OK, we are off the boat for the summer and I can take a
moment (or 20) to build a summary of all that we did this past cruising
season. We set off from Florida last January with the
intent to just go with the flow. Which
was a good thing, since Plan A only survived about three days out from Key
West.
But to start from the starting point.. Cerca Trova as you may recall spent the
summer of 2017 in Ft. Pierce (Hurricane Irma went up the west coast and mostly
missed us) and the fall in Stuart, Florida (where we saw temperatures 1 degree
above freezing the week after the holidays).
One thing kinda led to another such that we did a family trip with most
of our kids for Thanksgiving and since it was only another two weeks later, we
then went to Salt Lake and Austin for the Christmas/New Years holidays too.
A Big Upgrade
In October I had upgraded our solar panel system to nearly
double the original to allow the boat to run almost entirely on solar
power. The biggest pull is from our
fridge/freezer and the original system just could not keep up, especially in
the winter with its short, cloudy days.
For these holiday trips, we left the boat, though, with the
fridge./freezer running, an acid test for the adequacy of the new system,
everything worked fine with no spoiled food to greet us on our return.
Working South
Once back from land travels, we set out to get south. We agreed that our situation and the weather
patterns looked favorable for wrapping around the south coast of Cuba and then
shooting due south the link up with our friends on s/v Water Lilly and s/v
Rollick with whom we had cruised the Jumentoes the prior winter. And near-freezing weather on a boat with no
heating system is pretty miserable. So we
picked up our skirts and scooted down to Marathon where there is one of our
favorite cruising communities, Boot Key Harbor, to stage for crossing to the
west end of Cuba.
On our way in to Boot Key, we noticed the fridge/freezer not
chilling well and explored that as soon as we got to a mooring there. Yup, sure enough, the compressor was not
making the circuit cold. We called in a
pro service who recharged the circuit and proposed replacing the evaporator
plate as a permanent fix. We also talked
with our friend Chris Stanley in the Rio Dulce (we were generally aiming for
the Rio at the time) who is a pro A/C guy and he recommended replacing the
plate too. His price to do so was 1/3
the price of the US guy. We thought we
could make it down to the Rio with the current one if I kept a stock of
refrigerant and, with the hose set I had acquired and tested the prior summer
with Mark Cole, I would just top up the circuit if as we went. Oh, and the oil leak in the pan gasket on the
starboard engine had reasserted itself and was worse than ever despite being
replaced in Ft. Pierce. So we had that
re-done at the Marathon Boat Yard using some goop that accommodates for the
warping inevitable in old oil pans, after some agonizing about delaying our
departure to get a new pan. (That
repair, now 6 months later, has held up well.)
In Boot Key we linked up with a boat, s/v First Light, also
headed towards Cuba and the Yucatan on nearly exactly the same time frame, so
we set off immediately after the pan gasket re-repair and rendezvoused with
them at Key West. At which point
Jennifer came down with an infection on the night before our weather window for
the two-day crossing to the west end of Cuba.
|
Staging at Boot Key Harbor
|
|
 |
| Sunset at Key West |
Going Across and Other Challenges
The crossing went well, we picked up some very high winds
from astern after we had crossed the Gulf Stream that put us ahead of
schedule. Then conditions calmed down
and we arrived at Cabo San Antonio in the afternoon with plenty of time for anchoring. First Light kept going for Isla Mujeres,
where we caught up with them later.
 |
| Night watch across the Stream |
|
|
 |
| Day watch near west end of Cuba |
The next day we discovered our main battery charger/inverter
had died. That is the device that keeps
our main batteries charged and, in reverse, powers our AC-power outlets for
plug-in devices like phone chargers and appliances by pulling current from the
battery bank. We had hoped to wrap
around the south side of Cuba and head for the Caymans, but that was now not
feasible since the boat is wholly powered on the main battery bank. What to do?
If we went back to Florida for repairs that would be like abandoning our
cruising season. If went else where that
meant abandoning our original plans.
Either way, plans were going to be replaced. In the end, we up-anchored and headed for Isla
Mujeres ourselves. Much easier to get
there than to turn around and fight our way upwind back to Florida. What had
taken 45 hrs to do downwind would have been at least three days going
back. And we love Isla Mujeres, where we
knew we could get a replacement charger/inverter. The size of the thing (50lbs and fills a 22in
roll-aboard) only turned into a problem after we had arrived in Isla. But it also meant our cruising plan had to
change – we would now use the season to get out to the outer atolls of Belize
which we had had to skip on our last pass through the Yucatan coast in in 2016.
 |
| A Cuban beach |
An Unexpected Beach Break
We got to Isla Mujeres four days behind First Light. Isla is a great place largely unaffected by
the Gringos-gone-crazy situation in Cancun.
