September 6, 2011 Mass email - Stone Mtn, GA

Dear friends and family,

We last wrote to you from Bremerton, having returned to Washington for the summer. Since then we’ve done a lot of driving and a lot of boring errands to get ready for the remainder of our voyage. We stayed at Steve’s parent’s house, worked on our properties in Pacific and Snohomish, visited, and gathered equipment needed to continue the voyage. After attending Steve’s high school reunion we drove south to Ginny’s mom’s and grandma’s house in Los Angeles and spent a week with them. On the way we also visited a half-sister and aunt of Ginny, whom she hadn‘t seen since she was little.

 

We then drove swiftly across southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas (it took three scorching days to cross this giant!), Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. What a hot trip! We took a week instead of our usual month, camping each night. Our favorite spot was a national wildlife area just east of Las Cruces, New Mexico. We parked among cactus on a high desert in the foothills of the Organ Mountains. The air was hot and still, the stars bright and close.

At the Sea Pearl factory near Tampa we picked up our boat trailer, new sails, and boat parts. Then we returned to Larry and Karen’s place in Stone Mountain, near Atlanta. From Washington to Georgia our Isuzu pickup averaged 32 miles per gallon! We will leave the P’up and boat trailer here. Tomorrow we fly from Atlanta to Miami, then to Panama City. There we will pick up our new 2hp outboard motor and take buses and boats back to Bocas del Toro, where Thurston awaits.

Once we have installed various new equipment we plan to sail east along the coasts of Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. From Trinidad we will sail north through the Antilles and Bahamas to Georgia, completing our circumnavigation of the Caribbean.

Enjoy some new pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/RoadTripUSA#

Take care - we love you all.

Love,

Steve and Ginny

July 6, 2011 Mass Email - Bremerton, WA

Dear friends and family,

When we last wrote we had just returned to the U.S. for the summer. You may not find these domestic travels as interesting as our foreign ones, but at least you’ll know we’re still alive.

We had bought return-trip tickets for a four-month sojourn in the U.S. It seems like a long time, but we have a lot of ground to cover. After picking up our Isuzu pickup truck with a canopy over the back we spent a few days with fellow small-boat enthusiasts at Cedar Key, Florida, then with Larry and Karen at their home in Stone Mountain, Georgia. That’s where we had modified Thurston in preparation for the voyage. We next drove to St. Louis, where we stayed with Lena, Jesse and Ginny’s adopted niece Violet for a few days.

We drove west through Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, dropping our canoe into a lake here, a stream there. (We had left it at Larry’s and were returning it home.) In Livingston County, Missouri, we went for a walk in the woods and came back with our legs covered in ticks. At a mental institution in St. Joseph we toured the Museum of Psychiatry! Near Denver we visited Ginny’s friends Stephen & Stephanie and their very snuggly pitbulls. Then we drove through range after range of forgotten mountains in Wyoming and Montana. At dusk we would follow a dusty road off the highway into the sage brush or pines until we found a nice place to camp. Sometimes we made fires. We followed the route of Lewis and Clark through the Bitterroots and across Lolo Pass. Near Orofino, Idaho, we visited fellow-sailor Steve P., whom we had met in Honduras. In Spokane Steve’s Uncle Dean put us up for a night. Then we were home!

What is home, however? Steve’s house in Pacific is occupied by renters. We have performed a lot of deferred maintenance there and stowed or retrieved various possessions. But we have been sleeping either in our truck or in spare rooms with various friends and relatives, mainly Mom and Dad Ladd in Bremerton, in the house Steve grew up in. George’s heart isn’t very good anymore but he enjoys life as much as ever. You should hear some of his WWII war stories! We are getting little things done, like renewing our drivers licenses and going to the dentist, and gathering equipment we will need back at the boat. But we also are hanging out a lot with our loved ones.

We are now half-way through our mid-voyage interlude. In August we will drive back to Georgia. In September we will fly back to our boat. We now plan to proceed east along the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad, then north through the Antilles and Bahamas to Georgia. We will probably return home in 2013, having completed a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the Caribbean Sea. Maybe then we will be ready to settle down!

That’s it for now!

There are new photos in the album at https://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/RoadTripUSA#

Love,
Steve and Ginny

Cedar Key... Florida?

5/8/11

Dear friends and family,

When we last wrote we were up a creek in Bluefields, Nicaragua. Mandingo and Skinny Man were squabbling over the $5 per day we were paying to stay there. Steve talked to them about sharing, and harmony was restored. We caught up on the articles we are writing for Small Craft Advisor magazine, and on March 31 got a permit from the Port Captain to continue south.

We sailed down a coast sprinkled with tall, rocky islands to Monkey Bay, a calm cove with a sandy beach. Here we found twenty or so rustic, elevated dwellings interspersed with trees from which hung nests like long, droopy sacks. Black birds with bright yellow tails inhabited these nests, in a bird community parallel to the human community. At one of the houses we found 27-year-old heavyweight boxer Evans Quinn, whom we had met in Bluefields. Evans was on a break between fights in such locales as Germany, Australia, and the U:S. He was hospitable to the point of inviting Steve to become his manager. “We’ll make millions when I become world champion,” he said. Steve declined, but graciously taught Evans a few moves (ha!). See the picture of Steve and Evans sparring.

Our next stop was Rio Maiz, which issues from a vast jungle wilderness. Its mouth contained a village and army post. The soldiers, being from the interior, spoke only Spanish. The locals spoke Creole English and subsisted by fishing and by cultivating small plots in the forest. When the local kids weren’t splashing in the river they were standing around Thurston with their torsos poking under our awning, watching us like we were their television set. Like many towns there was no electricity or running water. There were also no streets, but the palm-lined beach provided an endless promenade. The sand was dark grey and soft as powder.

The wind picked up overnight, so we stayed a second day. Our next refuge would be the Rio San Juan at the border with Costa Rica. We would need to stop there to get Nicaraguan exit stamps in our passports. Our chart showed a complicated pattern of mouths, channels, and lagoons in that delta. Google Earth’s satellite image, which we had saved onto our laptop in Bluefields, showed a different layout. Our acquaintances in Rio Maiz could only tell us that the San Juan mouth was more dangerous than the Rio Maiz, and that after entering we should turn right to reach the town.

Thus informed we accepted a tow out the mouth, which was much rougher now. We sailed to where the Rio San Juan’s mouth should have been per the GPS but saw no opening. We found a mouth a half mile further south and anchored outside the surf. Steve swam in. He found a small river which, upon reaching the shore, turned left, parallel to the beach. A sand spit separated the river from the ocean for 200 yards, then tapered to nothing as fresh water mixed with salt. The breakers were six feet tall. A squall came. Ginny, thrashing at anchor, waited anxiously. When Steve returned we decided to proceed to Costa Rica without exit stamps. We weighed anchor and sailed to a Nicaraguan military boat anchored a mile offshore to ask them about the bar of the Rio Colorado, ten miles south. Steve contacted them with our handheld VHF. A rough translation follows.

“Small sailboat to military boat.”

“Wait, let me connect you.”

Another voice: “Did you want to enter the mouth?”

“Yes, but it looks too dangerous.”

“A boat can tow you. It won’t be dangerous.”

“How much will it cost?”

“Nothing. It will be free.”

Steve conferred with Ginny. “Okay, we will take a tow.”

“A white launch will arrive soon.”

Ten minutes later a panga with two men arrived. We passed them our longest, heaviest line. They towed us not to the river mouth we had found, but to where the mouth was supposed to have been. There was no indication of an opening, just a steady line of surf and beach. Yet they were still towing us at high speed! At the last instant they cut throttle, veered left, and shot up over a breaker. The man in the bow flew six feet into the air then land heavily in the bottom of the boat. The motorman, throttling back up, swerved right then left again. We followed 200 feet behind. Suddenly a river mouth appeared! It was like the one Steve had swum to in that the river at its end ran parallel to the coast, separated from the ocean by a sand spit. The sand spit had blended in with the beach behind.

The river turned inland, widened, and teed into a linear lagoon. We turned right and stopped on the left bank at a facility with a dock. A short, white-skinned, grey-haired man stood smiling on the sandy bank.

“Was it you I talked to on the VHF?” asked Steve.

“Yes, welcome. My name is Gustavo.”

“Is this a military installation? Do you want to see our papers?”

“Oh no. This business belongs to Eden Pastora. We keep the river dredged.”

“I’ve heard that name . . .”

“Eden Pastora was Comandante Uno on the Sandinista side when Somoza was overthrown in 1970s. He then became a Contra leader against the Sandinistas in the 1980s. But now he is back in the Sandinista government.”

“Did you fight too?” asked Steve.

“Yes, I was a Somozista during the insurgency, then a Contra. I trained in Texas and Georgia. The CIA gave me weapons. In fact, I led the attack on this town, or the previous town, actually. After we burned Greytown the residents fled to Costa Rica, and when they returned they rebuilt here, four miles away.”

Eden Pastora’s installation lay at the entrance to San Juan del Norte, which we now explored. It consisted of an extensive grid of concrete walkways, often elevated due to the marshy terrain. The walkways accessed tidy new homes and government buildings. In the center was a cobble-paved street without cars (there being no roads into the town.) A baseball tournament was beginning. Rival teams were arriving by boat from surrounding communities. Each team wore a distinctive, colorful uniform.

