in Mexico

A quick update, we have gone from Guatemala to Mexico, with only a few stops on the outside of Belize. We would have liked to explore Belize further but our boat has an almost 7 foot draft and most places we can't get into. We made the decision to try to get to Isla Mujeres, Mexico pretty quickly. We just came off an overnight passage from hell! We left Long Cay (Belize) with the idea of an overnight to Cayo Norte (farthest southern atoll of Mexico) but misjudged the current and the wind. We only had a tiny scrap of jib out but had 25 knots from the south-east and couldn't keep it much below 8 knots! We blew by Cayo Norte at around 2am. Unfortunately it was not one of the better passages; we had 6-8 foot beam seas, anything that could possible be dislodged went flying, Tom broke his little toe and I have a head cold. Our exhaust system started pouring water into the bilge and one of our bilge pumps stopped working (it worked fine when tested at the dock a couple of weeks ago). But we made it safe and only a little battered into Espirto Santo. This is a big bay on the mainland of Mexico with no civilization other than a tiny Mayan village on it. We're planning on another overnight to Isla Mujeres this afternoon. Why is it we do this again :-)

We'll stay in Isla Mujeres for at least a few weeks (months?), licking our wounds and finding the best street tacos.

Cheers,
Carolynn, Tom & Ginger (who says she is abandoning ship at the first opportunity)

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2/6/13 - Back in the ocean

We escaped the river :-) We hit the bar at the Rio Dulce entrance going about 6 1/2 knots, slowed into the 2's at the worst of it, but made it over unassisted. We did have "Hector" following along side us in a big fishing boat to give us a tug if we stopped, but we were able to power through. The bottom of our keel is quite clean. We'll slowly move north/East up the outside of Belize, reaching Isla Mujeres Mexico in a couple of weeks. It's good to be moving again!

Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom

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2/2/2013 - Rio Dulce, Guatemala

A week or so ago we went to Belize for a 3 1/2 day scuba trip.  The trip was through Reef Conservational International, a non-profit organization based out in the Sapodilla cays.  We have been signed up for this trip for months and were excited to blow bubbles again.  The trip started with collectivo van ride to Puerto Barrios.  Collectivo vans are 15 passenger vans that they regularly stuff over 30 passengers in; people are sitting on each other, standing hunched over, hanging out the door, and sometimes even sitting on the top luggage rack:

It's a cheap way to travel though.  Luckily for us, it was a Sunday so the van wasn't too crowded and we each got our own seat.  After checking out of Guatemala immigration, we bought tickets for the water ferry over to Belize's Punta Gorda.  Calling it a ferry is a little grandiose, it's really just a launch with padded seats and a big motor.  They also carry goods between Guatemala and Belize, making it one of the world's smallest international cargo ships:

An hour ride later, we got to Punta Gorda, found a taxi (not easy in a little town on a Sunday), and went out to our B&B for the night.

The next morning we went back into town where we met our group for the week.  I felt a little old; except for one other woman in her 50's, the rest of the group were all 20 something's.  As it turned out, our 30+ years of diving experience made up for their youth and vigor and we were able to keep up with the "kids" :-).

Reef CI is located on a tiny island on the outer barrier reef, about 25 miles from the mainland of Belize.  The entire island is about the size of a football field.  There are several buildings, a few sleeping huts, a dock, and lots of palm trees:

The accommodations are "rustic", but everything is provided and a nice taste of the islands.

After dropping our bags and a quick lunch, we headed out for the first of many dives.   Here's Tom in his Zen diving mode:

The coral around the islands was very healthy but the fish population has been impacted by the invasion of the Lionfish.

Lionfish are strikingly beautiful but voracious eaters with no local predators,  and strip the reef of juvenile native species of fish and crustaceans wherever they have spread.  The Caribbean diving and marine scientific community is very concerned about their impact.  Every dive we went on a couple of people would take down spear guns and "get" as many lionfish as they can, but I am afraid it's too little.  We can only hope that some native species evolves (quickly) to realize how tasty these are and starts to control the population.

