Pictures this week

Tim’s new friend a baby
“Coatimundi”

A simple meal you can always get at a restaurant
“Cheap”

Pam buying hand made clothes

 

 

Quirigua

If there is one thing Pam and I have learned. It’s cruisers can change there minds faster than a women having a bad hair day. We went to see the agent here. He said they would let us in to Honduras. We were worried they would not. With us having stayed over our time limit here but maybe not for to long. Pam told him we may go back to Belize for a few days. He said this would get us a 90 days stay in Honduras for sure. We have not decided whether to go on to Honduras are back to Belize but we have decided to get off the dock and go back to cruising. We have a plan to go to the end of the lake with some more boats. We ask if anyone wanted to go and we have a few saying they are going. This is another thing we have learned. They won’t all go. They will be some that will back out. Maybe all of them. It’s very remote where we are going. Going with other boats the books say is safer. Safety in numbers. We hope it’s what they say it is. Wild jungle.
We are so tired of working mostly on our boat we decided to take one day off this week and go to the Maya ruin at Quirigua. Taking road trips here is cheap if you can handle riding in a colectivo. A 3 seat van. The most we have seen is 26 people riding at the time we were on one. How many people can ride in a colectivo ? “At least one more.” The ride over was packed. Now remember packed here is more that you have ever seen in a van in the states. But the ride back was more interesting. The conductor, that’s the man that handles and loads the people was on top of the van. He said something to the driver and he took off driving like a mad man that they “all are” to get in front of a truck. We were moving on down the road at what should be the speed limit when the conductor swung down off the top inside the van. I cheered and clapped. The rest of the people looked at me and smiled but like I was crazy. Nothing special to them but I was very impressed. So was Pam she was clapping too. If we had come down when we were younger I could have been a conductor for sure and Pam could have been a mad women colectivo driver. A first down here. You never see a women doing what they think is a man job.
Quirigua is not as impressive as some of the ruins. It’s in the middle of a banana plantation. Miles and miles of Bananas. Trucks coming and going. We really liked seeing what we could see looking through the fences of the banana plantation.

Banana Plantation

The trees were small may 12 feet high the bananas maybe 7 feet off the ground. Planted in rows with all the trees that had been harvested cut and laying on the ground under the trees bearing bananas.
It was not crowed at Quirigua and we could go where we wanted. We walked down a little road beside the ruins and there was a little clearing where some of the people that maybe work there had a little fire going cooking lunch. “Guatemala style.”
There is a lot of what they call “stela” large rocks stood on end maybe 30 feet high with all kinds of carvings on them. Also there are several “zoomorphs” carving that resemble real and mythic creatures.

Zoomorphs

At what they call the “acropolis” is what looks like a ball field with steps or maybe bleachers. Hundreds of people could set there and watch what ever went on there.

Acropolis
Ball Field?

In the states in years past when they had a public hanging, people would come from miles around to see a man hung. What ever went on there, it makes me uneasy to think of what man will do to his on kind or just what a man will do. Tell the truth, would you go watch what a man will do to another man? Setting there now it’s a peaceful place. Buses come in bring in loads of people with what they call” cat herders “. That’s the young people that get the old people off the buses around and back on. Most of the buses were from the coast. Cruise ships bringing people in on buses. Then back to the ship before dark. Now that’s not a job I would ever want. I can only imagine what that would be like. Maybe like taking care of a herd of cats is close. There is a small museum there and a shop that sells very expensive Jade. They have a little film you can watch about Jade and where it comes from. It’s not in rocks it is rocks and found on the ground. Its been there so long it looks like just big old rocks. They hit it with a hammer and listen to the sound it makes. When they find one they like, they cut it. Then they test it with a liquid so dense a rock will float. If it real Jade it will sink and there is very little real Jade. What is for sale on the side of the road and where ever people are making thing is not real Jade, You need to have it tested For one thing it supper hard and you want shape it with simple tools They think the real Jade the Maya used to work all these rock were made by making a tool out of wood then using an adhesive to hold little stones you can find here in the river that are harder than Jade. Sand paper wood thingy. This would have taken a very long time to do. Making a tool to make a tool to cut and shape all these rocks to make these temples and it all stopped about year 800 . “ Why? “ The smart people of the world say there was mass starvation near the end . Maybe over population. But for one thing there was some one here and they would have had to work hard for years to build places like this. Again “Why?” I liked setting there. It’s so quite. When the buses and their loads of people and the cat herders were gone. There is a little jungle left there surrounding the place. Will this place be here in another 1000 years are will it be jungle? Will we have increased our numbers to the place, we all have starved and are all gone? Will the jungle have taken over again?
I am glad we came and I am glad we are going on soon. Back to cruising before we need a cat herder to take care of us. There is a lot to see out there and we are going to try and see some of it. Leaving to go see real jungle in a week. We will let every one know what that’s like. The little schooner Pamela Ann up a little river in a real jungle. I am truly amazed at where our little homebuilt schooner from Southport, NC has taken us and more amazed at where “She may take us.”.

