Monthly Archives: April 2014

Monday March 24^th back on Stray Catz, it looks like everything will be ready for a Wednesday departure for Honduras. That is everything but the weather.  According to the forecasts it will be Monday March 31^st (Kylan’s birthday) before there will be good weather. Five extra days to wait. We hadn’t seen Tikal yet so…. Thursday morning we were on a bus to Flores, Guatemala. In the interest of saving money we didn’t spend the extra $20 for the luxury bus and ended up having to stand in the overcrowded isle of a bus for 3 of the 4.5 hour trip. Not fun. But we got to Flores found a hotel and made arrangements for a sunset tour of Tikal the next day. Flores is this neat little town on an island in Lago Peten Itza.  Like Lake Atitlan, Lago Peten Itza too has risen several feet in the last few years and most of the outside road that circles the island is under water. The town is a little touristy, but all the locals seem very nice and friendly.  Just to give you an idea of the size, you can walk around the outside of the island in about 30 minutes.

Tikal was impressive. The shear size and number of the ruins alone was incredible. We climbed most of the Temples. We saw two kinds of Toucans, spider monkeys, coatimundies, tarantulas, parrots, toads, and many other types of birds. We climbed to the top of the tallest temple to watch the sunset, then gazed at the stars from the main plaza. After that we hiked back to the van in the dark. A wonderful trip except for the fact I left the camera on the van and somehow the next day no one could find it. Kylan had some great shots of one of the toucans, and some of the shots from the top of the temples were good too, but we can’t prove it. I was bad enough about putting pictures on the blog before, now who knows what will happen.

We took the luxury bus back to the Rio Dulce, which enabled us to watch and listen to some Latin singer who by the looks of it, is as popular as Elvis Presley once was for 3.5 hours. But at least we had air conditioning and a seat.

We left Sunday morning the 30th  so we could pick up our main sail. This enabled us to hike up to an underground river just off of the Rio Dulce.

On Kylan’s birthday, we checked out of Guatemala and headed out to sea.

It seems that the weather has it in for us every time we try an ocean passage. It was beautiful when we left, but by night fall the winds had picked up, and the seas which were directly head on, kept pounding us, so we headed for Puerto Cortes again. This time we checked into Honduras and looked around the town some. I don’t believe they get a lot of tourists there. We were looked at a lot, and many people spoke to us for no reason. If only we knew more Spanish.

Two nights there and it looked like the weather would be good to go the last 70 miles to Utilla, but alas we were wrong again.

The last 20 miles the wind had shifted to straight on the nose and the seas had risen to 10 feet, so Stray Catz was taking a beating. Up every wave and slamming down in the next one. Moving along at about 2.5knots. We pulled into Utilla Harbour at 8:30 at night in total darkness.

Praise God we had been there before and were able to follow our previous track through the reef, and praise God when we dropped our now repaired anchor, it grabbed and held the first time and we were set for the night.

 

Our friends on Alecia Angelina are also on their way to the Panama Canal and off to cross the Pacific. Since we had no word on our anchor yet we decided to take a trip with them to the Bay Islands of Honduras. On our trip into Lago Izabel we met a young french man, Julienne, who was living in San Francisco till he decided to ride his bicycle from SF south. He obviously has made it as far as Guatemala, (yes riding all the way!) but ready to try something else. He heard about great SCUBA class prices in Utila and asked for a ride. (or we offered. I don’t remember which) We now had our first official crew for an Ocean Passage. Sorry Tim and Matthew, that little trip we took out into the Atlantic didn’t quite count.

On March 14^th we loaded his bicycle, trailer and all his gear and headed back down the Rio Dulce. We picked up our sails in Cayo Quemaddo. (Stray Catz with sails again!) Another 24 hours later we were anchoring in Utila harbor Honduras.

Ah back in clear beautiful salt water.

Utila is a pretty cool town. SCUBA is obviously the main source of business. That and all the bars and discos the divers hang out in.

After a couple of nights in Utila harbor listening to the all night discos, we said good-bye to Julienne and in the company of Alecia Angelina headed around to a different part of the island where we found a nice little area that had a beach and some good snorkeling. Two nights there then we were off to West End, Roatan. This too was a cute little small town where SCUBA and bars and restaurants rule. I spotted a couple of sea turtles in the harbor and would have loved to stay longer, but due to some boat troubles, (our anchor dragged) we said good-bye for now to our friends on Alecia Angelina and took off early the next morning for Guatemala.

The trip back to the Rio Dulce was not uneventful. We sailed most of the day, but to do so we were about 30 degrees off course. All the time thinking the wind was going to come around the right direction and we would be back on course. This did not happen. As the evening wore on the winds built and before we knew it, it was blowing 30+ knots and the seas built to somewhere around 10 feet.

We ended up blowing out a seam on the main sail and had to motor the rest of the way. After dealing with the strong winds and heavy seas all night and into the morning we made the decision to change direction and head to Puerto Cortes, Honduras to duck out of the weather. After an afternoon and night in Puerto Cortes, we took off early the next morning to a beautiful blue sky, calm seas and no wind.

After another night at anchor in Livingston, Guatemala we dropped the main sail off at the sail repair shop again and continued on into the Fronteras area to find out that our anchor shaft was waiting for us in Guatemala City. We put Stray Catz back at Nana Juana Marina, made arrangements to get the prop and rudder repaired and a bus ticket for Anna and I to Guate City. Kylan thought he would have more fun with internet every night instead of a couple of 5 hour bus rides, so he stayed on Stray Catz.

In Guate City we met up with David and Arely who chauffeured us around for the next 24 hours.

Guatemala City is a large city about the size of San Francisco. It’s divided up into zones. Like any big city, some zones you don’t want to wander into. David and Arely were great hosts and did a great job of showing us around and some of the highlights of the city.

The next morning we went into the Postal Customs building where we were told how much we still had to pay to get our warranty item in our hands, and to find out that the other part we ordered wasn’t there, and that basically no one knew where it was. So it was back to the bus station for the 5 hour ride back to the boat.