At the tourist office we studied documents and maps regarding the Rio San Juan’s strange history. It drains Lago Nicaragua, the huge lake that occupies the center of this country. The river has always been key to the country’s trade and development. The Spanish founded San Juan del Norte in 1539 in a natural harbor at the river’s mouth and built forts along the river. In the 1700s various pirates, British soldiers, and Miskito Indians invaded. In the 1800s it was part of the Miskito Kingdom. In 1848 the British re-named San Juan del Norte “Greytown” for the governor of Jamaica. In 1849 it became the eastern terminus of a transport company owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt that carried travelers from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of Central America on their way to the California Gold Rush. They started building a trans-isthmus canal parallel to the river but the Panama Canal ended up getting built instead. In 1854 the U.S. Navy sloop Cyane bombarded and burned the town, supposedly in retaliation against actions against American citizens. In 1855 American soldier-of-fortune William Walker declared himself President of Nicaragua. After a series of wars in which Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica helped repel the invader, Walker died before a firing squad.

Around 1855 the river shifted most of its flow to a secondary mouth, the Rio Colorado, in Costa Rica. The San Juan mouth silted in. Greytown Harbor became a lake. Nicaragua no longer controlled a navigable route to the Atlantic. The mouth Steve had investigated by swimming was that of the Rio San Juan. It connects with the Rio Indio, whose mouth we had entered and on whose lagoon the new town sits. This whole issue is a source of a lot of bitterness for Nicaraguans. They blame Costa Rica for silting the river and stealing land on the border.

We went with Gustavo to see what remains of Greytown. A launch took us though narrow, hyacinth-clogged channels to a landing where men were unloading sand from a boat with shovels and buckets. Sentries allowed into the camp of an army battalion which had chosen to locate on the old town site. They were building a new airstrip. Next to the area being leveled for the runway were four cemeteries: British, Catholic, Masonic (Italians, Germans, and Eastern Europeans), and American. Most had died in the 1800s. Antique bottles and iron artifacts had been piled in heaps.

Gustavo was nostalgic yet secretive. “This is my first time back since the battle,” he whispered. “I don’t tell the people here about my involvement. We killed a hundred of them. We attacked from that direction,” he said pointing east.

We stopped beside a set of brick foundation posts. A sign said this had been the Catholic church. “That’s funny, we didn’t burn the church,” he said. But it too was now gone.

After three days we got our exit papers and arranged for a tow back out the mouth. The panga skipper towed us to the point of no return. He circled twice while studying the breakers. They were six feet tall. After a moment’s contemplation he powered seaward. Thurston slammed into the first breaker. Foam cascaded over the bow, drenching us. We crested another and another until we reached open sea, then we retrieved our line. We were alone again.

The swell was so high we decided not to try any of the mouths on the way to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, seventy nautical miles away. We used a light, contrary wind to gain sea room. Rain hit. The wind picked up, ultimately requiring eight rotations of the main mast and six of the mizzen. Each reefing was a battle with flailing sails. The waves became precarious. Then the wind died. We rolled the sails back out in reverse sequence. We were becalmed yet the sea remained too disturbed to row. We sat for hours wishing we had stayed in port. After dark another squall hit. Clipped in now, we passed through the same stages of reef, de-reef, and doldrums in an endless cold downpour. Our worn-out rain gear no longer kept us dry. At 10:00 PM we deployed the sea anchor and went to bed.

We rowed most of the following day. The sea became glassy smooth but for the swells which lifted and dropped us ever few seconds. We took turns rowing to prevent blisters, broke for lunch, greased the oarlocks. A second night arrived. The sky was overcast but the lights of Limon were now visible. They slowly became distinguishable as ships, docks, and buildings. At 10:00 PM we rounded a point and tied to a buoy, exhausted and grateful. We were in Costa Rica! It was April 8.

In the morning we combed the waterfront until we found the port captain and the immigration and customs officials. A Holland America cruise ship was in port. Spanish and Creole English intermingled in the busy streets. The currency was called colones, of which 500 equaled a dollar!

We searched a small river at the head of the harbor for a more permanent mooring. Everyone told us to stay away from Cienegitas, the barrio on the banks of this mangrove estuary, but it was the only protected water near downtown. The houses on the banks were rotting and crooked. Techno-reggae blared from speakers. Vultures thrust their scaly heads into piles of garbage. We found a compound containing a house and boat yard. The owner agreed to let us stay for $5 per day. It took us three days to dry our gear. To get downtown we had to walk through dangerous slums, but the fruit and vegetable stands were well-stocked, allowing Steve to gorge on mangos!

On our forth day in Limon we took a bus to a place called Moin. There were no houses about, just a school and some docks. We had just crossed a bridge over a canal when we felt people tugging at our daypacks. Three teenage boys were robbing us! One held a long knife, the others held rocks. They toppled Steve and took his wallet and pack. Ginny fought back, screaming in rage, but her pack was soon wrested away also. They fled into the woods. We picked up makeshift weapons and foolishly followed, yelling. The brush emitted sounds of their escape then we heard splashes and saw them swimming across the river. Twenty yards in we found our gear. They had taken the $150 from Steve’s wallet and the digital camera and cell phone from our packs, but had left our passports and Ginny’s precious glasses. She had blood trickling down her face from a fingernail scratch received in the scuffle. We remembered that they were wet and barefoot, and that while walking over the bridge we had seen boys swimming in the canal. They must have promptly climbed the bank and snuck up behind us, their bare feet helping to muffle their footsteps.

Unwilling to let this ruin our stay in Costa Rica, we left Thurston at a safer boat yard next door to the Port Captain’s house and took a bus to San Jose. We relaxed in an air-conditioned room and explored this cosmopolitan capital which bursted with pastry shops. We stayed five days in San Jose and two days in nearby Cartago, a smaller town from which we took hikes in the mountains. Here, evidently, we were nearly robbed again. We were walking down a country road when a taxi cab stopped. Pointing to a car that had pulled over a hundred yards ahead, he said, “Those men are going to assault you! Get in, I won’t charge you anything. I saw one of them getting a gun ready, like this.” He made the motion of the slide being pulled back on a semi-auto pistol. We accepted a ride to our hotel, amazed at our vulnerability to robbery in this country. We decided we stood out too much, so we dyed Steve’s hair black and bought Ginny a tighter pair of pants to better blend in with the sexy styling of Costa Rican women. Being crime victims has made us younger!

We returned to Limon, spent a full day clearing out of Costa Rica, and on April 26 sailed the sixty miles to Bocas del Toro, Panama, a tourist town set within a vast archipelago. The sheltered waters were a treat after months of scanty refuge. The islands are a mix of mangrove and low hills resonant with howler monkeys. The town is a yacht haven. Many American boats had come via the Panama Canal or were going there. We saw people we’d met in Rio Dulce and the Bay Islands.

We had been considering returning to the States for the summer. Now Steve’s dad developed a heart problem. That clinched it. We pulled Thurston out of the water at a Bocas del Toro marina and bought round-trip tickets for a four-month stay in the U.S.

It took two days to travel by boat and bus to Panama City. On May 3 we flew to Miami. We drove a rental car to the Fort Meyers area, where we had stored our Isuzu truck, then drove north to the annual Cedar Key Small Boat Meet. Here we have met up with Larry Whited, Karen Prescott, and other friends from when we were working on Thurston. Next we drive back to Washington, with stops along the way.

It’s fun to be on the road again in our little truck. How nice America is! Clean, free bathrooms with hot water, soap, paper towels! Water fountains with refrigerated water! And Steve is enamored by the fact that one is always near a Wal-Mart, with its overwhelming selection of things we haven’t been able to find for so long and don’t really need anyway. Ginny still hates Wal-Mart, though she’s perfectly content to sleep in their parking lot when necessary.

That’s it for now!

There are more photos in the Nicaragua album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Nicaragua#

And a new album with the rest:
https://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/CostaRicaPanamaUSRoadTrip

Love,

Steve and Ginny

Dear friends and family,

You will recall that a little over a month ago we sailed from the Bay Islands back to the Honduras mainland. The passage was difficult. From Palacios, on the Rio Sico, we traveled by four-wheeler back to La Ceiba for a week, where we had our sails repaired, had a new sea anchor made, and gathered supplies. Our last email was from that time.

Our 120 days worth of visa was nearly expired and we had another 140 windward miles to go to get around Cabo Gracias a Dios. On February 28, 2011 we sailed out the mouth and east along the flat, uninhabited coast to Brus Lagoon. We crossed the mouth on a tailwind, surfing small waves, and landed on a beach next to a fishing camp made of tarps. The next day was harder, the wind being on the nose. Palm trees lined the low beach. We reached the mouth of the Rio Patuca at sunset. In the dimming light we saw sand bars and breaking waves. Fortunately several pangas (small motor launches) were working their nets nearby. One towed us across for five dollars worth of lempiras.

The river was brown, the foliage dark green. On the right bank was a town of wooden shacks. The people don’t seem to paint often, but when they do they use bright colors! Boardwalks spanned a couple of creeks bisecting the town. We pulled up in front of an open plot with a big cross in the middle. Many of the townspeople were gathered there, staring. A middle-aged man introduced himself as their elected leader. “We are indigenous people here,” he said, though he and many others appeared to have more African blood. “We speak Miskito language and Spanish too.” The man warned us that the town has no police or navy, the implication was clear as we were on a major river coming out of notorious drug trafficking territory. He ordered three men to watch over us during the night then left.