Regular days on the RD

In the mornings women wait to wash their dishes and later in the day they wait to wash their clothes.

Waiting and socializing

Traveling street vendors

Twin girls but one is very shy.

 

 

What to Do?

When Pam and I were young. We dreamed of going sailing. It was the mid 80s before we finely made it happen. We have learned a lot since then. One thing for sure, Sailing for us is not like what you read in the sailing magazines. Where every thing is all ways so easy and you are always so free. To us it’s a lot of work sometimes and sometimes the free thing. Its like playing pool. You can make and easy ball and then lose the game. For us its takes a lot of planning. You need to go when the wind is right or the tied. Today you have to deal with the law more and more every day as the world gets more and more crowded. If you can make it some where. Can you anchor? Are is it against the law and you have to take a mooring ball. How much and can you find one? “Here” It’s the new ruling and how we are going to have to deal with it. We have been here a little over 180 days. The law is we have to leave the country or pay a penalty of Q20 per day. About 5 dollars a day. The boat is a different story. We can only have it here 90 days then we needed and extension one time for 90 more days. This cost 350 US dollars over what we paid coming in. After that time is up . You have to leave or pay 500 US dollars the first day over and you have to stay gone 90 days before you can come back with the boat.. Why not just leave the way we had planed. There is an agreement here called the C4. It’s and agreement between 4 countries If we leave, we need to go through Honduras and they are one of the C4 countries. The 90 days is for all 4 countries. Not any one of the countries but all the countries If you are in anyone of the 4 your time is counting down. We are worried they won’t let us in Honduras. Now to make things a little more interesting “Hurricane Season” is coming in a few months and there is sometimes strong winds in the water between here and Panama in the winter. It’s along way around the C4 countries before we can get to the first place out of their countries where we can stop. We would like to head through the Bay Islands . See them and wait for the winter winds to come- down. Maybe sail east then south in mid May. The Bay Islands are Honduras. A C4 country. We are not sure how we are going to handle this. Maybe go back to Belize but they charge about 160 to come in and 5 dollars a day to stay. Last time they fined $135 dollars for bringing in our cat. He is old never leaves the boat and we never went to a dock in Belize with the Pamela Ann. We will let every one know what happens. We have an appointment with the agent here on the 20th so we are going to stay here that long and work on the boat. We were hoping to be out to sea this week. When we do leave we need to leave on a full moon. It’s the tides . We need a big tide to make the bar. We draw 6 feet. We are trying to work things out. In the mean time we may take a side trip to the Maya ruins here at Quirigua..
Is it worth it to go sailing? The long nights at sea. The ruff seas sometimes. The feeling that you are living on thin ice and it can all come to and end at any time. Especially when you are living on so little money like we are. We love this life but like we have been saying. “Its real out here.” Tomorrow just before day light maybe we will hear howler monkeys still wild in the jungle or on the way to town maybe we will see a manatees. Only way we can go any where is by boat. Dumpling our dink is our car down here. There is no way out of the marina with out a boat. No roads. Saturday is my favorite day to go to town. They bring in things to sell and you never know what.

Fresh Pork
“Pigs in a Basket”

“Onions” fresh from the field. Truck was full at daylight.

