Back to the Rio Dulce

We left Roatan on April 17th and sailed to Utila where we spent 4 days. We checked out of Honduran customs and immigration before sailing on to Laguna El Diamante on the mainland of Honduras. This is a very well-protected bay surrounded by mangroves and is adjacent to Puerto Escondido where we had spent two nights on the trip over to Roatan 6 weeks ago. We traveled in company with Windquest, Compania and Goin' Places . We have had very strong trade wind conditions for the past 4 weeks and it made for a fast, if somewhat rough ,passage across the Gulf of Honduras. It is about 50 miles from Utila to Diamante and we made it in about 8 hours.

From there we went back to Omoa and checked out the fort which was built by the Spanish 250 years ago. Omoa is a very lively place on the weekends, with lots of folks from San Pedro Sula coming over to enjoy the beach and water activities. We found that they like to play loud music all night which is not conducive to a good nights sleep in the anchorage. Besides our 4 boats, we were joined by our friends, Dave and Jan on Odyssea and we all went ashore for a very good seafood dinner of shrimp and lobster.

From Omoa we sailed the next day to Cabo Tres Puntas which is just across the bay from Livingston which is at the mouth of the Rio Dulce. High tide the next day was at 9 AM so we were up and underway to position ourselves at the bar one hour before high tide .The bar at the mouth of the Rio will carry 5.5 feet at slack tide so it is important to cross on the rising tide.We draw 6 feet and the high that day was 1.9 feet so we slid acoss with about a foot and a half of water beneath our keel.

After checking in to Guatemala in Livingston, we went through the Rio Dulce gorge and back to our slip at Mario's Marina. We will spend the next 10 days getting the boat ready to leave it for the season and then we will fly out of SanPedro Sula Honduras for Houston and then Memphis on May 13.


We have had a great season, have seen a lot of places and have had a lot of fun but it will be good to get home to family and friends. I am even looking forward to going back to work!