I went to Guatemala City to meet Tom when he arrived from MN on November 14^th at Las Torres Apt.. This is where most cruisers stay as they give us a discount in the high rent Zone 10 where most of the medical needs and Price Smart provisioning can be handled within walking distance.  I had made an appointment for Tom with Dr. Karyn Gomez Santa Clara but he decided to see what would happen after fasting and performing a colon cleanse as he had stomach bloating/discomfort issues all summer.  So we provisioned for special items and took the 6 hour bus back to Rio Dulce-Fronteras.

We started working on getting the compressor to start (bled a bit of freon as tubes/box was very hot from the sun), installing new wash down pump which didn’t fit very well in the last ones spot, installing new golf cart batteries, bled air out of diesel fuel line (by blowing vacuum air down the diesel deck fill to force up the fuel lines – it worked) and many other things that just didn’t work.  The entire quarter berth with all the parts boxes, tools, etc. were laying everywhere on the boat as there is no reason to clean up till we are done with all the projects.  And it was hot so that didn’t help matters.

Well within 4 days Tom decided that he should go back to Guatemala City to get some tests.  So we emailed and spoke to Dr. Karyn and she suggested we meet in the Hospital to get a abdominal ultrasound and CT scan along with blood and stool samples.  Those tests came back the same day with nothing found except that Tom should reduce his alcohol due to some liver damage and per-diabetes concerns.  So she suggested that we have a Endoscopy with a Gastroenteritis Dr. which we scheduled a day later.  The Dr. did a biopsy of stomach polyps and lining to see if any issue but we wouldn’t have results for 3 days so we completed the Endoscopy by 8am, found pharmacy for some prescriptions and  got to the 9am bus back to Rio Dulce after spending 4 days in the city.  That was a busy morning.  Fortunately all these services only cost around $1K US with the meds seeming to be the most expensive.

The next day we celebrated Thanksgiving at Kevin and Luisa’s home (owners of Catamaran’s Marina and Resort). They provided the turkeys, other cruisers cooked them and the rest of us brought a dish to share.  It was a nice late afternoon along with some watching the normal football games, etc.

This is a large cruising community with about 20 small marinas as it is the only area to store a boat over the hurricane season.  Along with that is the small comedors that provide daily lunch specials for $35Q ($5), boat swap meets, movie/dinner nights with launcha pick up for $50Q, music gigs provided by sailors and local talent, etc.  You have to dinghy to town and walk to MANY places to find parts and provisions.  They do have a Dispencia grocery store but other tiendas have figured out what sailors want so try to make it available (canned diced tomato, box wine, beer/tonic water/soda in cans, peanut butter, popcorn, 100% box juice with no sugar, large containers of vinegar, etc.)  But its not always there when you are looking for it so it takes several trips.  So that may answer the question of “what do you do all day?”.  Its a good thing I did take some time from land traveling to work on Sojourn as we would never have been able to leave as early as we did.

We also organized time/place to have sister Dorothea and daughter, Madeline come visit us in Placencia, Belize.  So that put a time/place that we had to be there along with scoping out good snorkeling islands to get to and land things to do.

Time was ticking as we had hoped to catch the next high tide and leave Rio Dulce – Livingston on December 5^th 4pm.  The day before we were to leave we finally got an email from Dr. Karyn and she said that Tom had presence of H. Pylori.  She prescribed some antibiotics/etc. So off Tom went around 3pm to the village to hope to find what she had prescribed.  Tom came back with the meds so the next AM we left Catamaran’s and motored to Texan Bay.

We felt FREE leaving the dock and anchoring near Texan Bay.  The brain turns from projects to having fun after you leave the marina (at least mine does).  We explored via dinghy up the various rivers and had social time with Song Bird and Big Fun for a couple days before heading down Livingston to cross the mile long mud/sand bar.  We were traveling with Wayne/Elda on S/V Big Fun.  Its a beautiful journey down the river with 1 knot current with you and with high fjords in various spots.  You need to stay mid channel to make sure you don’t run aground like we (Tom) did coming up river.   We called Raul to confirm that he had all our paperwork ready to check out and to let him know when we would arrive.  We anchored in Livingston and to the dinghy ashore to meet him and check out.  It takes about ½ hour.

We went back to our boat around 10:30am and Tom/Wayne took the dinghy to check out the depth.  They came back after about ½ hour and said “let’s go – we see a minimum of 6.5 feet”.  Sojourn needs 6′ so off we rushed to depart following Big Fun who has a 4.5′ draft.   The MLW of the Rio is 5 to 5.5′ so that is why we thought we would need to wait till 4pm when the added 1.5′ of high tide was happening.  Well it worked and out we went.  Then we had to decide where we could anchor before dark.  I suggested Frenchman’s Cay, Belize but should of kept looking for a better protected island as it was a deep/shallow anchorage and not well protected from the Northerly winds.  So in the middle of the night we swung around and woke to 4′ depth.  That got our attention and thought……..  So we motored up and pulled anchor at same time and immediately got off so there must have been a reef just under the side of the boat where the transducer was.  We proceeded to find a better place to anchor but this is more difficult than what we thought in the dark!   This has never happened to us before.

It took us 2 days/nights to motor up Big Creek to check into Belize prior to anchoring off Placencia, Belize.  There continues to be a lot of SSB net discussion about the Belize fees but this year it appears that there is some consistency at each port with the Port Authority fees being the biggest expense and challenge.  But then there is the park anchorage fees of $10/day that adds to the expense so we hope that the parks are using the money wisely to preserve the reef for future generations.   As you may recall this is the area that Jacque Cousteau explored and provided some efforts to protect the reef.  His granddaughter, Alexandra Cousteau will be filming/creating the next Expedition Blue Planet series broadcast on the National Geographic Channel early next year.  Some of it will be filmed here in Placencia so check it out.

As you can see, I didn’t have time to get Sojourn ready to go, provisioned as its cheaper in Guatemala than Belize and Bay Islands and do the blogs so here I am taking the time during cloudy cool days in Placencia, Belize.

Life is an adventure if you choose to take risks!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Rose & Tom