After a couple of hours sleep at anchor out the front of Livingston we raised the anchor at 1000am and motored to the mouth of the Rio Dulce. The flow coming out of the river was reasonably strong even as the ingoing tide was about 1 hr off high. We led the procession across the river mouth bar as we draw 1.2m and Arwen (being a mono) draws 6.5ft, reading off the depth so Arwen knew what to expect. Halfway across they radioed to say their keel was touching and they were attempting to motor through. The bar is mud and it is fairly common for mono hulls to 'touch down'. We had waited for the high tide but had missed the spring tide by 4 days. As they struggled to make head way a launcha came to their rescue. A halyard was attached to the launcha. The launcha pulled sideways and forward, tilting Arwen to the side so that the keel came free of the mud. They then powered through. Fairly exciting stuff for all involved although this is a regular occurrence for the locals (it hadn't taken long for them to respond when they saw Arwen was stuck). We anchored in front of the main dock in Livingston. The anchor holding was marginal. We attempted to contact local agent Raoul Valez on Channel 16 & 68 but received no answer. We had been at anchor perhaps 15mins when a boat load of officials descended upon us, one of which was Heirson, Raoul's nephew. The checkin was very smooth and painless, and one lady official didn't even get upset when, after sitting on a cockpit cushion that was still wet from the previous nights rain, and when she stood up patting her backside and speaking in Spanish with a pained look on her face which was easy to interpret as "I have a wet backside". Total cost Q1300 Quetzals (about $170AU) and 7 soft drinks. About an hour later John and Jens took the dingy into the dock and were greeted by 5 or 6 kids wanting to mind the dinghy. It didn't take very long before a rasta man approached them and became their guide taking them to the ATM and bank, mobile phone shop for yet another SIM card and then to Raoul's office (Agencia Maritima Servamar) to pickup our completed completed entry papers and stamped passports. He spoke excellent english and was very helpful. This service cost Q50 plus the purchase of his bands 'Punta' music (not Reggae he told John). All very painless, efficient, quick and the people were very pleasant. Livingston doesn't have a great reputation but in the very short time the boys were there they said it looked quite an interesting and vibrant little place, with quite a few tourists walking the streets. It is only accessible by sea, no airport or roads in the town.
Up anchor at 2.30pm and made our way up the river through the gorge. The river is the only way to get to and from land locked Livingston, but even knowing this, we were astounded at the number of boats traveling up, down and across varying size to small dugout canoes to million dollar Azimut power launches. There is some expensive looking real estate mixed in with traditional villages along the shore all with jungle surrounds. Quite beautiful. The gorge is about 7 miles long and is absolutely spectacular. We had a fairly strong current against us and it took a little over 2 hours before we reached the entrance to El Golfete, a 8 mile long lake which leads to the main marina district about another 3 miles or so past the end of the lake.
It was getting a bit late in the day so we dropped anchor just outside La Laguna Bay Marina yesterday afternoon at 1715pm. This is a small marina in a protected inlet about a mile or so into El Golfete. After locking up (not sure how secure the area is as far as theft goes) we dinghied over to Arwen and popped the corks on a couple of bottles of Champagne to celebrate a successful voyage. Then home for an eleven hour sleep (no dinner), which was interrupted once when it started to rain, well bucketed down, and it was a scramble to put buckets and towels under drips and lower the covers in the cockpit. There has been no wind this morning and we have had the locals visit in their canoes. We have bought green bananas from 2 young girls, had the local butcher come by to see if we wanted to buy some freshly slaughter meat and finally bought a chicken soup and corn maize breadrolls that were wrapped in banana leaves and had been boiled, similar to dumplings (heavy but good when soaked in the soup). We are going to really enjoy Guatemala.
Thanks to Mum and Shelly for the email responses. John is happy with both lots of news i.e Julia is out and the maroons won. I am happy with the first but hold hopes that the blues will win the third State of Origin game and therefore the series.
