Rio Dulce, Guatemala

We are back in the Rio Dulce at Mario's Marina. We arrived last Friday, having flown into San Pdro Sula, Honduras and taking a 3 hour van ride across the border.We have quickly fallen into the rhythm of this beautiful part of Guatemala. The marina is about 17 miles inland from the Caribbean with the first few miles winding through a marvelous jungle canyon. The river then widens and the marina is located near the small town of Rio Dulce ( sometimes called Fronteras). The Rio is a natural "hurricane hole" and many cruisers from all over the world leave their boats here during the Atlantic hurricane season.

Mario's has a restaurant/bar and the food is very good and inexpensive.

We have been busy readying the boat after its long layup over the summer and fall. Mary has gotten the interior ship-shape and I have been busy with various maintenance and repair projects.

Next week we plan to travel inland to Antigua Guatemala where we will spend a week in language school in an attempt at improving our spanish. From there we go to Lago Atitlan for several days. After that we may travel to El Salvador and Nicaragua....or plans are not complete yet but we will travel a while before taking the boat out of the Rio sometime in February.

We have renewed our friendship with numerous cruisers we met last season and who also keep their boats here including Deja Vu ( George, Kathleen and Kate) John and Beth Talley on Upjinks.

Tonight we have Karaoke and a New Years Eve party but it is doubtful that this crew will actually be awake at mid-night.

Happy New Year to all! More later.

A beginning.......

This is the site that we will use to keep family and friends up-to-date on our travels aboard our sailboat Antares, a Valiant 42 cutter which was built for us in 1996-7 and launched in May 1997. We kept her in Biloxi, MS until just after Hurricane Katrina, when we shipped her back to the factory for repairs from damage sustained in the storm. In November of 2006 she was trucked to Pensacola and we took off from there just after Thanksgiving 2006 and sailed to Isla Mujeres, Mexico via Key West. From there we worked our way down the east coast of the Yucatan, ending our trip in May in the Rio Dulce Guatemala.

We are now poised to begin another phase of our trip and we will try to keep everyone informed of our whereabouts and our adventures through this blog.Check in here after the beginning of the year.