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.

A Sunday at Montserrat

One of the Picasso works on display at Montserrat Museum, the Old Fisherman

When we arrived at our hotel in Madrid we thought we had a 3 night reservation. However, upon check-in we learned that I had made only a two night request and to extend another day would be very expensive. So instead of booking another night in Madrid we were able to start our Barcelona excursion a day early and very happy we did.

Our first course of salads at OrganiQ, Sant Cugat Spain

The trip from Madrid to Barcelona was about 300 miles and it was going into afternoon. In Spain lunch begins around 1400 so before we left Madrid we visited a shopping complex adjacent to the hotel and bought some food for lunch. There is a nationwide chain of stores called El Corte Ingles that are like the Herald Square Macy's in New York City with a supermarket and one was in the same complex as our hotel. The store was amazing with great meats, cheeses, wines and liquors. They also have gourmet dining shops where we got our food to go.

The street scene of OrganiQ in Sant Cugat,

The trip to Barcelona was fascinating. The Autovia (highway) ran through some very high mountains as the elevation of Madrid is over 3,000 feet. However, unlike many mountains we are familiar with the ones around Madrid are barren and dry that made for interesting and wide open expanses vistas. The mountains also brought with them large swings in the speed limit with their grades and curves requiring constant attention because they love to put speed traps in the lower speed zones. The speed

The sheer cliff at the parking lot on Montserrat. Already high up the mountain.

traps were stationery mounted cameras along the side of the road with warning signs about a kilometer before. Hard to say which were working because vandals reported break them frequently to prevent getting caught. But, I think I saw them all in time to brake. The typical speed limit was 120 kilometers/hour or just under 80 miles/hour although I usually drove about 140 k/h or just over 90 m/h.  We'll see if I get any citations.

 View looking from the Abbey at Montserrat

There are also rest areas along the Autovia. Some are simply gas stations but some have hotels and restaurants. We stopped at one about midway to Barcelona and filled up with gas and ate our lunches. The trip through the countryside was interesting and uneventful.

Our hotel in Barcelona was in the suburb of Sant Cugat. Originally it's own town it is now a very upscale suburb and our hotel was in what was considered the financial district with many corporate headquarters and insurance companies. Sant Cugat is also the home of the famous band leader Xavier Cugat who was married to Charo who was from Murcia, Spain not far from Cartagena, Spain.

View looking through the Courtyard to the peak

We got into the hotel after dark and had a late dinner and planned our next day's activities. We didn't have an itinerary when we came to Spain although we had a list of objectives we wanted to achieve. We got to Sant Cugat Saturday night and Sunday much of what we wanted to see in Barcelona was closed so we looked for "Plan B."

The Black Madonna of Montserrat

Sunday we got up late because we were still jet-lagged and tired from our running in Madrid and the drive over. But, we got up and found our way into the old part of Sant Cugat to an organic veggie restaurant for a wonderful brunch. The restaurant had many great options but I didn't feel like wine for breakfast. Turned out the food was some of the best we had on the trip.

 








Chapels outside the main  sanctuary

The main sanctuary of the Basilica

 
Stained glass window in the sanctuary 

Our big trip for the day was to Montserrat. Montserrat in Spain, not the Caribbean volcano island. Montserrat is home to an abbey and monastery that date back over 1000 years. Situated high up on a mountain edifice it has spectacular views and a treasure trove of artifacts. The drive from Sant Cugat was about 35 minutes to the base and then we had to drive the long winding, climbing and narrow road to the top. As we drove it each view became more spectacular foreshadowing what we might see at the top.

The promontory above the Monastery

Being Sunday the parking lots were crowded and even the bus parking was full with locals and tourists visiting this shrine. But, we were able to get into one lot that was not too far from the top and walked up to see the breathtaking views of the valleys and the still expanding mountain above.  Then there was the abbey and monastery.

The Courtyard

Before we went into the Basilica we went through the Museum. While it is not del Prado, it has works by Picasso, Dali, Pissaro and other great Spanish painters. But more than that it has relics back to ancient Egypt including mummies and artifacts dating back more than 2000 years. The artifacts include pieces before the birth of Christ, relics of early Christianity and ancient Judaism.

Old Torah's on display in he Montserrat Museum

Ancient Egyptian Artifacts

 Egyptian mummy and sarcophagus










After visiting the museum we went through the Basilica that included the so-called "Black Madonna" which is an ancient sculpture of Mary allegedly dating back to the time of Christ is black due to the passage of time. Pilgrims come from all over Spain and beyond to witness the Virgin. It was quite moving to see the artwork in the Cathedral and especially this statue being worshiped by the faithful.

Link to the Black Madonna of Montserrat  

Entrance to the Basilica

It was getting late and tourists were  leaving as things began to close so we headed back to the car.
On the drive back we looked for a place for dinner. Many of the restaurants were closed because it was Sunday or they weren't open late. We found a nice little place called the Somewhere Cafe in the old center of Sant Cugat for a nice meal, nice time and good wine. We were still jet-lagged and fading fast.

Over dinner we planned our next day where we would take the train into Barcelona to see all we could.

Montserrat is really a site to behold for its scenery, its beauty, its treasures and its significance in world culture.