Adios Guatemala

 Heading down the Rio Dulce on our way out of Guatemala.

Since we first decided to go the Caribbean and then left the Bahamas, we talked about the day we would leave Guatemala and head to Panama. It has been over 3 years since we developed the plan but the day has finally come to leave the dock and continue moving to the next stop.

Amekaya getting hauled out for bottom paint.

In preparation for leaving we spent a lot of time during our very fast and busy 2 months in the States so we could bring back stores for the boat and additionally shipped 120 lbs of cargo to Roatan instead of carrying it back in addition to the baggage we did carry. Our very quick trip to Spain would have been longer but we came back to get our boat ready to head to Panama. It took us about 3 weeks from the time we got back from Spain until we were able to undo our dock lines and leave Guatemala.

 

 RAM Marina Manager Karen DeLopez inspecting our paint job.

Life on the hard.                    

In that short 3 weeks we were hauled out to have the bottom cleaned and painted; the hull and topsides cleaned and waxed; completed numerous repairs and updates; but most importantly got

A couple nights before we left we met our good friend Trish and Tom for dinner at Dreamcatchers.

ourselves ready to break free of the inertia of the Rio lifestyle. Over the past two years we fell into the sweetness of the Rio Dulce. What is not to like there. The Rio has it all for cruisers. A great

 

 Rosa our favorite Catamaran Bar waitress and all around great lady.

logistical support base, every service you could require, excellent availability of produce; a great social network and lots of fun. Not to mention that Guatemala is a beautiful country and the people are very friendly, honest, helpful and hard working. All that made it difficult to leave.

Amekaya in her slip at Catamaran Marina.

But the time has come. We are ready to see new horizons. So on Sunday 10 November with everything ready that we were going to get done we bid farewell to our friends and slipmates at Catamaran Marina. We slipped the lines shortly after noon for our exodus down the river back to blue water.

Leaving our slip

We spent a night in Cayo Quemado to get rigging work done. This was the sunset looking out on the Golfete.







With her freshly painted bottom, full tanks of fuel and water Amekaya quickly made her way down the 20+ miles to the mouth of the Rio Dulce at Livingston. Along the way we passed our friends on Kuaka, Serge and Charlotte Crottaz who buddy-boated with us from the Caymans arriving the same day we did and here they are leaving the same day we are. We chatted a bit on the radio and took pictures and bid them safe travels and hastened on down the river.

Our friends on Kuaka heading out.

Livingston at the mouth of the Rio is not a town where you can leave your boat unattended. There is lots of traffic, strong current and folks interested in relieving yachts of parts. So, I dinghied in alone to our usual dock and found it closed but a “friendly” local man was standing by looking to watch

The port of Livingston.

dinghies. I always worry with these guys that they could be accomplices to the urchins looking for dinghy engines. But, I got our clearances quickly and headed back to the dock. The man was quite true and even took the effort to take our dinghy under a roof on the closed dock during a rain shower. I gave him what I thought was the rest of our Guatemalan money (Q30 or about US$4) and dinghied quickly out to our anchored boat.  

Rio in the rearview mirror.

We lifted the motor off the dinghy for the passage and secured the dink in our davits and it was time to cross the bar.  High tide was forecasted for about 1900 but I like to cross at least an hour before. The forecast was for nearly 2 feet of tide so at just after 1700 when we lifted the anchor we believed

Heading out around Cabo Tres Puntas.

we should have plenty of depth to get across the 5’ bar. So, with the sun setting we went to our waypoints and in 20 minutes we were in deep water with a gentle swell coming in ahead of the port beam.  We motored on across the Bay of Amatique to a place we've anchored several times before and after checking the swell dropped the hook, had dinner and went to bed.

A squall building during our trip to Placencia.

After a very peaceful night inspite of the northwesterly swell we didn't get up early but were on our way by mid-morning with a very light breeze. The swell and breeze from the northwest is about the worst direction in that anchorage but everything was light and it was very comfortable. We were ready to go to Placencia.

Lots of rain. A squall moving by after getting on our mooring in the Pelicans.

The wind when we left the anchorage was very light so when we made it around the tip of Cabo Tres Puntas we had about 5 kts dead behind us. With about a 5 hour trip and not an early start due to the

Placencia harbor in the morning.

late night before we simply motored the distance to Placencia harbor. Along the way we went through
several squalls that had little wind. But, when we got to Placencia there were huge amounts of standing water on the ground indicating they had large rainfalls. There were only 2 other boats in the anchorage because the cruising season in Belize hasn't started yet.

The main drag in Placencia.

Since our immediate objective was the easternmost Bay Island it seemed out-of-the-way to go to Belize. But we had several motives. The first was to do some provisioning. The grocery stores often

carry products that may or may not be available in Honduras so we thought we would try there first

Looking out our back door in Placencia.

for certain items. They also have Belize and Mexican produce that is also not available widely in Honduras. The Mennonite farmers produce excellent quality foods and since we couldn’t bring back fresh bacon from the States we picked up enough to last us several months. 