The lead watchman asked if we would give them a little something in the morning since they had to watch our boat. When Steve asked how much, the man replied “Whatever you feel is right,” There’s a phrase that always sends warning bells! Fevered discussion must have ensued during the night because at dawn he waded out to the boat. He cleared his throat and took a nervous yet respectful stance, “That will be one hundred dollars, please.” Steve gave him 200 lempiras and a lecture clearing up the common Central American misconception that $100 is not a lot of money to a gringo. Steve paid some more for a tow out the mouth, and we happily parted the dubious town of Patuca.

It was forty-five miles to the next refuge, the Barra de la Caratasca, inside which opening is the district capital, Puerto Lempira. Assuming we wouldn’t make it before dark we angled away from the coast to have adequate offing while we drifted until morning. But the wind had a favorable northern component. We became optimistic and angled for the opening. We arrived at dusk. It was a wide mouth with shipwrecks on both sides. We sailed to the back side of sandbar, still a quarter mile from land, and dropped the anchor. A campfire kindled on the other side of the mouth. We waded to the sand and scampered about a while, delighted to have found a spot so fresh and open, like being in open sea but with a magic circle of stillness around us. During the night the tide covered the sand, and hundreds of terns sang and whirled about, unmindful of the water that was ankle-deep to them.

In the morning we entered the lagoon. We passed by the Naval post for their inspection as a crowd of spotlessly dressed sailors were carrying two of their fellows on their shoulders to the end of the dock. They threw them in with many laughs. “Initiates,” the lieutenant said.

Puerto Lempira was eight miles away. The Laguna de Caratasca opened up on our right, no land visible on that horizon. The town had a long, broken dock and an extensive grid of dirt streets. Small freighters were unloading barrels of fuel into the water where they were rafted and pulled to shore. We anchored within wading distance and began our chores. We got laundry done, bought drinking water, and secured a clearance. Our next port would be Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.

That night, while we lay at anchor in a lagoon behind the town, shooting started. Ginny looked out the window and saw red sparks flying through the air. For hours a battle raged somewhere nearby: machine guns, semi-auto fire, shotguns and grenades. “Must be army exercises,” said Steve as he fell back asleep. Ginny laid awake hoping our bodies were close enough to the water line not to be hit by stray bullets. In the morning shop-keepers complained that rival drug mafias had fought during the night, leaving three dead. The army and police had stayed out of it. This underscored what we had heard so often: that La Mosquitia is a major drug transshipment zone.

We had planned to follow the coast, but the Navy guys said to stay far offshore. Fortunately an intermittent arc of reefs and cayes wraps around Cabo Gracias a Dios, 140 miles long, forty miles offshore on average. We would follow it. The northwestern-most were the Cayos Vivorillos, thirty-five miles northeast of Barra de la Caratasca.

We spent a second night behind the beautiful sand spit. An hour before light we started sailing out the mouth, following our GPS route to avoid breakers. The wind died. Before we could deploy the oars a current carried us into the breakers on the northwest side of the bar. The bow shot up with each wave, foam splashed over the bow. Adrenalin gave Steve assistance as he pulled us out of danger.

The sun came up as Honduras receded behind us. For seven hours we rowed, sometimes with a little help from the sails. We traded off. The rower quickly became hot and tired. The person steering had to tug the awkward steering lines from an uncomfortable position just forward of the mizzen mast. Finally the breeze shifted and gathered force. We put the oars down and trimmed the sheets. Maybe we would make it.

“There, trees, eight miles away!” A current pulled us west, obliging us to pinch further right, into the wind. A ruined cement block building lay on the west corner of the island. We rounded that corner. Our tiny island and several others formed a crescent-shaped chain. Each was a low pile of coral cobbles overgrown with broad-leaf plants. Around the old building were huge stacks of wooden lobster traps. Two yachts lay at anchor in the calm water within the crescent. We anchored in rocks and welcomed the flies buzzing over from the traps. A deep sleep after the first of many exhausting days to come.

On March 7 we continued to the next island, called Cocorocuma on the chart, Kashikumy by the fishermen we found there. It would have been a peaceful spot if not for the noise of a generator they ran for the sole purpose of watching porno movies! It was only twenty miles from Vivorillos, but the wind and current were opposed, so it took eleven hours. The next day we reached Logwood Caye, which must have been washed away in a hurricane because only a drying coral reef remained. We anchored in ten feet beside the reef and were fortunate that the wind and waves were light that night.

March 9 was similar: a long crossing in hopes of an island to hide behind. Alas, Ëdinburgh Caye has also sunk beneath the waves. But enough daylight remained that we might reach Cayo Muerto. By this time we had followed the islands far enough that the bearings between them were southward, a fast beam reach. But the sun was sinking. We saw no land at eight miles away, nor at four. A sail off the port bow distracted us, then another, and another. What were other sailboats doing here? We forced ourselves to ignore them. Cayo Muerto, if it existed, might have coral around it.

Ginny spied a couple of stranded trees. We circled them. There was no island, no coral, just a shoal of eel grass several acres in extent. We didn’t mind that Cayo Muerto is dead, as its name implies, because it would be excellent for anchoring behind it.

In the morning a fleet of sailboats approached, the same we had seen the evening before. One drew up onto the shoal. It was a wooden double-ender, about thirty-six feet long, with a crew of fourteen young men and a couple boys. It had a short gnarly tree trunk mast, a gaffed mainsail, and a jib on a long boom. There was no deck or floor, just wooden thwarts and sloshing bilges. “Water, please,” they said, holding up a half empty gallon jug. We gave them two liters. Others came and likewise begged but our generosity had run out. They were nice but they made us nervous. We didn’t know anything about Nicaragua yet except the vague warnings we had been hearing for months.

We continued south between large mangrove islands. The weather was mild we decided to continue into the night then sleep adrift off Puerto Cabezas. At 10:00 PM, when ten miles from the mainland, we dropped the sails and paid out our new sea anchor, a large truncated cone made of canvas. It worked fine, but the weather deteriorated. Heavy rain came, twenty knots of wind, horrible motion. A norther had arrived. Sleep was impossible. A wave crashed through a side window, soaking the blanket. The GPS showed us to be drifting one way then another, indicating erratic currents.

After an endless night we sailed the final stretch to Puerto Cabezas. It was March 11. The town sat on a bluff. It had no harbor, just a long, exposed dock. A dozen boats were moored to its lee side with anchors astern to hold them steady. We followed suit. We climbed onto the dock. Steve had walked on a couple of the islands, but it was Ginny’s first step on land since Puerto Lempira. Naval personnel half heartedly searched Thurston, then a taxi took us to the immigration offices on the other end of town.

A serious official in a crisp white shirt with blue shoulder boards sat us down and perused our passports. “We have a problem,” he said. “You have already exceeded your ninety days allowance in the four countries of Central America. We can’t allow you into Nicaragua.” We had heard that Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador had agreed to limit tourist stays to ninety days within the four countries as a whole, but that it wasn’t being enforced. The Honduran officials had never mentioned it. We were legal as far as they were concerned, but this official discoursed on the seriousness of our situation for over an hour. We were violation! We could be arrested!

“But you can’t just send us back out to sea!” Steve protested. “We need food and water, and places to anchor at night until we reach Costa Rica!”. Finally he broached an alternative. They could allow us one month, but we would have to pay a fine of twenty cordobas each (about a dollar) for every day we had spent or would spend within the four countries minus the ninety days that should have been our maximum. The total, together with other papers, would cost $330. We had no choice, so we paid.

We couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping aboard tied to the dock because of the waves. Just getting on and off the boat was harrowing. It was hard to keep the bow from smashing into the dock when you pulled it close, and jumping aboard was like leaping off a fence onto a bucking bronco. So we found a ridiculously cheap hotel. Nothing worked and there was no lock on the door. There seemed to be no real restaurant in town, just bathroom-less comedores. But there were internet places and markets. We stayed two days. Late each night Steve took a taxi to check on Thurston. In walking down the dock he passed a long line of black plastic bundles. They proved to be crewmembers for the fishing smacks tied to the dock, the same kind of sailboat we had seen at Cayo Muerto. They had to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, so they camped there in the open until the captain should order them aboard. When it rained they rolled up in a sheet of plastic. These wiry mestizo and Miskito fishermen were friendly to us as we loaded our provisions aboard on the morning of March 13.

We had researched the upcoming hideouts. Our zarpe was for Bluefields, the only other city on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. We easily made it that first day to the mouth of the Huahua. The water was brown, salty, tidal. The following day we reached Prinzapolka, where two small rivers join before flowing into the sea. The village was full of inquisitive Miskito-speaking children. All the wooden houses were accessed by a single U-shaped concrete walkway. The next town, La Barra del Rio Grande, also consisted of a single walkway, in this case straight, more open and spread out. The surrounding land was swamp. The residents strode the walkway in the evenings to socialize with their neighbors. They spoke Creole English, like in Belize, and listened to Country Western music. Brahma cattle wandered contentedly. The current and wind defied our exit in the morning so we treated ourselves to another day

The current was still contrary in the morning, so we paid for a tow out the mouth. We sailed that day to the Cayos Perlas, a cluster of islands ten miles offshore. We anchored in a lagoon behind Cayo Tungawarra, called Sandfly Cay in Creole. The island seemed uninhabited except for a young couple who were caretaking a fishing camp, the shark and lobster seasons being currently closed. They visited us in their canoe to beg food. Their employers had left them without adequate provisions, and they weren’t used to being away from Bluefields.

