We Made It

Well folks, we finally made it to Guatemala, we checked out of Mexico on the 13 May so it has taken almost one month to get this far, had we sailed direct, it would have been a quick 340 nautical miles which would have taken only 3 days of sailing, but we decided to take the scenic and snail-paced route.  We have seen some beautiful places, some boring places, some very stable anchorages and some bouncy anchorages that felt as though we were sleeping on a mechanical bull. Oh, and let’s not forget them lightning storms, 🤨 which we think may have caused us to lose our monitoring page of our Raymarine, so as of right now we cannot see our fuel level, water level or house battery level. This just adds to the long list of boat jobs when we get to our Marina.

The joy in this journey is that we have had our buddy boats along and have spent some amazing evenings together at anchor, all running rather low on produce, but somehow, we manage to create some spectacular dishes, from divine savoury sweet papaya salad, fruit tarts, the best hummus ever, black bean enchiladas and puttanesca with some extras. I have concluded that this is Master Chef Off Shore.  Everything we are eating right now is fully vegetarian as there is no more animal protein in our freezers and has not been for a long time. We really have no choice but to get creative out here. There has been no fishing, as the sea water is between 31°C/32°C and eating fish from water that is above 27°C can carry considerable health risks that cannot even be solved by long freezing. On the odd occasion that we have found ourselves on land over the last month we do tend to order fish with the hope that the locals know what is safe and what is not. We are all still alive and no one has been sick.

By now, once again we are running low on provisioning and needed to locate a grocery store of some sort, the 6 of us headed off to town, yup still illegal 😬 have not dealt with customs and immigration yet. Thankfully we found a store that we could get some more fresh produce as this seems to run out fast on our boats.  Puerto Barrios Guatemala, was rather rough and rugged to say the least. On the outside of the grocery store there was a pile of chicken lying in 32° Sun and 80% humidity patiently waiting to be taken inside and hopefully meet with refrigeration. 🤮 I am concluding that Guatemala is certainly not for the faint hearted. Poverty and certainly crime riddled is a real thing. I think being South Africans has set us in good stead for this journey. This is our first intro to Guatemala, and I think we are in for some surprises, some good and some possibly less desirable. However, it is really beautiful from what I have read, also based on the beautiful mountains that I see around us right now.

10 June 2025

On Sunday we headed to a very exposed anchorage where we knew we would have no protection from weather and swell, not ideal by any stretch, but it was closer to Livingstone and would allow us to wake up at around 05:00am instead of 03:30am. For me this means lifting anchor in day light versus darkness. Unfortunately, our buddy boats had a really bad time at this anchorage, the bounce and role is certainly harder in a monohull than on a catamaran, so understandably, they made the decision to retreat to the calm and still anchorage we had all come from. We decided to stay, even though it was far from comfortable, and the swell was large. Unless we started to drag, I did not want to lift anchor in those conditions, if not necessary.  It was certainly a bouncy night and not much sleep was had, but we were able to lift anchor at daybreak, have a little more rest and thankfully the sea had calmed in the morning for us to raise the hook relatively easily.

 Now the reason we have taken close on a month to get to this point has always been about the weather as I will now explain.  On Monday morning at the crack of dawn we met up with Dilly Dally and Happinez and took the 20 minute sail to the official anchorage in Livingstone. The trick here is that we had to wait the entire month, for the highest tide, which needed to fall in daylight, in the morning and the swell needed to be calm……all because we had to cross a moving sandbar when entering the anchorage, and not to forget that we cannot anchor in Livingstone overnight due to poor holding and the fact that it is dangerous for sailors as there are robberies at night, this all felt a little mythical, but somehow the weather window arrived.

The time had come for us to motor up the Rio Dulce River to a safe anchorage for a few nights, while gradually working our way to our Marina for the next few months, we have all been excited about this, as we knew it was going to be absolutely gorgeous and maybe we are also excited about being in a Marina as we have not entered a marina in 6 months.

Wow Rio Dulce you certainly delivered the beauty!!!! So incredibly gorgeous and green lush jungle all around us, the sounds of the birds, and all kinds of creatures can be heard as we meandered up the river, that is incredibly calm and still, a far cry from our crazy anchorage only one night ago.  It was an easy motor up even though we did need to dodge a couple of cheeky sandbanks, that caught us by surprise, where the water got very shallow, but all went well, and we arrived in a beautiful anchorage where we will spend a couple of nights enjoying our new back garden.

Once we were safely anchored, we hopped straight into our dinghy’s and headed for the pub where we could get some basic food and of course a few Cuba Libras to celebrate our arrival, which now days I am finding very palatable indeed…..who would have thought 🤣