The Isleros are kind but savy people who have welcomed ex-pats who want
to sustain and evolve the island community without the pursuit of big-money
greed, ie. All-inclusive mega-resorts.
So the island is largely quiet, there are no cruise ships that can
access it directly due to shallow waters around it, the beaches are very fine
without being over-developed, and all the visiting tourists go home by about 6pm
since that’s when the ferry service to Cancun ratchets down. So we stayed in the anchorage as temporary
Isleros and roamed around the island.
Lots of beach time, lots of work on the boat, logistical snafu’s with
shipping such a large part to us via friends bringing it to us in a spare suitcase
when they came down for a wedding.
Our friends said ‘yes’ when we asked them to bring it, we
thought it would be faster and more reliable than having it shipped by DHL, and
did warn them it was pretty big. They
sure, send it to us, which we did, feeling pleased would have power problems
solved in a day or two. Hah! The first thing to go wrong was Southwest
refusing to allow them to bring it on as baggage and forcing our friends to
leave it behind at their departure airport.
So our critical part was sitting at an airport desk and the only people
who we could ask for help were on the plane to Cancun. So, phone calls, probing TSA for rules w.r.t.
chargers, etc. we got a really great guy
in Southwest baggage services to chase the part down to re-load it on another
flight. Which got delayed, so that bag
got rerouted and that flight got
cancelled, etc etc etc. In the end the
bag arrived at Cancun on the last day of our friends’ trip, at night and in the
middle of a reception dinner, but we couldn’t go get the bag ourselves because
it had only our friends’ names on it.
They graciously broke out of their dinner, went to the Cancun airport,
chased down the missing bag where it had been retained by Customs seeking
import taxes etc, paid those taxes, and returned to their hotel with our part-in-the-bag
to finish their dinner. The next day we
took the fast ferry to their hotel, picked up our part, reimbursed the friends
for the customs charges, and haven’t heard much from them since. Can’t say as I blame them.
For the Atolls
With a nice weather window coming up, we cleared ourselves
out of Mexico with the Isla authorities and blew down the Yucatan coast in 48
hrs of pushing into a heavy current, to arrive at our cruising goal for the
season, the atolls of Belize.
 |
| Arriving at Turnefe Atol |
The three atolls are Turnefe, Lighthouse, and Glovers. We made it to Turnefe and Lighthouse, in fact
we ended up staying at Lighthouse for weeks, ran into Placencia for supplies
and to clear in, and went right back out to Lighthouse. Amazing
place. The marine preserve there has
been in place and aggressively enforced for 30 years and the difference between
the protected environment and the unprotected environment is dramatically
awful. The unprotected reefs are nearly
dead. Yes, the coral is alive, and yes
there are some fish, but nothing like what’s been saved within the protected
zone. Diving in the preserve is like the
diving in the ‘80’s in Haiti. There are
troops of grouper who follow you around for hand-outs. Eels, squid, octopi,
flourishing corals, huge (5-10ft high) sponges.
It is absolutely pristine. But
just 200 yards outside the boundary, there is no edible fish bigger than 6
inches. The corals are pale imitations
of their happier cousins in the preserve, and at Turnefe we even saw
fly-fishermen walking on the reefs to get to where they could cast for bone
fish in the sand flats inside the reef barrier.
You can’t eat bone fish, they are too boney 😊
, so they are still there and attract a lot of fishermen. And Turnefe is a “reserve”, not a full
“preserve” so it’s technically legal to do this. But to walk on the reef is just wanton destruction of a habitat that is
already nearly destroyed. Just because
you can doesn’t mean you should.
 |
| Turnefe fisherman on his way back to his fish camp |
 |
| Lobster cleaning with fisherman from Turnefe who showed a great time while we were there |
 |
| In the Turnefe lagoon |
 |
| The famous nesting boobies and a frigate bird in the preserve at Half Moon Cay |
After two weeks out on Lighthouse, we had to go in for
official clearance. We headed out, with
a one-night stop at South Water Cay, to Placencia where we could re-provision
and do our clearing-in. This went well,
and we turned around and went right back to Lighthouse via South Water Cay and
Turnefe. It took us two stints of 5
hours of sailing to go downwind from Lighthouse to Placencia, and nearly a week to get back upwind. This is because the travel upwind is rough
and slow, and nice weather windows only last a day or two so you have to
hole-up somewhere to wait for the next window of tolerable conditions.