We knew from the book we’d read that Bluefields doesn’t have blue fields. It was named for Blauvelts, a Dutch settler in the time of English dominance. It was forty-four miles away. We covered it in eight hours. How wonderful to sail off the wind again! The first sign was a bleep on the horizon that grew to become a tall promontory at the end of a peninsula. This was El Bluff (silly name!). The city itself, we knew, is inside the lagoon, but we thought there might be a naval post we should report to. El Bluff housed a decrepit shipyard, a fleet of mothballed shrimp boats, a barge, and a couple of military craft. We pulled up to a passenger dock. Steve asked where he might find the naval post and was led to a building full of sailors in blue camouflage.

“I have a zarpe for Bluefields and am stopping to report in,” he said.

A short, officious man took charge. “This is El Bluff,” he said. “This capitania de puerto is separate. I’ll have to make you a new zarpe for Bluefields.”

Steve knew what that meant. “No way,” he protested. “I’ve already paid $25 for a zarpe to Bluefields. I just stopped to inquire.”

“You’ve come ashore. You’re under my jurisdiction now. You need a new zarpe.”

Steve snatched his zarpe from his hand and turned back toward the dock. “Give me an armed guard and search the boat if you want, but I’m not buying a new zarpe.”

The port captain was aghast. “Calm down,” he said. “Show me some respect!” But he called someone on his cell phone and ended up doing as Steve had suggested. He documented the search, had Steve sign this new waste of paper, and grumpily withdrew. We likewise departed as quickly as possible, unimpressed by El Bluff.

Bluefields was four miles away on the mainland side of a lagoon. The shore was studded with wrecks and pilings. The docks were busy and dangerous due to chop. We followed the shore to a small bay at the south end of town, where a maze of shacks on stilts extended out into the water. Garbage floated about. Large wooden canoes plied the chocolaty water. We delved deeper and found a creek. We laid the masts on deck and crouched to get under a bridge. The creek narrowed and meandered. Steve paddled, Ginny steered. Soon we were in hilly countryside. We came to a grassy bend where fiberglass launches had been pulled up for repair and painting. A house of corrugated steel sat on a nearby knoll.

We arranged to pay a little to the property owner, tied to a couple of trees and set up the awning. The bridge we had squeezed under was only fifteen minutes away on foot. Beyond that lay a small city with dirty paved streets sloping down to a waterfront from which the pedestrian is walled off by buildings. One of these was the public market, a smoke-smeared cavern full of ghastly yet sometimes intriguing sights and smells. Dogs and filthy children ran under foot, flies obscured the air. The cooks were grizzled women with headwraps, long dresses, and tired grins. Stall-keepers minded piles of yucca, pineapples, and shrimps. We ate lunch at a crude bench in the market and started doing research at an internet place.

Each day Steve gave the owner, Mandingo another 100-cordova ($5) bill. On day four another inhabitant of the boat yard, a skinny mestizo often seen whacking the grass with a machete approached. “I’m the caretaker here, not Mandingo,” he said. “Why is he getting the money, not me?”

“I thought Mandingo was the owner.” said Steve.

“Mandingo doesn’t even live here! My brother is the owner. I live in that shack! I’m the caretaker!”

“Can’t you work it out among yourselves?” Steve asked, but the guy seemed loath to approach Mandingo.

After lurking around the boat all the next day Skinny Man hurried up to Steve when we emerged, in obvious anguish. “I watch this place! You should pay me!”

“How should I know who to pay? I need to talk to your brother!”

“That’s him right there.” Skinny Man timidly indicated a chubby fellow sitting under a tree next to Mandingo.

Steve walked over. “Hello, I understand you own this place?”

“Welcome my friend! No, I don’t actually own this place, but I represent the owner. Can I help you?”

“There seems to be some confusion as to who I should pay the hundred cordovas per day to,” said Steve. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Tranquilo, that is not your problem. Let them work it out!”

“Yes, don’t worry. I will share it with him,” Mandingo assured, in the manner of a deviant school boy.

“Okay, great. But if you guys don’t mind, today I’ll give the money to the other guy.” Steve walked over and gave Skinny Man the bill. He smiled feebly.

If more transpires in this exciting drama we will inform you. In the meantime we have been asking ourselves some long-deferred questions. We’re not too worried about making it to Costa Rica or Panama. Those places are pretty close now. But where do we go after that? We’ve sailed ourselves into the leeward corner of the Caribbean Sea. We can’t very easily go east to Venezuela. Thurston is too small to sail west across the Pacific. Winds and currents don’t allow sailing north along the Pacific coast of Central America. It’s too soon to return the way we’ve come.

That leaves continuing south. Steve descended the Orinoco River during his three-year voyage. How about the Amazon this time? But to reach the headwaters we would have to transport Thurston across the Andes via Colombia, Ecuador, or Peru. After researching this we have concluded that a Colombian transit wouldn’t work at this time because the Colombian portion of the Amazon basin, which lies along their border with Ecuador, is the scene of a complex armed conflict involving narco-trafficking guerrillas, the government forces of the two countries, and 100,000 refugees. But Ecuador or Peru might work.

The next question is when? As Steve found in 1991, it’s foolish to sail south along the Pacific coast of Panama and Colombia during the rainy season, which will start in May. That region has the highest rainfall in the world, thirteen times as much as Seattle! The wind and current would be against us too. If we wait six months it will be the dry season again and the winds will be better. With all this time to kill maybe we should go home for the summer? But nothing is sure yet.

That’s it for now!

Love,
Steve and Ginny

New Photos in Honduras and Nicaragua albums:
https://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Honduras#
https://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Nicaragua#

2/23/11 Mass Email: Palacios, Rio Sico, Honduras

Dear friends and family,

We last wrote you January 7, 2011 as we were about to leave La Ceiba. It was thirty miles from there to Roatan, largest of the Bay Islands. We had fine weather and a near-reaching wind. Our destination appeared and grew as we so like them to appear and grow on a wide crossing. By 2:00 P.M we were off the southwest tip of the island: ample green hills snug within an all-encompassing reef which forms a vertical wall only a hundred yards from the beach. We soon found a pass to a small cove where we tied to a piling. Steve donned mask and flippers. Sure enough, it sloped down through the cut into clear blue depths. The fish and corals were similar to those in Belize. Perfect wave protection and great snorkeling in the same spot!

We walked into Coxen Hole, the largest town. Continuous sidewalks! No litter! The people spoke English and Spanish equally. Traffic was light on the single coast-wise road, which in town was supplemented by a street running inland up a valley. The next town up was French Harbor, where we stayed several days in one of the many coves that serrate the coast, so different from the mainland’s smooth shoreline.

As we continued along Roatan’s forty-mile length the wind was on our nose. For once it didn’t matter because we could stop in any cove we chose. Curious as to the angle to the wind that Thurston was averaging, we analyzed our GPS track. The tacking angle made good was 120 degrees: sixty degrees to either side of windward. What this means is that when we want to go somewhere in the direction the wind is coming from, we have to travel twice as far to get there! We rowed part of the way via a canal paralleling the coast. It had been dug through mangrove, and was so narrow the tree canopy was closed overhead.

On January 15, 2011 we sailed from Roatan’s eastern tip through a ten-mile gap to the next major island, Guanaja. Two patterns of swells were running, one from the north, the other from southwest. Whenever the crests of the two patterns coincided the result was a strangely tall wave. To ride one of these up was to feel a quick acceleration and enjoy a brief good view. Coinciding troughs produced a momentary descent into a watery hole. The north breeze we’d been using died. Heavy rain clouds to the south indicated a cold front. A fierce southwest wind sprung up. We donned our safety harnesses and rotated the main mast eight times, the mizzen mast five times, reducing sail area by two thirds. Still we flew over that grotesquely uneven plain the color of polished steel, steel wool, and dirty wool. It was scary and unexpected, but we soon reached the shelter of Guanaja. Later we learned the area we passed is called “The Bogue” and is notorious for tumultuous seas.

The island of Guanaja is mountainous and undeveloped with the exception of a low off-lying caye covered with buildings, the outermost ones on pilings. This is the central oddity of Guanaja: that the tall main island is relatively untouched while six thousand people crowd into what they call “the Caye” or “el Cayo” in a population density equal to that of Hong Kong.

