Roger decided that we wouldn’t go into the Rio on Monday, but we would contact Raoul, the agent, and arrange to go in on Tuesday instead, as the high tide was later.

We had arranged that we would follow Linus & Hula in, as Linus had a slightly shallower draft to us and had been in before. We had waypoints from Ron on Memory Rose, Gary on Pacifico, both of whom have CSY’s with the same draft, but Roger wanted to err on the side of caution.

Gingerly we started over the bar with the depth dropping as we went, when we noticed that Hula, who was ahead of us, but more to starboard than our track, had virtually stopped. Mental alarm bells rang and as we watched to depth dropping 6’9”, 6’8”, 6’6” (we draw 6’8”) It was soft so Roger gave her some serious revs and we ploughed a furrow through.

Ahead we saw that Linus, who was more to Port than we were, was aground and the fishing boat was standing by to haul her off, but it wasn’t necessary, as our wake gave them all they needed to get off.

I have to say Roger was brilliant, in my opinion it takes nerves of steel to give her full throttle when you touch bottom, my instincts are to stop.

When we had anchored we were boarded by the usual officials, all of whom were very pleasant and helpful and were certainly the nicest officials we have dealt with to date. I think it was the immigration officer who spoke excellent English (which is always helpful to avoid misunderstanding in translation) and also advised us about the boat permit.

Following their departure (the whole process took 10 mins)  we went ashore to Raoul’s office to complete the formalities and also to apply for a 9 month extension on the boat permit, as they only issue for the first 3 months.

For any cruisers visiting Rio for the first time, when you dinghy ashore you will be approached by locals who will guard your dinghy, for a fee. We were met at the dock by Norman, a Nicaraguan who spoke excellent English and like Charlie in Dangriga, was the self appointed local guide.

He sorted out our ‘dinghy guard’ and then showed us to Raoul’s office. While Roger was dealing with the official business, Norman and I went walkabout.

I saw the yard where fish and stingrays are laid out of the ground for 7 days to dry (not very appetising).

 I was, however, impressed by the local laundry, which was a communal pool fed by mountain spring water.

Livingstone is a lovely town of about 5000 inhabitants. It is very pretty, with beautiful views over the bay, mountains and jungle. The whole place is very clean and the people are very pleasant. It was nice to be speaking Spanish again, after the English of Belize.

We stopped and had a splendid lunch at which point Norman reappeared and asked for the fee for the dinghy guard. He ripped us off, charging us 60 Quetzales (about US$8) but we were taken by surprise and in our haste to clear in, also had forgotten to negotiate the price first. There was also an element of complacency on our part, as so far this trip (apart from the speeding incident in Mexico) we have been treated very fairly. The going rate is actually 20 Quetzales.

Another ‘expense’ is the courtesy flag. Whilst it is not obligatory to fly one, it is good practice. There are plenty of people who will sell you a rather shoddy flag for 65 or 75 Qs (US$10) that wouldn’t last 5 minutes. Well, me being me, I made my own; it isn’t half bad and compares very well to the ones being touted in Livingstone.

From Livingstone you proceed up the Rio Dulce via a huge gorge, it is stunningly beautiful and the cliffs are covered in dense jungle vegetation.

It is so different to all of our cruising to date.  All along the shore you can see Egrets, pelicans and cormorants. There are also toucans and Quetzals (not the currency, but the national bird of Guatemala I believe) but we haven’t seen any…..yet!!!!

The locals travel up and down the river in dug out canoes, or the more affluent, by long boat. It is so quiet you can hear the crickets on shore.

We picked up several passengers - tiny little black and white birds, who flew onto the boat to hitch a ride. On Hula they flew inside the boom. As Spring is in the air, they are nesting, so they are flying backwards and forwards with little twigs, building their nest in our furling gear

We anchored for the night just before the lake, El Golfete.  Hula invited us for sundowners, so by way of a celebration of making it into the river we cracked open a couple of bottles of bubbly, had smoked salmon and cream cheese with some of Eliane’s wonderful bread, falafel and sweet corn fritters. It was a lovely evening.

The river is incredibly still and quiet apart from the jungle sounds. But what is especially wonderful are the stars. Because there is no light pollution the stars are more visible and because the water is so still, you can actually see the reflection of the stars in the water. I only wish I could capture it on camera as it looks so magical.