It was pretty much eat/sleep/dive for the 3 1/2 days!  Reef CI does a lot of monitoring the reef for specific species that gauge the health of the reef.  We learned about a few new species, like these Flamingo Tongues:

It was soon time to head back to Sunny.  We were very tired but had a great time.

The plan is to cast off our dock lines tomorrow (Feb 4th) then leave the Rio on Thursday with the high tide.  As it looks right now we'll probably have to be "tipped" to get over the bar.  We're both very nervous about that, hopefully we'll be able to plow through the mud like we did when we got in, but this isn't as high a tide :-(  Everyone on Thursday late afternoon cross your fingers for luck.

Cheers,

Carolynn & Tom

1/12/2013

Here's wishing all our friends and loved ones Espero que tenga un próspero año nuevo  (I hope you have a prosperous New Year). 

Not a lot going on.  We're still in the Rio Dulce in Guatemala, we think our keel is growing roots down to the muddy river bottom.  The hope is to get out on the high tide the first week of February but we have hit yet another snag.  Tom started checking all of our systems since we have been sitting at the dock so long.  When he got to the windlass (the motor that raises the anchor), it ran but he didn't like the way it sounded and decided it needed to come out for a detailed inspection.  Several hours of swearing later, the motor was disassembled and he found that the magnets in the magneto that were supposed to be bonded to the case had dis-bonded.  How the motor turned at all is a mystery.  Without a working windlass we're not going anywhere, not trying to pull up a 90 pound anchor and many pounds of chain.  We have sent the case to a local electrician but don't have a lot of hope it can be fixed.  In the meantime we are desperately trying to order a new motor.  Unfortunately the company we need to deal with is stuck in the last century (early in it!).  No credit card, no paypal, they suggested we just come into their office!  I've got my bank sending them a check thru snail mail and then we'll try to get it flown down by the end of the month, not holding out a lot of hope.  Meantime next week we are headed to Belize for a week of scuba diving :-)  I'll take lots of pictures and do a good blog after we get back.

The only really interesting thing that has happened was last month we celebrated the "burning of the devil" at the marina.  To start the new year with a clean slate, all of our worries, regrets and problems are written on slips of paper, tucked into the devil which is then burnt to ashes :-)

Here's the paper mache "devil":

Marco, the dock manager preparing to hang it in a safe place:

The flames are starting:

Fully engulfed:

The new year now has a clean start.

Cheers,

Carolynn & Tom

11/25/2012 - Rio Dulce Guatemala

A few weeks ago a group of cruisers from the river went to Sampango for the day of the dead and giant kite festivals.  Sampango is past Guatemala City, so it was a full day of travel to get there.  Tom and I have made the trip from Rio Dulce to Guat City a few times by bus, so going with a group in a nice van with a group of friends was much nicer.  We stayed in the City overnight, got in some shopping, then early in the morning piled back in the van for the hour drive up to the festival. 

The day of the dead (November 1st) is a big holiday in predominately catholic Guatemala.  It's a time for families to remember and honor their ancestors, clean up gravesites, etc. For more than a hundred years, the locals up in the Guatemalan highlands have built and flown giant, colorful kites for the celebration. Anthropologists believe the practice actually goes back more than 3000 years to the Mayans. The biggest of these celebrations is in Sampango, outside of Antigua.

The kites are painted in images either representing someone who passed away the previous year, or maybe just fanciful or important symbols.  While most of the kites were "only" 10-15 feet in diameter, some of these were significantly bigger.  I tried to pace off the size of the biggest and I came up with between 50 and 60 feet!  And all hand painted.  Here are the pictures I took, but they really don't capture the true majesty!

Our first view of the staging area, most of the kites are still being put together so are not yet up:

I liked this one with the little "mini" kites around the perimeter:

One of the most elaborate ones, this was easily 50 feet tall.  The detail was amazing:

This was one of the biggest, I tried to pace it off (difficult because of the crowds) and came up with over 60 feet!  Several people though it was even bigger...

Here's the construction of the back.  They try to make these as light as possible, but also make do with what's available. 