We continued a mile further to a small bight where half a dozen sailboats lay at anchor. We had heard much about Guanaja and looked forward to seeing familiar faces. Sure enough, as we sailed past a tall, stately bar-restaurant at the foot of the bight a cheer went up. We entered a small boat basin and were greeted by Texans Carl and Iris, friends from Isla Mujeres, and Karl (German) and Mary (Peruvian), whom we knew from the La Ceiba Shipyard. Owner Hansito also welcomed us, as did managers Claus and Annette, a fun-loving, hard-working couple who uprooted their family from Germany 15 years ago. They invited us to stay in the boat basin and use the covered barbecue area and water faucet. They, and Hans Pico, who owned an adjoining farm and waterfront bar, were from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. “The only tourists in Guanaja are the people on sailboats,” said Gar, an amiable Alaskan with a ring in his ear and a bandanna tied tightly around his head. “So the locals treat us great!” Gar had anchored there eleven years ago and never left. At one time or another all the expatriates unburdened themselves to us regarding their traumas during Hurricane Mitch, in 1998, when 180-knot winds plastered the island for two days, killing the forests and ripping up many of the houses. For years afterward everyone worked together to rebuild, forming deep bonds among themselves and with the locals. It was a tranquil island. The sunsets from Hansito’s bar were exquisite, with a light screen of tropical landscaping in the foreground, the island’s lush hills to the right, and the Caye in the middle, beside the sun.

Our new awning needed more work, so we rowed to the Caye to see a seamster. We tied up in a bedlam of broken boats and collapsed piers. There were no streets, only a maze of crooked concrete walkways accessing the dilapidated two-story homes that occupied every square foot of available space. The radial walkways tapered as they neared their dead ends at the island’s edge. Another house entry would appear as we turned, and turned again, until we found ourselves at the weather-stained entry to some final building on stilts. A network of narrow canals provided drainage and canoe parking. Private scenes presented themselves in doorways and tiny courts but the people didn’t seem to mind us. It was Thursday, the day the weekly supply ship comes. The public dock was piled with building supplies and consumer goods. Exuberant young men were carting boxes to the many dark shops, and shoppers were carrying bags of purchases to their homes, or to their boats, for many were from outlying communities.

One scorching day we tipped Thurston over on purpose, fully loaded this time, and found that she won’t turn all the way upside down and is easily righted by removing a mast or two. While in Guanaja we made more repairs and improvements to Thurston, went on hikes, and went sailing and picnicking with new friends.. Boats came and went. The days passed. The wind was generally from the ESE, no good for us. We summed up our financial records. Traveling aboard Thurston throughout calendar year 2010 had cost us $17,000. Affordable, but still too much, maybe we shouldn’t spend so much on cookies!

There was a birthday party for Annette. A fellow German played the accordion, Claus played bass, an islander played drums. They played American rock classics well into the night. We drank dark hefeweisen at the bar and listened to impassioned stories from Hans Pico. A former professional motorcycle racer and fisherman, now a farmer, father, and restaurateur, Hans has long tangles of straw-colored hair and a booming bass voice that seems to clash with his nurturing spirit. He tends horses, cattle, parrots, pigeons, chickens, ducks, dogs, and extensive gardens. His eighteen-year-old son, Hannes, cooks the world’s best pizzas for the customers in an outdoor, wood-fired oven. Having spent time on the Moskito Coast Hans advised us to follow certain interconnecting canals, to ask for certain people he knew, and to have the Indians make us bows and arrows from certain woods. In his shop he drilled holes in stainless steel for us and helped with a new aluminum GPS holder.

We liked Guanaja best of all the places we’d been. If we had found it later in our travels we may have settled down for good. A new cold front was forecast with north and northeast winds which would allow us to sail east so on February 14 we decided to leave at midnight for the mouth of the Rio Sico, sixty-five nautical miles ESE, on the far side of Cabo Camaron. We nervously slept a few hours. Then our alarm went off. Annette, still up, gave us loaf of home-made bread and a bottle of wine as a parting gift. Hans and Hannes brought a basket of oranges and dried mangoes from their farm. Hans’ dog Bobby whined and jumped around; even he didn’t want us to go! As we sailed off they blasted “Wish you were here” as a final goodbye. It was the friends we made in Guanaja which made us fall in love with it.

It was calm in the lee of the island’s mountains. We rowed into the harbor. The wind slowly began to reach us. We sailed around the reef and out to sea, steering 110 degrees, close-hauled. The moon shone for a couple hours, then set. Patches of stars shone here and there. The sea built as we left the island’s protection. Rain squalls hit. We reefed once, twice, a third time. It was a rougher, wetter passage than we had anticipated. Ginny couldn’t keep her eyes open, nor could she sleep. She curled on deck, cold, wet, nauseous.

By daybreak no land was visible. We had left at midnight hoping to arrive off the Rio Sico at noon. But the wind veered to east, then southeast, then died for two hours. It sprung up from the north again, only to repeat the sequence. We realized we could not make it before dark. We sat shivering in the pouring rain, wet through. Other fronts during our time in Guanaja had merely backed the wind to northeast. This was a full-fledged cold front more typical of early winter. Distant mountains were occasionally distinguishable from the heavy cloud banks.

When the sun went down the full moon was already at its zenith. It alternately shone and was hidden by black, fast-moving clouds. The sky was a fearful drama. A fifteen-knot north wind was blowing. By 8:30 PM we were twelve miles off the mouth of the Rio Sico.. Considering this adequate sea room we dropped sails and deployed the sea anchor. This checked our drift to .75 knots. We stripped off our wet raingear, put it in a plastic bag, and climbed into the cabin. Things were getting wet from condensation and a mysterious leak. We cuddled and warmed up as best we could, rocking with the waves.

Steve slept but Ginny kept her eye on the GPS. Around midnight our drift speed had increased to two knots. Steve got up to investigate. Our sea anchor had split open, so we dropped the regular anchor and fifty feet of rode to reduce our drift again. By the time the sun came up we were five miles off shore in a current with confused seas. An unpleasant sail brought us to the mouths of the Rio Sico, all of which were blocked by breaking waves.

A lobster dive boat was anchored a half mile outside one of the middle mouths. It was of a type familiar on this coast: about sixty feet long with canoes and bunks for a score of scuba-divers whose job is to find lobsters. The skipper said all the river mouths along the Moskito Coast were likely the same due to the norther. The owner lived in Palacios, the town inside this mouth. He would be coming and going because he was readying the Miss Kaidy, as she was named, for another trip out to the reefs around Cabo Gracias a Dios. We anchored nearby and slept until the wind and waves picked up too much. A wave washed over the boat. Steve stayed in the cockpit after that because Thurston is only capsize-proof if the hatch and all windows are shut tight and someone is outside ready to help her right.

At 1:30 Miss Kaidy ‘s owner came in a twenty-five-foot launch with twin 200-horse Yamaha outboards and five people aboard. With such power they could navigate the bar. They picked us up, their boat bouncing like crazy next to ours. Steve fell in the water trying to get in and Ginny smashed her knee. But we were relieved nonetheless. The launch collected some red snappers and lobster tails from the Miss Kaidy, then returned to the bar, riding in fast between breaking waves, overtaking some of them, picking an S-shaped course to stay in deep water. It was so easy for them. Once inside the bar they took us to a hotel where we were treated to many flea bites.

The village of Palacios is a single dirt track with docks on one side and houses and small shops on the other. Inland lay small fields and forests. We ate dinner on the covered porch of a house while it stormed. We worried about Thurston. We were afraid she’d end up on a beach smashed to bits and ransacked for all our meager possessions.

The next morning the launch took us back out to Thurston. She was still there! The tie on the mizzen sail had broken loose and the sail had flogged all night, ripping it and causing the battens to be lost. It was still too rough to tow her in so they took us back to town. Throughout the day Spanish- and Mosquito-speaking crew members assembled by the dock pertaining to Miss Kaidy. Some got so drunk they had to be lowered onto the launch like sacks of potatoes. One wanted to fight another, claiming he had said something improper to his woman. The others held them apart and laughed. That night the Miss Kaidy left. Thurston was out there by herself.

We made a deal with the owner and the following morning two of his employees took Steve out to tow Thurston in through the greatly lessened breakers. We moored bow-on-land at the naval post and spent the day restoring order. A gallon of fresh water had gathered in Thurston’s bilge, which is a lot for us. We haven’t yet figured out from where it all came. Things in the bins had stayed dry but slosh had reached various books, bedding, and clothing. We removed and dried out everything. Fortunately the navy guys didn’t seem to mind us taking over their base. Reasons were accumulating for us to return to La Ceiba: we needed a sea anchor, sail repairs, cash, etc. So we removed the sails, packed up, and arranged for someone to pick us up in the morning at our hotel.

The latter bears description. It is built of crudely assembled planks in a U-shape. The base of the U is over the river bank and the arms of the U are over the water. The whole building sits on pilings that shake whenever a wake hits them. It has ten small rooms opening onto a covered porch, also U-shaped, on the river side. An opening through the base of the U gives access to the porch. It has one semi-functional bathroom, no electricity, no sign, no office or reception. Nobody much cares what happens to it. The owner, who lives across the street, charged us the equivalent of $5 per night. Our room, on the left arm of the U, had a door that couldn’t be closed all the way on the porch side and a big window on the other. Late in our second night there someone tried to enter our room. Ginny yelled, “Hey!” and sat up. The person mumbled apologetically and walked away. He was probably just looking for a place to sleep.

It was starting to get light at 5:30 when someone called out to us from a boat below our room. We dropped from the porch into the boat. They picked up other passengers then crossed the estuary to a site where people and gear were being loaded into Japanese four-wheel-drive pickup trucks. We were placed in back of a Toyota Hilux along with three other adults, a child, a baby and much luggage. This is apparently the only way to get to civilization.