So back to Lighthouse and we had a great time. Snorkeling all over the anchorage at Long Cay
is actually pretty nice. We had another
front come in but folks we met showed us how to get around to the backside of
Long Cay to hide from the worst of it, so we all did, trooping along in a line
and anchored in a string along the backside.
The front turned out to be a ho-hum non-event, so two days later we all
trooped back around to the main anchorage but kept going our to the heart of
the preserve, HZalf Moon Cay. Half Moon
Cay is an Audobon site and is spectacular nesting grounds of blue-footed
boobies and frigate birds. Lots of
noise, lots of chicks, lots of “bird by-products”. We snorkeled a bit there too but found it to
be a lot less impressive than the diving.
To the Rio
We stayed at Lighthouse for the rest of the cruising season
right up to the end of March. We had
already signed up for two weeks of language school in Antigua Guatemala in the
middle of April and our Belizean cruising permit was running out, so last weekend
in March we up-anchored for Placencia again, this time to clear out. A nice stop at South Water Cay (it really is
lovely place and has some eco-resorts on it so you can go and stay for
vacations) and on to Placencia again.
One more ride on their “Hokey Pokey” water taxi to the village with the
officials, resolved a few wrinkles in our clear-out, and we set out for
Guatemala’s Rio Dulce.
Up the Rio
We arrived at Livingston Guatemala early in the day with
plenty of time to clear in to Guatemala and still get up the river to see our
friends in the lovely Cayo Quemado. We had
a really nice visit with them at their new lagoon-side cabin they are building,
caught up with all their local projects, went to dinner at Texas’ Mike’s for
one of his awesome chicken-fries, went to a birthday party for one of the other
long-time ex-pat guys nearby, powered up Cerca Trova the next morning, and
continued on up the Rio to the charmingly grubby town of Fronteras. Our cruising buddies on sv Water Lilly and sv
Rolick were already there, we had missed connecting with them all season, and
there were lots of squeals of delight on the radio and as we finally
arrived.
We settled in at Monkey Bay Marina, our home away from home
up the Rio, with the dear folks Jim and Kitty who now run the marina. It was so nice to see them again, make
friends with cruisers there we didn’t know, and re-meet other cruiser folks who
have stayed there for the years since we were out cruising. Then we dove in to the scramble to try to
choose contractors to replace our sail covers, do our gel coat rework in the
fall, before we were due in Antigua Guatemala for Spanish school! Two weeks and lots of skilled people to
interview. We settled on the canvas
vendor, got them started, winnowed the fiberglass guys down to two
possibilities, and set off for Antigua.
 |
| Sunday roast at our home in the Rio, Monkey Bay |
 |
| Cowboy parade and rodeo in the Rio town of Fronteras |
 |
| Mountains north of the Rio |
 |
| Fisherman and his buddy right off the docks at Monkey Bay |
Antigua
The oldest city in Guatemala is gorgeous. It looks like the pictures you see of low
stone houses and volcanoes looming in the background. There is a MacDonalds but it’s hidden away
inside a court-yard house off the central square. There were 27 churches there when Vulcan Aqua
blew up and buried the city in 1773.
Eight of them have been restored and four are fully functioning. Our language school was daily classes for
four hours with class activities most days after class. We learned massive amounts and can now
semi-sort-of get around in Spanish. The
home-stay was not so nice, basically a cheap student rooming house with, for
example, instant coffee in Antigua the epicenter of fine Central American
coffee. But we met some really cool
students, one who does a fascinating blog The Gallavanting Grasshopper http://gallivantinggrasshopper.blogspot.com/
. And we got to work on our Spanish with
the house-keeper who was very sweet ad obviously used to stumbling and mumbling
Americanos. And the family of sv Water
Lilly came through as we were finishing up so we got to show them some of the
amazingly complex dual-culture history of the city. We would love to go back, to see the city
more in depth, shop the cooperative farm store, study more Spanish, see friends
we made there. If Vulcan Fuego hasn’t
blown up again.
No comments:
Post a Comment