Safely up the sweet river (Rio Dulce)

We left Fantasy Island Marina…well…I'm not sure if I can say sadly… but suffice to say that if there were no hurricane seasons (or we had a shallower draft boat that could scoot up the Rio at any forecast of trouble)…perhaps this would be a place we would hang around much longer.

I think the monkey will miss me… he really liked the brownies that I shared with him! We had stronger than forecast winds and we were both so happy to be able to sail six knots sometimes seven with following seas for the first couple hours. Then it did become a motor sail...to a motor! Into Utila and anchor next to our buddy boat for the remainder of the trip, Highland Light. They had acquired another boat going "our" way with "our" timing as well, Amazing Grace.This picture is from the anchorage to the mainland...much prettier picture than the other way around...I'm not much of a fan of Utila! We all had anchors up by 6:00ish...

and really tried to sail the 40 plus miles to Lagoona Diamante…but motor sail was more the name for the day. You might recognize the name of this place as we stayed last year on our way as well…I was not happy with this choice (there was another anchorage…Escondito…that I would have preferred) as the Diamante anchorage has a narrow 15 foot deep rocky lined channel with only 7 to 9 feet maximum depth in a quarter (or less) of its size. For a 7 foot draft boat…with no working depth sounder...well those issues were enough for me...but Paul was concerned with possible thunderstorms (like we had experienced last year) and felt it would be safer with three boats in Diamante and since he had been there before...he could get us in and out without incident...he had even chose to lead the other boats in (he really is a great Captain...but don't let him know I said that). Of course I was remembering Lake Sylvia...and others (just have to check previous blogs). The good news...he dropped anchor soon after entering....Highland Light and Amazing Grace (both with a foot or more less draft than Paul's boat...and working depth guages) went farther into the lagoon and dropped anchor for the night. It is a beautiful area of Honduras...a National Park named for a woman (Jeanette Kawas) who fought local Unions and powerful family locals to have it preserved as a National Park in 1994.She then paid the ultimate price as she was gunned down the following year.Anyway, thankfully there were no thunderstorms, a slight rinse of the boat but all was quiet. We all were up even earlier for the 60 some mile hopeful sail to Tres Puntas. It was again an off and on sail…however mostly a motor sail…the last hour was our only true sail…with winds over 18 knots! We anchored around the point…and took Sunday as a day of rest…well…rinse the boat and a little cleaning, and a little happy hour with Highland Light, Amazing Grace and Java Moon aboard. When Amazing Grace (Scott) heard that our depth sounder was not working he asked if he could take a look at it...and before he left the boat all that was left to do was to put in the new sounder and string the wire! Thank you!! A quickly approaching thunderstorm with strong winds chased them all back to their boats just before dark. Up early for the 10 mile motor before crossing the Livingston bar high tide Monday morning and I noticed a sailboat way off...looked like a cat...circling out! At the time I wondered why a cat would be needing to wait for high tide! Then as we got closer we noticed the color of the sail covers...and yes, it was Rainbow Rider! They had come to watch the "show"...well the Amel being tipped! We had our "tip" arranged...and the fishing boat was waiting for us as we approached the buoy. I explained to them (in Spanish as the three of them knew no English) that the Captain (Paul) wanted to motor as far as he could until he grounded...then would be tipped. Paul had gotten the rigging all ready the night before knowing that a tip would be inevitable. One of the men came on board and guided Paul (with hand signals and Spanish that I somewhat translated - he spoke soooo fast...and of course with an accent!!! Ha ha ha)...and we bumped...then bumped again...but never lost more than a knot (we were only going 3.5 to 4 knots anyway) of speed. The man on board was telling me that Agatha had dumped so much rain into the rivers of Guatemala that it had scoured out the "bar" by a couple of inches to a foot (that was now all out to sea)...it was possible that we just might make it across once we went through that bumpy spot! And, that is what we did...so we had all these cameras ready to take a picture of US being tipped...Rainbow Rider came over to see the show...and, no tipping...of course we still had to pay them the $50.00! Oh, well!!! With as many boats that crossed, it took Raul until after 1:00 to get all the papers done...so Paul chose to scoot up the river as fast as we could to get to Mario's before dark. So here we are...we have already met with good friends but are needing to get the boat ready in one week to leave it for at least three months. We'll see how much fun we can have too!!