 The sky over the Pelicans when we arrived.

Our second objective was to enjoy for the last time a few of the eateries we’ve come to enjoy. The first was Tutti Frutti, a local homemade ice cream place that is high on everyone’s list. Second was Rick’s Café. A nice little local place run by an American ex-pat where we dined with many friends

Looking out at the rising full moon from Barefoot Beach Bar.

over 2 years. We were really surprised to find him closed. We talked with hm and he explained the building owner had not finished his new place and the cooks had a death in their family and had gone for several days. We went back to the Barefoot Beach Bar where we enjoyed ok food but a beautiful moonrise over the Sound.

At Hideaway Cay

Next morning we went shopping for produce and got ready to leave. Our last visit in Belize was going to be to Hideaway Cay in the Pelicans to visit with our friends Dustin, Kim and Ama there and enjoy her wonderful conch. We ate, drank and talked for several hours before retiring to our boat and getting ready to leave the next morning for Roatan. We will miss them.

 Hideaway Lodge














Since we had made several passages between Belize and the Bay Islands I really didn’t do the much thinking about the route out of Belize and up to Jonesville Marina. I did want to get an early start to avoid afternoon squalls so we headed out shortly after 1000. There was also a charter boat on a mooring that needed a guide across the reef and they followed us. I wanted to be outside the reef before any heavy clouds and squalls obscured our view of the water. We left the Pelicans and went north to Blueground and then out to South Water Cut where we went through the reef. We got out by 1230 with excellent sun.

Sunset on the way to Roatan.

Forecast for the day was for very light wind with a chance of showers or storms and that’s what we had. There was also a forecast for small but fast waves. We also saw that. But instead of being from the northwest they were from the south and southwest which put them in a very annoying place. Most of the waves weren’t bad but some really rocked the boat and sent things inside the boat flying. This swell continued for about half the trip and gave me the opportunity to try out our new shock cord restraints for our cabin settee cushions.

One of my projects to install the shock cord to restrain the cushions in rough seas.

Before departing I had not really done the math as I usually do because we had made the passage several times before and knew the route planning from others. But once we got out and I put in a waypoint for our journey our chart plotter showed an arrival near the West End of about 0230. That

 
Another project was to replace the strut and the receiver for the door for the vanity in our head. Complicating it was the need to shim out the receiver. It took long time to find the right strut and get the receivers from the factory. But it's great now with no workarounds.

would put us at our destination about 0500 well before sunrise and anyone around. We were traveling
about 6 kts at barely 2000 rpm which is about the minimum I would run our engine for any length of time. So I reconsidered and thought that if we upped the speed to our usual 7-8 kts we could get to the West End anchorage shortly after midnight. We could go in, pick up a mooring and sleep for the night. That was our new plan.

With the promise of a night's sleep we got the engine to normal running speed motoring on under a dry sky and later a beautiful moonrise past several freighters bound for Guatemala and Honduras, cruise ships bound for Belie and Mexico until the lights on the island of Roatan became visible.

West Bay on Roatan as we left the West End on the way to Jonesville.

Normally going through a reef at night would not be something we attempt and Linda questioned me several times if I was sure I wanted to do it. We had been in and out of the cut several times over the past two years in daylight, I knew my waypoints were good and there were lighted marks. After all

Amekaya in her slip at Jonesville.

the reef doesn't move. So, in we went. We hit the first waypoint in deep water but didn’t see any lit marks. Linda got up on the bow with a light and we found the marks without their lights. Following my waypoints, we crossed through without difficulty and began searching for the moorings. After a brief search we failed to find any moorings and we decided to anchor. So shortly after 0100 we had the anchor safely in the bottom and called it a night having made it from Belize to Roatan, about 110nm in about 15 hours for an average speed of 7.3kts.

Jonesville Point Marina

Next morning, Thursday, we got up after a nice quiet night and waited out a squall before heading to Jonesville. Again, we had to motor since there was little wind to support a sail. We got tied up in our slip just after 1100 and went into marina arrival mode and began planning for the tasks we needed to accomplish before moving on.

View from the top of the hill.

It’s hard to believe that it has been only a week since we left Catamaran Marina in the Rio, cleared out of Guatemala, went to Belize for 2 nights and made it to our marina in Roatan for our final staging

The boxes we shipped from Florida in August showed up on our dock after we got there.

to go to Providencia. From here we head to Guanaja to wait for everyone and a weather window.

This will be our last post about this until we have reached Providencia due to security concerns. I will hopefully get more of our Spain pictures posted before we leave.

The jungle road near the Rio. On to new adventures.