Up The Creek

After an uneventful 24 hour passage from Utila we arrived in Livingston Guatemala early in the morning.  Getting to the anchorage of Livingston can be a challenge due to the bar crossing that is required.  Catamarans usually don’t have an issue because of their shallow draft. We draw 4 feet and at times crossing this bar only had 6 inches to spare. Monohulls, on average, draw between 5-7 feet. They would have to pay close attention to the tide tables, which this time of year, might have up to a 2 foot swing. The other thing they do here if a monohull needs help across the bar is to tip the boat and tow it across. A line is run from the top of the mast to a panga. The panga will pull the boat to the side causing it to heel over. This in turn tilts the keel up and away from the bottom. The panga keeps tension on the line while the captain motors forward and over the bar.

When checking into Guatemala by boat you must use an agent. Raul is the man. We made contact with him a few days prior to arriving and sent him pictures of all required documents. We messaged him when we were anchored in front of Livingston and he responded that he will be out with all the officials by boat in an hour. There were 5 other boats, some arriving, some leaving, the officials made their rounds. They took our passports and told us to come to the office in 3 hours. We went into town a little early to find a bank machine to withdraw the local Quetzal currency, buy a SIM card and then found Raul’s office. We paid our fees of 1680 Q or about 300.00 Cdn, got our stamped passports back and we were on our way.

We lifted the anchor and began the 8 miles up the Rio Dulce (translation is Sweet River). It was very interesting with lots of birds, other boats and houses of various shapes and sizes. There were 3 hairpin corners with sandbars we were told to watch for too. While its shallow over the sand banks other sections of the river are over 60 feet deep.

The river opens up to a shallow lake of about 9 nm that we motor through then a 4 mile long narrows again to where all the marinas are.  There are about 20 or so marinas or boat storage facilities here. Some have haulout and dry storage. We are at Happy Iguana Marina and will leave the boat in the water this year until our return. Fronteras is the main town, it has a pretty good grocery store, ATMs, restaurants and most other things one would need. We are ½ hr walk or 10 min. dinghy ride to town. Just a few miles further up stream the river opens up to head waters of the river, the 24 mile long Lake Izabal.

We are working away on the usual boat chores to put the boat to bed. We got lucky with the weather, temps are down this week to a high of 30C and 22C at night. Usually its much warmer here. This year it involved a trip up the mast to remove a bird’s nest after they recently tried to move into our radar reflector.

Its Samana Santa week now and lots of people come from Guatemala City for the holiday, many even arrive via helicopter. There are several very nice homes and fancy 50 ft power boats cruising around here. The river is extra busy with boat traffic now and it makes going out in the dinghy a little more challenging.

Barb was desperate for a haircut, she asked around and was given the name of a woman that often cuts cruiser’s hair from her home. There is no such thing as addresses here so the directions we got were get a TukTuk to take you to the Esfuerzo neighbourhood to Tita’s house, the one who cuts hair in front of the little bridge. We wondered how many TukTuk drivers we would have ask if they knew Tita? We were amazed when the first one we asked said yes he would take us there! Derick got a hair cut too at a local barber numero tres is much easier to describe than what Barb has to go through.

We leave in a couple of days, we’ve booked a driver to take us to Antigua, where we will spend 4 nights. Not to be confused with the island in the Eastern Caribbean. If we’re lucky the drive will take 7 hours. Impromptu road closures and accidents can turn the highway into a big traffic jam, so we’ve been told. After Antigua we will spend a few days in Lake Atitlan and finally Guatemala City before we fly home to Vancouver.