15:39.965N 088:59.489W

 

Friday June 17, 2011 3PM

 

We’ve been at our marina for about 48 hours now and are getting settled in. It feels strange stopping someplace knowing we won’t be leaving in a week or two. So far it looks like we made a good decision. The marina is nice, the staff very helpful and we have some friends who we met in the Bahamas who will be here with us for several months.

 

We’re at the Monkey Bay Marina (www.monkeybaymarina.com)

 

It is a full marina with about 30 boats but only 3 boats will have people aboard for the summer so it will be quiet for us. Once you leave the dock area there are a series of wooden paths that lead to the different parts of the marina. The part to the right goes to the owners house while the path to the right leads to the bathrooms, workshop, kitchen and lounge area.

 

 

Turning off the main path leads to the kitchen and lounge area.

 

 

Here’s the kitchen – it’s pretty basic but it is nice not to have to cook on and therefore heat the boat.

 

 

Finally there is the lounge area. It’s probably 30’x30’ with tables, chairs hammocks

 

I should point out there is no place you can walk to from the marina as there are no roads. We travel to town by boat. It’s a bustling town – actually little more than a wide spot in the road that has a little bit of everything.

 

 

You can even get a pet parrot here.

 

We’ve only been to town once for a quick orientation tour given by the marina so I’m sure we’ll have more pictures in the future.

 

About our trip from Mexico. We saw a lot of this

 

 

This was only our second encounter with squalls in a year. The thunder showers would start about 2:30 AM and it would rain off an on for the rest of the night. In the morning the clouds would hang around with morning showers until about 11AM and then the skies would clear. We had 6 days of weather like that.

 

Here is the town of Livingston Guatemala. Not much to look at but it is the major town in the area.

 

It even has an easy to use laundry. I didn’t see any place to put in coins so I’m guessing it’s free.

 

 

Once we had cleared in at Livingston it was time to head up the river. Unfortunately the pictures don’t do the hills and river justice. Here’s a guy paddling his canoe.

 

 

We were following another larger boat and here’s what he looked like.

 

 

Along the way we saw may people paddling their canoes like this lady and her two kids. I think they were headed home from the store.

 

 

 

Probably to one of the many homes that looked like this

 

 

We spent our first 2 nights in the Rio at the Texan Bay Marina – a nice place away from civilization

 

 

Behind the thatched deck was the main building.

 

 

One of the workers lived on the property and he had a 3 year old son. Roberta brought out some pipe cleaners for him to play with. This was something new to him and he wasn’t sure what to do with them. The Roberta made him some ‘glasses’. He like them so much he wanted all the pipe cleaners made into glasses and he would wear all three pairs at the same time

 

 

Then Roberta brought out a mirror and he was really take with himself

 

 

He would also ride the 3 wheeler up and down the docks – you can see they aren’t very wide.