So I'm one blog behind. Next post Tikal and Yaxha, Guatemala.
Sea Star and Dan and Kathy have been a bit sedentary. We’re retired and it’s allowed I guess. We kicked ourselves out of the boat one morning, without even having our coffee, with the birding scope and the mount that allows pictures to be taken through the telescope. We hadn’t given the system a trial since the mount had been purchased. We took a walk along the main path out of Tijax and here are some of the pictures we managed with Dan’s Nikon. It will take lots more practice, we think. We were verry far away from the subjects.
click to see pictures taken by Dan through birding scope- Nikon D300
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| Scope birding pictures |
We have started to watch the weather more seriously as there have been a series of weather fronts and lows that could have amounted to problems for us had we not been in the sheltered river area. One of those low pressure areas developed into Tropical Storm Matthew and kind of ruined a planned weekend at the second Full Moon party at Denny’s Beach. About ten boats sailed or motored into Lago Izabal on Wednesday, Sept. 21. We were treated to happy hour and hospitality by Denny and his welcoming and friendly staff, then an excellent surf and turf menu selection of steak and shrimp. The rain began to fall as we headed back to our boats, the wind picked up across the lake causing “good ol’ rock and roll” all night.
Our neighbor boat, Lorelei, with Patty and Gary aboard had been having a string of boat issues, one of which was repeatedly gluing their dinghy, but having it just go flat again. To a cruiser, having a non-functioning dinghy is a disaster. Dan and I had just fixed ours before the trip. It had been getting soft about every second day, so that was manageable. If you have no dinghy you have no transportation, thus no groceries, no dinners out and it’s like your car is in the garage until somebody can fix it properly. Well Gary glued, and stuck patches on the under two year old! dinghy but when inflated, it just blew out and was dead and flat! Disaster.
Denny loaned the couple a shallow, hard-bottomed dinghy to get back and forth with their dogs to shore. In the choppy anchorage, at night, the little borrowed dinghy flipped over with Gary's motor still on it! Luckily one of them heard the dinghy hitting the hull of their boat. Patty radioed their distress to the boats in the anchorage but no one heard her call. There had been lightning and some of us turn off any electronics we can, so if we are struck less damage will occur, so we were not monitoring the radio. That was a mistake. Finally Gary and Patty roused Denny, who roused his launch man and the man dragged the dinghy back to shore, but upside down, with the motor under the water. Probably not good! The time of this fiasco was 3:30AM.
Now Patty and Gary take this kind of doodoo in stride. The next morning there were no recriminations that no one in the anchorage saved the dinghy, and they had not had much sleep. The wind was down but it was still raining. Other boats started to leave because tropical storm Matthew was supposed to be coming right for us in one of the NOAA models. I bailed our dinghy twice to keep the water from sinking it as the rain pored down.
One of our plans for the day had been to go to the nearby Mayan ruins of Quirigua. The other was horseback riding. No one had signed up for the riding as it was obvious the trails were wet. Then we cancelled the ruins trip that morning. Dan and I were not too excited when checking our weather on the internet. Dan didn’t think we were in for more than rain, and really didn’t expect the storm until the next day. We decided to be prudent cruisers and one by one the boats slid away to return down river and to the safe marina slips, as the now glorious sun appeared.
Sea Star arrived uneventfully back at Tijax a few hours later, but once again, Gary and Patty, the last to leave Denny’s because the guys fixed Gary’s outboard, lost their alternator on the way back. Gary just happened to have a spare and replaced the alternator as Patty motored and they traveled, appraising the fleet of their progress up the river.
The day was not over for them yet. Patty, who loves to take pictures and write stories for the Chisme Vindicator, the Rio cruiser’s newspaper, realized she had lost her camera. It was later recovered but the tension was high for awhile.
The end of that saga is Patty and Gary located and bought a bigger, stronger, faster dinghy and their motor is fine. Buena Suerte!
I have no pictures of Denny's this time, however here are a few more pics. The first two are of a little bat who I think fell out of our sail when we furled it. We thought we killed it in the boom brake but it was fine and we saw it fly away.
The others are another walk on Tijax property. My battery gave out just as we approached the sixty-foot high swinging bridges. What a beautiful canapy tour they have. I'll try another day.
click slideshow
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| end Sept. Dulce |
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