Sea Star has a comfortable slip at Marina Tijax, ( part of Hacienda Tijax, Finca Tijax) on a lovely property on the Rio Dulce directly across the river from the town of Fronteras. (called Rio Dulce by locals which can be a bit confusing when directions are given). We have taken morning walks with binoculars and have seen(best guess identification) some local Aztec Parakeets, various fly catchers, Collared seed finch, Blue black Grass Quit, Thick billed Seed Finch, a spectacular Altimera Oriole and a pair of Roadside Hawks. Oh yes, and one huge Finca owner’s dog.
Texan Bay Music
This is our second arrival at our slip. We’ve written of our enjoyment of the music of Gene and Brenda on the CSY named Queen Mary we met in the Hobbies a few months back. Well, many boats are now arriving in the Rio or are here. Queen Mary had arrived from Mexico and taken a slip at Texan Bay and were to give a concert before they flew out to Alberta, Canada. Sailing back to Texan Bay seemed like a Great Idea especially because our friends, Doris and Tom on Footloose didn’t want to miss seeing Queen Mary, but their sailboat would have been difficult to remove from the spiderweb of boats they found themselves in at Mario’s Marina. Dan thought a great solution would be taking Doris and her guitar and Tom aboard Sea Star when we headed to Texan Bay. A good time was had by all. We enjoyed the singing of yet another Texan, Mike, who with his wife Sherri own and operate Texan Bay. Listen to the video -pretty good, huh?
We arrived at TB and took a swim, a harbor relaxer, some chicken fried steak made with pork, and Doris, Gene and Brenda started to refresh their memories of the songs they would play the following night. Brenda plays the melody on electric keyboard, Gene bass guitar, Doris strums acoustic guitar and I sing along to songs like Me and Bobby Magee, and They Say You’re Leaving – trying to see the tiny, tiny words on the paper in the dark.
Well, never mind that it was the same few people who showed up the next night, because as usual we had a blast. Since Brenda and Gene really were leaving Guatemala so sooon, we helped set up their Shade Tree awning to protect the boat while they are gone, clean the fridge (Doris and I got all the goodies-remember these folks are fishermen!) and then motored off back to Mario’s for Doris and Tom and Tijax for us, giving us a chance to look at the changes in the Rio again during the twelve miles back.
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| Texan Bay |
In the good old days
Dan actually had to remind me that not only were we on the Rio at then Suzanna’s Lagoon with our two teenage sons-that time for four months BUT that in 1971 Dan and I had traveled by ferry across the river and through Fronteras when we visited Tikal and were moving into Belize. Our “then” mode of transportation was a Toyota pickup truck with Dan driving. I had fashioned a camp tent that fit on a platform on the bed of the truck. It was so “groovy” because our gear was contained in a huge box and we were totally self-contained otherwise. We drove from Massachusetts to Mexico, Belize and Guatemala and then back home. I remember feeling grateful to arrive back as Dan had become really sick from, we think, a scorpion bite! Ahh memories. Wish I had a pic to put here- but no digital at the time, sorry!
Did I mention that it’s REALLY hot on the Rio? Dan and I decided to have a sun cover made for Sea Star. It will be finished in about another week and should keep Sea Star a bit cooler allowing us to keep hatches open during the daily-nightly rainstorms that I guess we’re going to have to live with this year. The thunder claps and lightning flashes constantly for hours at night- scaring us to death after our lightning strike in Bocas del Toro last June, usually knocks out power for a few minutes to a bit longer at Tijax and causes us to do the “hatch dance” up and down all night.
Work on the boat in exotic places
Sea Star is getting a face lift. Her teak cap rail, rub rail and eyebrow are being totally stripped, sanded and recoated by a power- house of a tiny, local Indian woman. Her name is Lupe and she has been spending eight to nine hours a day on Sea Star for about two weeks now. She made the stainless shine- Dan says it wasn’t even that shiny from the IPY factory! Now she is using Dan’s heat gun to allow scraping off of the old Cetol and preparing, sanding the wood for the new coating. Sounds easy until you realize that there is rub rail below the cap rail all around the boat. The rub rail needs the heat gun, too and quick scraping to remove the old cetol. When you are (she is) standing in a dinghy using a live heat gun and scraping, that doesn’t leave a hand for holding on to the boat! I’ve been holding the dinghy steady while she works and this is with lanchas going and coming to Tijax regularly. We cringe as they approach or leave and steel ourselves for waves under us, lifting and jerking.