Here's another even bigger!:

After wandering around watching them finish the construction, we decided to explore the rest of the festival.  Lunch roasting:

We eventually made our way to the cemetery.  There were many families having picnics, planting flowers, painting the tombs and burning incense.  We felt a little awkward taking picture, but here are a few I surreptitiously shot:

Then it was time to watch the kites fly :-) 

A few more kites have been erected and the crowd is pretty thick:

We paid the equivalent of about a dollar each for bleacher seats.  If they even allowed something like this back in the U.S. they would require the entire staging area cleared of spectators with large barricades and security keeping the crowds well away.  Here in Central America, they have a few kids run down a line telling everyone to make way, 5-6 big guys grab onto the kite line, running after the kids, the crowd scatters and hopefully the kite catches the wind before it arrows into the crowd, shear chaos.  Actually some of the groups were pretty well organized and could get their kites more or less in the air, but it looked pretty dangerous to be down under where the kites were flying/crashing.  Luckily as far as we could see there were no injuries.

Clear the crowds and run/pull:

It's up!

Two up at the same time:

Unfortunately there wasn't enough wind to even attempt anything larger than the "small" ones (12 foot diameter) before we had to go meet our ride back to Guatemala City.  Though as we were driving away, we saw one of the 20 foot diameter ones way up in the sky.

Overall it was a very fun day made more so since the majority of the crowd looked to be local Guatemalans.  The only bad thing was whenever you get that big a crowd, the pickpockets come out and one of our group got his wallet lifted.  In my opinion anyone bringing a wallet with drivers license, credit cards and lots of cash to something like this is just asking for it to be taken.  For me, other than enough for lunch and a few trinkets, everything was back in the hotel safe or still on the boat...

Cheers

Rio Dulce, Guatemala - 10/22/2012

The blog has been pretty quiet lately, Sunny has been tied to the dock at Mario’s marina since the last update and we haven’t been doing a lot of blog worthy stuff. For 2 months, I (Carolynn) was up in Southern California helping to take care of my brother; Chuck who has been very sick. I left Tom and Ginger back in Guatemala to fend for themselves. Chuck is doing very well so I’m now back on the boat. Unfortunately only a few days after I returned, Tom got the bad news that his mother had fallen and broke her hip. He is now back in Northern California helping her with her recovery. It is very unclear as to when we will be moving on. This is a nice place though to be "stuck". The river is safe year round and there are enough cruisers moving in and out that there's usually something going on.

Looking back, I had not updated the blog since we first got to the river so here are a few things we did before I left for California:

Fourth of July party at the marina. Whole roasted pig in a pit, live music with a local band and xylophone and lots of friends and laughs:

One morning a group of us went up the river a mile or so to the old fort "Castilla de Sa Felipe". The fort guarded the Spanish galleons from the pirates while the Spanish were off plundering the Mayan gold. The river, and especially the bar at the entrance must have been much deeper back then.

Here we are at the head of the flotilla, about to be passed by the other, much faster dingys  (look at the concentration on Tom, but almost everyone's dingy is faster than ours).

On the way we saw this sign on the river, it says roughly: "I sell marijuana".  I verified this with a local who confirmed that yep, that's what it says and the authorities don't care as long as they sell to other locals, gringos if caught will get a "fine" (probably pocketed by the police).

The fort is set on a point of land with views both up and down river.  The fort is in the process of being restored and the grounds are beautifully manicured.

The fort, complete with a small moat and draw bridge:

View downriver back toward town:

View upriver toward lake Izabal:

The fort was a maze of narrow corridors and steep steps, good for thwarting invaders:

How do I load one of these?

A few weeks later we took a one day trip to Quirigua; a midsized Mayan site with some of the tallest stelas, or carved stone monuments. The local sandstone is very strong and not prone to shearing or fracturing, allowing the sculptors at Quiriguá to erect the tallest freestanding stone monuments in the Americas. Restored from the jungle from 1974 through 1979, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.  It was quite impressive, unfortunately the few signs were in spanish, so we probably lost a little in our understanding.

Stelas protected by palapa roofs:

Intricate carving

We then walked to the "ball park", those stairs were steep!

Well, that's about all for now.  There were a few other minor excursions and a few pictures from our trip back to California, but this update is long enough.  Our long term plans are very unclear with Tom still up north, hopefully we'll be able to move on sometime this winter.