We proceeded along a track beside the beach. The sand was like brown sugar. The sea was brown close-by, blue-green further out. Where the track had been washed away we drove on the beach itself in spurts timed to avoid being hit by waves. The sea was broad and peaceful, the norther was finished. The land was level with hills behind, the vegetation was palms, sea grapes, and such.

We soon came to a minor river mouth. Via a pair of planks we drove up onto a ferry consisting of plastic drums with a plank frame around them. A launch with an outboard motor moved the ferry to the other side. This was the first of five river crossings. The ferries were all alike except that two required no motor, those estuaries having no current. In these cases the ferrymen pulled us across with a rope. The half dozen or so cars kept the ferries busy pulling to and fro. At one river we saw two young men herd four long-horned cattle across. The first man starting swimming while pulling the lead cow with a rope. The second man swam behind yelling and trying to hit the cow with a stick. The other beasts wandered off. Halfway across the lead cow turned around. The lead man was now towed back to where he had started. They cursed their cattle and whipped them some more, then tried again. The cattle milled in the water and wanted to return but the men, only their bobbing heads visible to us, splashed and slapped them in the right direction until they found land under their hooves and hauled themselves stupidly onto shore.

We changed cars twice for reasons unclear to us, we passengers being as little in control as were the cows. To avoid pain we kept shifting positions to the limited extent allowed us. When it started raining they pulled a tarp over us. The wind caused it to mold to our torsos and faces as we faced forward above the level of the cab. We rued not being able to see where we were going until Ginny noticed that there were tiny holes in the tarp. By placing the hole exactly over a pupil we could see ahead as if through a tiny tube! When a water drop plugged the hole we would tap the tarp to clear it.

In La Ceiba we took a cheap hotel room and started our chores. Sail and sea anchor repair, dentist, miscellaneous purchases and a visit to the hospital. A cut on Steve’s right index finger had became badly infected, but is healing nicely now. We took the weekend to visit Berti, the accordionist we met at Annette’s party, at his beautiful farm/bar/restaurant/hostel outside La Ceiba, then returned to the city for completion of our boring tasks. Thursday morning we plan to take the long trip back to Palacios and hopefully we’ll be exploring the lagoons by the weekend. Our Honduras visa will expire on the 5^th and by then we’ll have to be on the way to Nicaragua.

That’s it for now.

Love always,
Steve and Ginny

P.S.
See the new pictures in our current photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Honduras#

Also, check out the Mar/Apr issue of Small Craft Advisor for the third in our series of articles! You can subscribe here: http://www.smallcraftadvisor.com or view the electronic issue.

January 7, 2011 Mass Email - La Ceiba, Honduras

Dear friends and family,

We last wrote you from Lago Izabal, Guatemala. We haven’t gone far, but two months have lapsed. So here’s an update.

We sailed back to Livingston, where we cleared out of Guatemala. Then we began coasting along Honduras, which has very few harbors. The distance to the next is often too great to reach in a day and there is much uncertainty due to fickle winds and heavy swells which may or may not block entry into the various river mouths. On November 4, 2010 we entered the Rio Motagua, wilderness boundary between Guatemala and Honduras. Surf was breaking on the sand bars at the river mouth, but we found a channel deep enough for the swells to pass without toppling. Halfway in we jumped out to walk the boat through, the waves knocked us around trying to release Thurston from our grasp. Once inside we hid in a swampy side channel and slept among tall grasses growing in the water, near a tree in which white storks were roosting. Crabs, crickets, and cockroaches climbed aboard from the surrounding vegetation, requiring many minor evictions.

The next day we cut across a large bight toward Puerto Cortes. The wind slowly built up to 38 knots, as we later learned from the port authority. We had never experienced this much wind, and were a bit frightened. We rolled our sails until each was the smallest possible triangle, and still we shot through the bounding seas at over six knots. When we reached Puerto Cortes our worries weren’t over because it is unprotected in a west wind. We anchored near shore while deciding what to do. We decided an inlet visible to us was passable, but we were now unable to pull the anchor in against the wind. Waves were breaking over the bow and we were quite uncomfortable;. Finally Steve strained at the oars while Ginny pulled the line. Inch by inch we moved forward until the line was almost vertical, then Ginny tied off. The anchor had buried itself firmly into the bottom, but after ten minutes the lifting waves broke it loose. We sailed into the inlet, removed our masts, and rowed into a tiny creek within the naval base that occupies a portion of the harbor. We were so happy to be safe and comfortable! The naval personnel allowed us to leave our boat there for two days while we cleared into Honduras and waited for the storm to blow over. But they wouldn’t let us sleep aboard, so we sojourned at a $10-a-night hotel while the corrugated steel of nearby roofs rattled in the gale.

The next harbor was Laguna Diamante, in a remote national park thirty miles east of Puerto Cortes. The coast is generally low but here a sharp spur of mountain juts out into the ocean. Midway along this knife-like ridge was a fifty-yard-wide gap with seas breaking heavily on both sides. We shot through this opening and found ourselves in a large, calm lagoon bounded by the reverse slope of the ridge on one side and by flat mangrove on the other sides. There was no sign of people except an unoccupied thatched hut. We rested tranquilly and hiked the trails and beaches.

The next day the wind was still blowing hard through the opening, the seas still crashing heavily on the rocks to either side. This is one case where a motor would be nice! We sailed gingerly back out through the opening, straight into the wind, in series of short, nerve-wracking tacks. Then sailed around that mountainous cape to the town of Tela. A heavy swell was still running so it wasn’t possible to enter the little creek that debouches there. To get a good night’s sleep we anchored outside the surf and swam into town with a waterproof duffle bag containing clothes and necessities. Then we wandered the streets in our swimsuits, snorkels still wagging on the sides of our heads, and found a cheap hotel and an internet café. At the latter we studied again, via Google Earth, the many stream mouths which may or may not be safe to enter, depending on the swell.

Unfortunately there would be no sure thing before La Ceiba, forty miles away. The island of Utila was closer so we decided to go there first. The wind died yet the sea remained rough, a difficult condition in which to row. Then a favorable though constantly shifting wind sprang up. Night and heavy rain squalls closed around us before we could see the island. We sailed blind, watching our compass with our headlamps, studying the GPS. The rain found its way past our foul weather gear, and Ginny became cold. Finally we started seeing lights. They grew and clarified until around 10 PM we entered Utila’s harbor, turned right, and found protected shallow water within wading distance of land.

Utila is the westernmost of the Bay Islands, famous for their coral reef diving and unique social blend. Like Belize, the islands were settled by Englishmen. Their descendants still speak English, as do most of the tourists. The accents range from lilting Caribbean to flat American. Many Spanish and Garifuna-speaking Hondurans have also moved here, attracted by the tourism and fishing industries. The island has one town, occupying the foreshore of the half-moon bay in which we were anchored. The town is shaped like a new moon, slender and curved, because beyond a narrow strip of land the interior consists of mangrove swamps and steep hills. We stayed here five days, resting from our travails at sea. The weather remained cool and rainy. We explored the island’s rough dirt roads on foot, and snorkeled a coral wall with Captain John, a retired Bostonian sea captain who reminded us of a serious Mr. Bean.

Several problems with Thurston having come up, we asked Captain John where we might conduct some boat work. He recommended the La Ceiba Shipyard. So there we went, an easy twenty mile crossing. The mainland was a wall of steep, lushly forested mountains with a narrow plain facing the sea. The town sits at the mouth of a small river, but the harbor is a mile further to the east. We entered through a pair of jetties. Inside was a small anchorage and a complex of docks thronged by steel fishing boats. From this central body of water radiate several quickly-tapering mangrove creeks. The La Ceiba Shipyard occupies a peninsula between two such channels. We moored to one of their docks for a week, then had the shipyard workers move Thurston into their yard with their Travelift.

La Ceiba, population 130,000, grew up as headquarters for the Standard Fruit Company, and is the gateway via ferry to the Bay Islands. We went into town every two or three days by walking a mile-long dirt road then catching a bus which costs only 5 ½ lempiras, about $.30. The downtown is a large grid of busy streets with unremarkable architecture, a neglected central plaza with trees and the busts of heroes, and a crowded market district. In the coming seven weeks we walked all over it in search of things needed to advance our voyage. Here the pedestrian must take care because the sidewalks are discontinuous and encumbered with vendor stands and hazards such as utility vaults with missing lids. There are far too many taxis and they all honk at you far too much in hope that you will want a ride! Being stubborn penny-pinchers we cut a wide swath of crestfallen taxi drivers. We got to know the local hardware stores, supermarkets, and ATMs. After some disappointments we settled on a favorite restaurant, the Cobel, which efficiently serves the typical fare of meat, rice, beans, and fried plantains.

