A few days of calm weather came our way for a smooth, overnight motor-sail from Honduras to Guatemala. We approached Livingston just after sunrise with misty clouds sticking to lush, rolling hills. We used an agent, Raul, to check into the country and he boarded Reach with several officials, soldiers and a doctor to initiate a quick, efficient and expensive paperwork shuffle.
The river gorge loomed ahead steep and GREEN. We were shortly underway again, excited to enter la boca of the Rio Dulce!
It was a brilliant, sunny morning and we drank in all of the new sights along the river.
Compared to our ICW experience, this is like traveling the Dismal Swamp on steroids.
There are colorful iglesias, beautiful modest houses and some incredibly scenic estates.
Boat traffic lines the outskirts of the river with fishermen hand-lining and launchas (water taxis) zipping past.
Many structures are built over water and more than a few built around sail boat-slips by cruisers who have settled here.
The first leg took us about 11 nm to an anchorage in [the former] Texan Bay with friends John & Jerie (Peking) there to greet us.
We and Nauti-Nauti reunited with Peking over margaritas on their Diesel Duck and had a special Mayan dinner on shore with new friends, complete with fish, shrimp and blue crab (!) that are abundant in the brackish waters.
The next day, our 3D chartplotter feature showed us traveling (it thinks we're a monohull) through el Golfete towards the deeper Rio, which twists around again to connect with Lake Izabal, surrounded by mountains in the background.
Twelve nm later, we arrived at our resting place in Mario's Marina, where Reach will spend the next 6 months of hurricane season. This is the first time that Reach has been in fresh water and our sterns float even lower than normal. No, not all from my Roatan provisioning! Sweet water has less buoyancy than salt water, but on the upside our oceanic marine growth will grow no more.