Lupe and her husband do the same work so right now they are both at our marina working on different boats. Linda and Gary on Rainbow Rider and I switch off providing the lunch for the two of them to keep these hard workers going. Our job is going well-but it rains a lot so a bit slowly and it’s so ungodly hot I feel terrible having her work. She wears a pair of my shoes so her feet won’t burn on the deck, my brimmed hat over her baseball cap, and a long sleeved shirt and pants to protect her skin. No union here but a full time job for a few weeks more.
Today is Friday, July 23th and we have had a set back. While scraping away filler material close to a stanchion- Water strongly weeped out! NOT GOOD! Oscar sort of quickly removed another and same problem, another well, you get the picture. Suddenly we are all outside and staring at Lupe’s hard work but knowing we have to deal with the water. More on this event as it progresses because calling Island Packet customer service (Skype the only way) reminded us that IP offices are NOT open on Friday-so here we sit with materials and how-to questions until Monday. Only one problem, the work is proceeding during the weekend. I wrote a topic thread to IPYOA.com and hope someone comes back to me.
Our free time is broken up by trips out to buy food in the open markets and grocery store of Fronteras, go to the bank or ATM, try to locate every restaurant to eat- about US$6.00 for a good meal, or to find needed supplies. For good bread without warming up the boat I run to Mario’s Marina where the staff bakes it. Yummy for French toast.
They hide boat supplies well around here. There is a place called Mar Marine that boasts that the store is like a West Marine. NOT! At a tiny hole-in-the-wall under the Fronteras bridge we found a quart of Cetol when we need three of them, not there but another place, Chici’s (Reed’s Tienda) we were able to buy stainless steel cleaner, but not the one we really wanted, we found sandpaper but need more, we found little plastic bottles of acetone, thinner and mineral spirits by going from store to store.—The good thing is our useful Spanish is improving a lot.
Lupe is very patient and repeats her words over and over until she is understood and we are sent out for something else. Sometimes we engage in conversation with vendors and locals with limited range and lots of gestures. Lupe has a family of three children, oldest twenty five and her husband, Oscar, is a carpenter at a nearby marina. She plays the marimba (I’d love to hear that!) for community functions and at times private parties for the Guatemalans on the Rio. She care-takes the owner of Tijax’ boat and really is skilled at what she does with the teak. She told us a story of a Canadian single-hander who hired her husband for lots of work and then said he had no money. The only recourse they had was to call the ships agent, Raul, who told the Port Captain. -The boat was not given permission to leave the Rio or Guatemala when he wanted to- but they still have not seen their money!
In pics see Lupecleaning stainless balanced on a plank held up by our dinghy raising system under the arch.
Along with Lupe’s work we found Dillon Oberhauser who With his parents, live and work in the Rio now but had only been there ten days when we saw the posted mimeo flyer that informed us they were sail and canvas makers. Our sails have taken a beating in the tropic sun but only on the sail sun cover, a strip that protects the sail when furled. We had Dillon, Dad and Mum (he’s from South Africa) over to look and down came our sails and onto Jenny Lynde.
The later pictures show Dillon preparing a plastic template on line wrapped around our boat, then he goes around tracing his lines and vuwalla! If there is no wind he gets a clear picture of the project. He’s, well I guess it’s the family, making Sea Star a total sun awning that will cover from the staysail back to the mast and zip with a piece from the boom back to above the current bimini. It will include a water collecting fitting for water when it rains. (Yes we do have a watermaker but it’s not very clean in parts of the river, especially by Fronteras.) and the silt would clog too many filters, we think. Of course we are excited! It’s promised by July 30th.
I’m still trying to find out how many boats are in the Rio. More about that when I figure it out.
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| 2 Dulce |
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