The shipyard has an office, chandlery, restrooms, and repair shops. On its flat gravel surface sit perhaps thirty commercial and recreational boats. Some are under repair, some in storage, some abandoned. Most activity centers around the big steel shrimpers and lobster boats. Welding torches are forever sparking and crackling, and much bottom paint is applied with rollers on long handles, for the boats are quite tall up on their blocks. The sailboats and power yachts sit further in back, where less work occurs. During our stay several American and Europe crews came and went, or returned from abroad to retrieve their problematic investments. For a shipyard is but a concentration of boating woes: Each vessel is a unique expression of its past and current owners’ dreams, all frustrated or at least postponed by dry rot, collision damage, mechanical failures, and defunct electrical systems. We made some friends, particularly Hal, who had bought a beautiful wooden pilot cutter from its distressed owner and lives aboard at the dock, and Mark, whose large, powerful catamaran was undergoing maintenance.

For us it was the usual story. We’d thought our last stint of boat work had earned us much uninterrupted sailing time. Alas, more deficiencies had surfaced. And the haul-out, by making Thurston easier to work on, induced us to undertake more jobs than we would have otherwise. Materials availability and shipping connections were good here, too.

Some debugging of the work we’d done in Georgia still remained and Thurston’s bottom required maintenance. Hundreds of tiny gel coat blisters had appeared, indicating water penetration. There were gashes from hitting rocks, and the bottom paint was worn off where we had grounded on beaches. We replaced our cushions and our awning too.

Finally, with help from Ginny’s mom we acquired new equipment. We bought things over the internet and had them shipped to Lois’ house in Los Angeles. She consolidated them and had them shipped to us in La Ceiba. Thus we obtained an inflatable kayak (our inflatable dinghy was too bulky), a single-sideband radio receiver for weather forecasts, charts of the coast from Honduras to Colombia, headlamps, shoes, and a backup handheld GPS. Mom Lois also included little gifts and decorations to enliven our Christmas, for we spent that holiday, as well as Thanksgiving and New Year’s, in our camp at the shipyard.

We called it Camp Drip. The bottom work required that we turn Thurston over, so we had to sleep in our tent, and the frequent rains necessitated shelter. So we moved Thurston under a huge, dilapidated catamaran. Here, on the gravel between the twin hulls, we had room for boat, tent, one makeshift table for cooking, another for chemicals, a pair of saw-horses, chunks of wood for sitting, and buckets for catching drips, the structure overhead being perforated with drain holes. (It was also so low that Steve had to walk around with his head cocked to one side.) Puddles formed during the rains and dissipated afterward. We learned where we could set things and where we couldn’t, where to walk and sit without getting showered. The roof dripped even when it wasn’t raining because the central portion of the catamaran had filled with water, the drains having partly clogged. We had a leaky swimming pool over our heads! One day Steve climbed up and poked the holes clear. It took a day for all the water to drain!

We gave an old radio to our daytime security guard. He reciprocated by bringing us fruit from a nearby tree. The size of large radishes and similarly colored but with a pit inside, they taste a bit like sour apples. José was an open and innocent young man, reverently friendly, with a cherubic face and bright eyes: Though the radio we’d given him can tune in stations from all around the world he was interested only in the local evangelist channel. He sang along to the Christian songs.

On Christmas Eve a small, white, long-haired dog showed up at Camp Drip. At first he was leery, but soon he adopted us. Initially depressed-seeming, under our care and feeding he flowered. Now rather than cowering he cheerfully trotted to and fro, following us everywhere and was eager to play, for he was quite young. Not wanting to name him, exactly, we called him Little Dawg. He slept outside our tent and barked at approaching strangers. It was hard to leave him, but we found him a good home with a fenced yard where he can run and play, free of the usual Honduran dog’s three foot leash.

Our work was done. On the night of January 6, 2011, five of us from the shipyard dinghyed across the channel to the more populous west side of the harbor. Here, among a cluster of shacks, was a sort of tiki bar / restaurant. Our friend Hal had provided the only decoration to date, a collection of country and signal flags that had come with his boat. Mark contributed a string of lights in the form of colorful little palm trees. Julio, the owner and often the only worker, was jubilant. We had come here many times. We had seen him wrestle a dead-beat into the street when he refused to leave, and cook fine meals with little means. He was a small, lithe man with bronze skin, a dramatic manner, and tousled graying hair. This night he played ballenato and meringue music on his stereo, and showed us how they dance such styles, simpering and grinning his funny V-shaped grin, lips slightly pursed. Three of us didn’t get what we had ordered, but the food and Salva Vida beer was all great and we didn’t care. Tomorrow we leave.

See the rest of our new pictures in our current photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Honduras# and a few new ones in the prior Guatemala album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Guatemalaaa!#

Also, check out the Jan/Feb issue of Small Craft Advisor for the second in our series of articles! You can subscribe here: http://www.smallcraftadvisor.com or view the electronic issue.

Hope you all have the most amazing Uncle Bill/Lena Fantastic/David Bowie birthday weekend ever, celebrate it like you never have before!

Love,
Ginny & Steve

October 30, 2010 Rio Dulce mass email

Sorry we haven't done any blog updates in so long! Please accept this excessively long mass email as our apology:

10/30/10

Lago Izabal, Guatemala

Dear friends and family,

While cruising this huge freshwater lake in Guatemala we realized it’s been two months since we emailed you about our travels. So here’s an update.

You’ll recall that we got married on Caye Caulker then spent two weeks at Turneffe and Lighthouse Reefs, the atolls furthest out. Then we sailed to Belize City where those awful boys threw rocks at us from the bridge. From there we navigated south through Belize’s southern waters.

First some basic geography. The coast runs north and south. The land is flat and mangrove-edged. Lying immediately offshore is a shallow open channel five to ten miles wide. Then there is band of similar width containing dozens of small, flat islands. Many are only mangrove trees rising from water, not real land. These islands terminate at the barrier reef, which is a band of dead and/or living coral, beyond which is the deep Caribbean Sea. The sharp coral heads rise right up to the surface and the ocean swells break on them. It is possible to exit the reef only at certain passes.

We are most interested in the area near the barrier reef because the water is more clear there, for better snorkeling. So we travelled south through the islands, sometimes coming right up to the barrier reef and swimming in the passes. These are the supreme dive spots because they have lots of sea life and grand underwater scenery.

We can carry enough food and water for only two weeks, and the fruit and vegetables give out much sooner since we don’t have refrigeration. So we returned to the mainland at three places to reprovision.. The first place was Dangriga, also known as Stann Creek for the creek which debouches there.

We last wrote you from Dangriga on August 20. The place is relaxed and funky, but it has some of the same aggressiveness you find in Belize City. For example, one day we were walking to the library when an elderly Creole man raised his arms to us in an embracing gesture and proclaimed, “My brethren! I have coconuts for you!” We told him no thanks, nonetheless he scurried around gathering up machete and coconuts while expressing great love for us and chasing us down the street. We entered the library, ready to do some research or other. As we were sitting down he grandly entered with an opened coconut and held it in front of Steve’s face, saying, “Take it, take it!” Steve’s resistance faltered. It did smell good. He took a sip of the cool, faintly sweet coco water. “I’m sorry, no food or drink in the library,” said the librarians. With some foreboding, Steve went out to the porch, finished the coconut, and offered the man fifty Belizean cents. “Two dollah U.S.! Two dollah U.S!” The vendor screamed, no longer fraternal. Steve refused to pay any more and went back inside. The guy remained outside, ranting against us for some time. We bring this up because Dangriga seems to be the southern limit of the hard hustle zone. Nobody has hassled us that like since!

Getting out the mouth of Stann Creek was tough. There was a strong onshore wind. The mouth is too narrow to tack out with our sails, so we kept the masts down to lessen wind resistance and rowed over the bar. It was hard to make any progress; the boat kept wanting to turn sideways to the waves. We anchored to keep from being blown back onshore while raising the masts. The sea was rough. A wave broke over the boat, filling the cockpit. Steve stood with his legs wide apart on the foredeck. Ginny got low and gripped his belt from behind, forming a tripod. Steve hoisted the mast vertically in a series of upward shifts and dropped it into its socket. We repeated with the mizzen. Then we sailed hard into the wind until we reached the chain of islands.

The islands from Dangriga to Placencia were somewhat familiar to us from our time in Belize two years ago. Among the many islands we visited was Wee Wee Caye where Paul and Mary Shave (who we had met two years prior) operate a marine research center. Unlike other island developers they have retained the fringe of mangrove trees and use boardwalks to connect the docks with the buildings in the center of the island. Because of this it is possibly the nicest inhabited island in the area. At the time of our visit there was a group of researchers from Boston University who were investigating the dispersal patterns of reef fish larvae.

Belize’s southern waters differ from its northern waters in that they are deeper, often around sixty feet, but contain numerous, steep-sided near-islands (underwater hills). Their flat tops are within a few feet of the surface so they appear as shoals. The locals call them faros. Our theory is that the islands are merely faros which are slightly above rather than slightly below sea level, and that all are of coral origin. In effect, each is a tiny atoll. The southern waters are also different in that live coral is found around many of the islands and faros, not just out at the barrier reef.

The winds died, as they sometimes do in late summer. We spent days rowing in excruciating heat with the tarp up to block the sun. Steve’s itchy bumps, which we later realized was heat rash, got worse. We reached the barrier reef at the Silk Cayes, and snorkeled our usual one to two hours per day. Then park rangers told us we were in a marine reserve and would have to pay daily fees, so we left.

