Newsletter from "Out of India" May 07
Out Of India
Birgitte and Ray Charmak
Mon 14 May 2007 14:53
on Good Friday. With both sails out and engine
on full blast we thought we had a chance to cross over without assistance,
but no. It didn't help
that the channel is very poorly marked and we got stuck, very stuck!
However, we had a tow boat on stand by and handed the tow boat two of our halliard lines and they tipped
the boat at an angle allowing us to get over the sand bar. Close call but we did make it, to the big
mystery of the rest of the boats on the river.
Having befriended Arthur and Nadia
in Placencia, we brought them with us to the Rio Dulce. Arthur has been our
new diet guru and we have been through a very hairy, completely disgusting
liver cleansing - to appreciating vegetables as main ingredient in our new
diet.
Unfortunately, Nadia being from Belarus, got problems with immigration
and despite hardcore negotiations skills including kisses, they had to return
back to Belize after 3 days.
We had a lovely time sailing from Mexico via Belize down to Guatemala. Ray
did a lot of scuba diving including the Blue Hole (just so lucky. He
happened to "fall into" the British army doing scuba training and was
invited to join the brigade). After the Blue Hole Ray went scuba diving again in time to see the awesome whale sharks off the Belize barrier reef. Me, still not too keen on the deep waters.
Unfortunately we lost our dinghy south of Mexico in heavy seas to never
materialize again. Being in a rather basic and remote
part of the world we were concerned about future transport back and forth to
the boat. Ray did not see any fun in my suggestions of getting a Indian
style canoe. To our big luck harbour master in Xchalac had a dingy that
needed to be transported to the Rio Dulce for a guy who got his own yacht
wrecked on the reefs of Belize, we got sorted.
And well in Rio Dulce, Ray got onto the local boat to boat radio and voila,
we are the proud owners of a beaten up Zodiac. No one will be tempted to
steal this thing. But it works. It actually works brilliantly with our old
engine and with a hard bottom life has got so much easier for Ray. He
dreaded the old wobbly thing.
After almost suffocating in the heat and to our surprise not catching either
polio or yellow fever from swimming in the River, we headed for Antigua.
Mission language school..... Antigua is the old capital of the Americas. A
stunningly beautiful colonial town sitting high in the mountains among the
volcanoes. We were planning to spend one week, we ended up with 4 (after 2
weeks in school, we had enough). Antigua is such a beautiful place and we
met wonderful people and enjoyed the refreshing mountain air and colonial
ambiance. We went for a 3 days trip to Lake Atitlan. Think Lago Como and
hazy sky, hummingbirds and lush vegetation with tropical flowers amass.
After befriending the gay community in Antigua they sent us to Casa Palopo, a 7
bedroom boutique hotel listed among the best new hotels of the world. We had
a ball. Being the only guests, we felt we were in our own house with our
own staff and absolutely loved it. Had romantic evenings in front of the
fireplace and our own chef at disposal. Spoiled big time.
Back on the boat, we are again locking ourselves inside with the air con on
full blast and risking our health swimming in the murky water. The plan is
to head out of the river on next high tide, May 17th, and sail to the Bay
Islands of Honduras for a few weeks before heading back to Rio Dulce for the
hurricane season. We have finally found a insurance company prepared to
cover us if worse comes to worse.
Skipper and First Mate are looking forward to some fine breeze and turquoise
waters.
Out of India, out, standing by on Channel 16.