May 10, 2009

Thirty days of heat. 95 in the shade and 110 in the sun on the deck of the Woodduck. Work is slooooooooooooooooooow. work, sweat, work, swim, work, swim, hammock, work, cocktail hour (in a netshell) our day. Living in the tropics you realize how much the rain and heat just kicks the boats, but the only way to fight back is with a good defense. Penetrating epoxy and white paint.
I am happy to say the windows we resealed are holding up good. Last night the skies finally opened up and let out a bucket load of rain. Mother nature must have been holding it for us till we finished the windows because she pissed all night long and the lightning was better than fireworks

So, lets see...... our last adventure was to BeliZe with our friend Karen.
The trip had a cool start anchoring in a small bay in the lakes. We visited our friends finca. Manfred and Andrea bought a farm ( finca ) 50 acres. Their driveway is a small creek. You have to take this creek a mile and then walk 5 minutes to there Ranchero house. They have some cows, sheep and three horses.



















On Monday we pulled anchor and headed to check out of Guatemala and into Belize. Here is Karen taking it all in as we move downt he river to the town of Livingston which is our port where we check out.



Tuesday we started out motoring north to Placencia. We caught a fish about an hour or two into the trip, a mackeral of some sort ( looking like a small king mackeral), and had lots of fun wathcing Karen gut it. Cathy cooked it up for all of us. It was big enough for 2 meals. The first meal was steamed fish and rice and the second was fish tacos with Teriyaki marinade on the grill
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For someone who has never been on a boat cruising she was a great crew.
The day turned into a 20 knot day of wind from the north/northeast making us have to beat up wind taking it longer than usual to get up to Placencia. But we made it in just as the sun was setting. That was a long 12 hour day. Exhausted we decided to take the next day off. Only one casualty of the day Karen's back got sun burnt. Ouch!!!! Blisters.







Thursday turned out to be a rainy and windy day so we stayed in Placencia and bought a case of stout. We really had a good time and splurged by trying pina coladas everywhere we went.



Friday was a little nicer and we had a good time swimming and hanging out.











Karen , on Saturday, had to leave us and took the Hokey Pokey taxi to the town of Independence and then the express bus to Belize City.
We spent a couple more days waiting for the weather calm down and also headed back to the Rio Dulce to finish some well needed work

Another season is almost over for us. always too short, but we will be leaving on June 4th to head back to the states. Keep looking in on the blog. I will be posting a lot more pictures of this season and some random shots I forgot to blog.

-Captain Jake

Hello from Belize

Well, we made it here to Placencia, Belize last night at sunset.  It was a 10-hour sail from Punta Gorda, Belize to Placencia.  It was a really good shakedown for the boat and all of its repairs.  Everything held up fine with some minor tweaking, of course.  We were really tired when we arrived.  Karen did great!  She's a really good sailor!  Takes orders great and is there to help out when we need her.  Other than that, she is relaxing in the sun and her sunburn isn't "too bad".  We have been having lots of fun and enjoying being out on the sea and having the sails up for a change. We plan to head out to the reef tomorrow to do some snorkeling.  Today is some serious downtime to rest up from the last two days of traveling down the river, out of Guatemala and her to the Caribbean. More when we arrive back from the reef in a few days time! Adios, Cathy

We Are Leaving Guatemala!

We are at the immigration office, have all of our passports stamped and will be lifting anchor here in Livingston, Guatemala in a matter of minutes and sailing off to Punta Gorda, Belize!!!  We are excited to try out all of the repairs on the boat and get some wind in the sails!  It should only be a 3 or 4 hour sail from here to there and we are lucky to have our good friend, Karen, visiting from San Francisco!  See ya soon!