Next we restocked at the mainland village of Placencia, where we made friends with an amiable couple who allowed us use of their dock and took us to a Town Council meeting. Turns out council meetings are mind-numbingly boring wherever you go! After three days we went back out and followed the islands to their conclusion. We sailed to Ranguana Caye, on the barrier reef, and south along it to its southern terminus at the Sapodilla Cayes, which is a widely dispersed group twenty miles from the mainland. These are real islands with sand and coconut trees, not just swamp, which is refreshing! The winds were light, and it was hot twenty-four hours a day. For weeks the temperature was in the 90s by day, and in the 80s by night with no breeze to cool our sweat-drenched bodies.

How to anchor at night was a quandary. We needed shelter because Thurston rocks uncomfortably in even small waves. The islands, often no larger than a football field, provide wave protection from only one direction. In the night the wind usually changed direction, and there were often violent thunderstorms. The boat would rock and we would roll around like ragdolls in our 3’ x 8’ bed (Ginny with her head forward, Steve with his head aft, our legs overlapping).

The bugs further complicated our anchoring. We wanted to sleep with the bow nudged right onto the sand to get the most protection from the island, but that put us closer to the mosquitoes. Even anchored several hundred yards away they would find us, meaning more time in the cabin, which is protected by a mosquito net but which is hotter than the cockpit. On Carey Caye we anchored on a seemingly bug-free shore. Then the nightly lightening storm hit. When the rain stopped the no-see-ums came out. They are small enough to crawl through the mosquito net, so we had to keep mosquito coils (aka poison incense) burning. Rocking, heat, or insects often kept us awake at night, making this the grouchiest leg of our tour so far..

Punta Gorda was our final stop. Our ninety days worth of visa in Belize were nearly over. PG is an orderly little place, at the end of the paved road that runs south through Belize. The Mayans in the surrounding villages grow cocoa beans. We saw sacks full of them in a little warehouse which Steve weaseled us into by the magic words “My wife wants to see some chocolate!” We were offered a handful of the germinated, dried beans. They are the size of a thumb, with the texture of a date the taste of raw chocolate. They sell their entire output to Cadbury’s, so next time you eat a delicious Caramello think of us pawing your chocolate beans thousands of miles away!

The Mayans are capable of mayhem as well. At a Catholic revival meeting in the town square we heard references to “the lost children.” We found the story in the local paper. Five days before a Mayan brother and sister, both under ten, had been sent into town to sell limes and had never been seen again. A woman purporting to have soothsaying powers said the American couple with the center for the rescue of endangered crocodiles a few miles from town had fed them to their crocodiles!. A busload of armed villagers hurried to the croc farm. No one was around, but they found limes! So their burned the place down and slaughtered crocodiles. The woman had subsequently been arrested for “pretending to be a fortune-teller.”

We completed the tedious exit procedures and rowed south across Bahia Amatrique seventeen miles to Livingston, Guatemala. The sun glared on the flat sea as we took turns rowing. The blue mountains of Honduras and Guatemala grew closer. We rounded a headland and entered a wide, tropical river mouth, on the right side of which is Livingston, a town which is only accessible by boat.

Livingston is steep and lush. The waterfront a jumble of docks and buildings. We tied to iron bars jutting out from an abandoned factory and completed our paperwork for a ninety-day visa. The cultural mix is Latinos (Spanish speakers), Mayans, and Garifunas, (blacks with their own language.) The restaurants were cheaper than in Belize, typically something like 20 quetzales, or $2.50 US, for a poor man’s meal of egg or a bit of beef with beans, rice, and maybe some sweet plantain. The women wash their clothes in a charming municipal facility that consists of a roofed, ankle-deep pool with a double row of concrete scrubbing surfaces. Here the ladies enjoy coolness and each others’ company while doing their laundry, without polluting the river (or their wash) which is how it is normally done.

Livingston is at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, a name we’d being hearing about since our exploratory trip through Belize in 2008. Though not generally well-known, it is famous among yachtsmen as a hurricane hole and good place to store boats. Most of the boaters we’d met since leaving the States had been here or were going here. It is a short river. About seven miles separate it from El Golfete, the first lake. Then there’s another couple miles of river, about which is Lago Izabal, a lake twenty miles long and ten miles wide.

It took a day to sail and row up to El Golfete, straining against the current. The river flows through a deep, winding canyon with sheer, forest-draped walls. We passed boys in dugout canoes tugging hand lines. Upon reaching El Golfete the shoreline became a low, swampy forest. The next day we continued to the section of river between El Golfete and Lago Izabal. Here a highway crosses the river via a long bridge. The town of Rio Dulce is on the right, or northwest side.

We walked the town. It is small yet crowded: one long narrow street packed with ramshackle stores, cattle trucks, motorbikes, and Mayan women in traditional garb selling street food. One has to squeeze through all this to make any headway. Meanwhile one’s nose it accosted by dust, diesel exhaust, and the smell of many braziers cooking chicken and other street food. At the end of town the highway continues north through the vast forests of eastern Guatemala, eventually reaching Flores and the ruins of Tikal. In the other direction the highway connects to Honduras and the higher, more populous regions of Guatemala.

The mainly North American and European yachts in the Rio Dulce are housed at a dozen or so marinas between El Golfete and Lago Izabal. Most of their owners leave them in storage there, some live aboard. We tried saving money by staying at a public dock under the bridge, but someone stole our anchor, chain, and 200 feet of good nylon braid.

Needing better security, we opted for La Joya del Rio Marina, on the southeast side of the bridge. It consists of rough plank docks and a large common area consisting of a roofed, wooden deck, wall-less except for bathrooms, kitchen, and a few shops and cubby holes. The place had once been a hotel, restaurant, and bar in addition to a marina. It is built entirely over water, the surrounding land being forested swamp. The family who runs the marina, the dozen or so live-aboards and the Guatemalans who work for the marina or hired themselves out for boat maintenance form a small community which was quick to welcome us. Steve set up a mosquito net over a chair in the common area and often had the place to himself for reading after dinner. Though the others got to town via their dinghys, we got there by wading through a swamp, crossing a field, cutting through a school yard, and walking across the half-mile long bridge. It was always a contrast to go from the semi-deserted marina to the over-crowded, noisy town.

The marina was a good place to get things done. We found a new anchor and related gear. We re-varnished and painted, including some new green enamel accents. The rowing seat broke, so we made a new one out of epoxy, fiberglass, and aluminum plate. The mosquito net that covers the cabin door tore. We made one of those too. We’ve lived aboard for ten months, and our boat work has slowly shifted from de-bugging to maintenance and minor improvements.

Steve decided to ship his accordion home and buy a guitar. The accordion was too hard to get in and out of its storage place and there was no comfortable position to play it onboard. He’d never played the guitar but didn’t mind learning. So we took a bus to Guatemala City. It took almost six hours yet cost only $7.50 each. We stayed at a good $14-a-night hotel in the historic district and walked and bussed all over the city checking shipping agencies and music stores. We also got new binoculars, T-shirts, and shoes.

We enjoyed Guatemala City. The weather was refreshingly cool. There is fine old architecture around the Plaza Mayor, which is like a smaller version of Mexico City’s Socalo. Vendors crowd the many market districts. There is a vast auto repair district, a jewelry district, even an extensive bridal gown district, with storefront after storefront of mannequins wearing gaudy nuptial clothing. It was so cheap we treated ourselves by going out to movies and drinking beer in a Chinese restaurant that doubles as a low-class sports bar. We were there a week, and felt we got to know the city fairly well.

Back at Rio Dulce we finished up some boat projects, then cruised Lago Izabal for ten days. There was little wind, so we rowed west along the north shore of the lake to the town of El Estor. Forested mountains ring the lake, yet the banks are often low and wet. We camped in little coves and creeks, and explored the mouths of the Rio Polochic, where howler monkeys were visible, and certainly audible, in the big trees along the swampy banks. We visited a Mayan village where the people live in plank-and-thatch houses. Everyone was at the soccer field by the church, where a match was underway. The players wore standard team uniforms. The women wore full, shoulder-strap blouses and long skirts of intricate hand-woven fabric. The disproportionately numerous toddlers wore nothing at all!

Now we’ve wrapped that up and are ready to proceed toward Honduras, whose coast runs for about four hundred miles east into the prevailing trade winds. In anticipation we shopped for motors and were even delivered a motor mount as a wedding present from Marine Concepts (the manufacturer of Sea Pearl boats!) Our emotional and mental block against the hassles of a motor has yet to crumble however, so we’ve spent a lot of time studying the maps to determine the longest distance we may have to go in a day. Turns out for the first half of the country at least there are plenty of little river mouths we can duck into for the night. So, we’ll continue on as we are! We look forward to exploring Honduras and the Bay Islands and plan to leave here on Monday, our four month anniversary and 12 days before our three year escapiversary!

There are lots of new pictures in our current photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/Guatemalaaa# plus some you haven’t seen yet in the prior Belize album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ginnygoon/BelizeFinally# (starting with “mangrove madness.”)

Also, check out the Nov/Dec issue of Small Craft Advisor for the first in our series of articles! You can subscribe here: http://www.smallcraftadvisor.com or view the electronic issue.

Hope you’re all doing splendidly and sorry about the length of this update. We sort of promise to try and do them more often with less length!

Love,

Ginny & Steve