Rio Dulce to Utila

We crossed the Rio Dulce bar with the high tide on Tuesday morning and sailed overnight to Utila, Bay Islands of Honduras. We had light winds and had to motor-sail all the way. It was a little lumpy, but over-all not bad. It took us about 20 hours to cross the Bay of Honduras. Utila is the westernmost of the Bay Islands and is a popular spot for divers and back-packers. We plan to stay here through the week-end and then move on to Roatan

Olive ridley turtles

We are just a short walk along the beach from the sea turtle preserve. The turtles come ashore here to lay their eggs. The height of egg-laying season is August and September.Several months later the hatchlings break out of their shells and burrow through the sand to the surface and then make their way to the ocean. Only one in a thousand hatchlings make it to adulthood, but the females who do make it will return to this exact location to lay their eggs, this after many years and thousands of miles of migration. They may live to be fifty years old. Here is a little one on her way to the sea.

Antigua and Monterrico Guatemala

We arrived in the Rio Dulce 10 days ago and spent a few days putting the boat back together and then took off with our friends Beth and John Tally and went to Antigua, Guatemala and then on to Monterrico, on the Pacific coast. We have rented a private home right on the beach. It is a black volcanic sand beach, so different from the beaches we are used to in Destin. The Pacific waves are huge and the surf sounds are terrific. We will have a full moon in a day or two which should be beautiful.

Granada, Nicaragua

We left San Salvador on the TICA bus at 3:00AM. The reason for this early departure was in order to arrive in Managua at noon. The later bus didn't arrive until after dark and we did not want to spend the night in Managua. The bus trip was not too bad. We crossed the Honduran border twice on this leg and that entailed getting off the bus, standing around etc,etc. We grabbed a taxi at the bus station in Managua and were out of there on our way to Granada in about 5 minutes after arrival.

Granada is the oldest city in the Americas, having been founded in 1524.It lies at the base of Volcan Mombacho which is inactive, having last erupted some 22,000 yrs. ago. It is on the shore of Lake Nicaragua which is the largest lake in Central America and was important in the 1850's as part of the water route from the east coast to California. Ships would arrive at the mouth of the San Juan River on the Atlantic coast and smaller boats would then take cargo and passengers up river to the Lake and across. They would then go overland to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific side where ships were awaiting to complete the trip to California. This was shorter and easier than the overland trip in the isthmus of Panama.

Granada is a beautiful old colonial city with many churches. There are many good restaurants and multiple places to stay in every price range. We stayed at The Bohemian Paradise Hotel which was in a quiet and safe neighborhood just 1 block from the convent of San Francisco.We had a nice airconditioned room w/ pvt bath, cable TV and WiFi. Breakfast was included and all this for $45/ night.There were 4 other rooms built around a central courtyard. We spent 6 days here exploring the town and surrounding area including the Volcano.

El Salvador and Nicaragua

I have been remiss, thus far this season, in posting to this blog. It is so much quicker and easier to post pictures to Facebook that I took the easy way out. I will try to make up for it now.

We left the Rio Dulce on February 10th and spent the next two weeks traveling through El Salvador and Nicaragua utilizing public transportation except for the few times that we took taxis or a private tour to a particular destination. The international buses are clean,air-conditioned and show movies, sometimes in English w/ Spanish sub-titles. The Pullmantur bus which we took from Guatemala City to San Salvador was downright luxurious, with large leather reclinable seats and excellent service including a light breakfast and drinks. This was a 6 hour trip leaving the up-scale Zona 10 in Guatemala City and terminating at the Sheraton Presidente Hotel in the like-wise safe and upscale Zona Rosa in San Salvador. On arrival we immediately got a taxi for our first destination, Suchitoto, an hours drive N. of San Salvador. This is an old colonial village situated on Lago Suchitlan, a large man-made lake and one of the largest in Central America. We stayed at Hotel Villa Balanza in a room that boasted a balcony and a beautiful view of the lake and surrounding mountains.There was a TV and full kitchen downstairs where I could make the morning coffee. All this for a whopping $20 per night.The town was fun to explore and there were several good restaurants. We celebrated Valentines day at Los Almendros Restaurante which is part of the expensive hotel of the same name. The food and ambiance were quite nice and we almost had the place to ourselves. From here we will return to San Salvador for a few days.

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!