The Rio Dulce
Eclipse
Sun 14 Nov 2004 17:35
|
Although Eclipse has spent 6 months in
the Rio Dulce I realised I hadn't written much about the river
itself.
Eclipse is in Marios marina, the largest of about 1/2 dozen scattered round the small town of Frontaras about 20 miles inland from the coast. There are probably about 400 boats all together as the area is
very secure in every sense.
It is the only really safe hurricane hole in the Caribbean, while we were happy to leave the boat under Max's watchful
eye.
 Getting here was a dramatic motor up the river as
we passed through a deep gorge with 300ft high cliffs on each side.
Only a few people live here as its only accessible
by boat. Although the water taxis have large (90hp) outboards,
canoes are still the main form of transport for the
locals.
  Venturing further up stream, past Frontaras, the
river opens out into the large (30mile x 10mile) Lake Isobel.
It's guarded at its seaward end by an old Spanish
castle.
 Although the marinas are considered safe, that is
not true of Lake Isobel and when we sailed there we did so
in a convoy with 2 other boats. The main reason for
sailing there was that the jungle comes right down to the lake.
So we anchored off the edge of the jungle and then
in dinghies went further up the river looking for, and finding,
howler monkeys.
The main downside to the Rio Dulce is that it is
incredibly hot and humid especially in the summer. we found it very
unpleasant even with
big fans going 24 hrs a day, we should have bought an air-conditioning unit.
Fortunately few people
get malaria here, mainly because everyone is careful to spray up and we keep taking the
tablets. Dengue fever which
is caught from
daytime mosquitoes is more of a problem,
especially as there is no cure and no preventative treatment.
 When not working on the boat or travelling inland
in Central America I spent most of my time in the office, see
above,
working on articles and new designs. As its cheap
to eat out, we spent many evenings in the Cayuco Club bar, see
below.
 So that's where we've been hiding! We
are looking forward to getting back to sea and sailing again.
|