 

The town will be full of indigenous people. I know every one says that they need help to bring them in to the modern world but I like the way they live. If I am reincarnated and I can choose I will come back as a Guatemala Indian. No power no running water, growing what I eat. Maybe I would cut back on the kids a little. If you think going to town in the states is sometimes busy down here going to town in the morning. On a Saturday. The town is “alive.” You can almost feel it breath. Kids walking around with their pet parrots. Beggars that do need help and everybody trying to sell you something. Women standing on the street nursing babies and kids everywhere.

Mayan woman less than 4 foot tall

We like it so much we go back some times at dark and watch it change. The indigenous people go home and the young Latinos come out. They work and have more money. A cheap date is to take your girl, ride her around on your bike and show her off to the unlucky while the unlucky whistle and make cat-calls. They even cook different on the street at night. In the day it’s fast food like tacos and at night it’s light meals that go good with beer. Is all of Central America like that . “No.” Every place has it on little pace Belize is even slower and the food is a lot better. Some of the food is very good. “Black people food“. The music in Guatemala is good sometimes “at night” Belize is better and Mexican music is as bad as Guatemalan food. What will the Bay Islands be like? There is so much between here and the Panama Canal we want to see. If we can find a way to deal with the law, politics, officials and bad weather on our tight budget. We will find out this week what our options are and we are not ready to make that long hall around the C4 countries. If we have to go back to Belize for a little while. Is that really so bad? Clear water good food old country music on the radio. Maybe we can catch more fish eat more beans and pay all these officials more money. What ever it takes. We are going on enjoying ever minute we can while we can and we are here. It took a lot to get us here. We are not giving up easily.

Just another week on the Rio

Tuesdays grocery boat day

Iguana rescue

 

Getting ready?

Some cruising friends we met were telling a story about a boat getting ready to go cruising. They said the people kept buying more and more stuff. Finally they hired and old salt that had been every where and done it all. You know that’s not possible but you get the point. When he had surveyed the boat and all their stuff he said “Where is the hatchet?” The woman said “O no we need a hatchet. What do we need a hatchet for?” The old man said “To cut your dock lines with. Your only problem is you can’t untie your lines and leave the dock. So buy a hatchet to cut your lines and leave. Then leave the hatchet on deck in case you have the problem again. We need a hatchet. We have decided to stay one more week. It’s so much fun being here and it’s been three days in a row we have not had rain. We have seen the sun it’s still here and it’s still hot. We have got a lot done but there is always a but. There so much we still want to do. So when we have more than we can get done we just stop working. Works every time. We are not going to get it done anyway. Why let it worry you. We are in the Caribbean the boat is better than when we came in. We are not worried that people will think less of us because we didn’t get all of our painting done. We know people think less about us than we think they do and there is a lot of people that don’t think about us at all so we can paint some where else. There is a lot of boats out here that need a lot more than a little paint. All the paint we can buy won’t change the Pamela Ann in to a yacht. She will always be a work boat but she dose have two new sails, we made. This may be like putting a new hat on a work horse but I think they are looking good. All white clean and with a good set. I have always had great respect for people that can come up with an excuse for any thing they need an excuse for. So we won’t use the rain for why we didn’t get our painting done. We will use. We are in the Caribbean and it might rain today and “it probably will” so we will think about it tomorrow but tomorrow it may be to hot. So we may have to wait till its cools off a little and “it never really cools off. ” Maybe today we will just set under a palapa out of the rain or the sun where its cooler and have a nice day. The truth for why we are staying another week is we need a full moon to make a better tide In another week are so we will have a full moon and a bigger tide, let us over the bar. We draw 6 feet. We have the boat ready to go I think. We have bought what we can here like canned corn canned in a box in from China. Margarine from the states, cheese that looks like cheese but if you heat it up it looks like plastic but it’s all we can get. We were told not to worry about bringing groceries down. Let me say this. If we were leaving the states today we would load ever locker to the top with can goods. They don’t can down here. They eat fresh but fresh is only Roma tomatoes, tuff and tasteless and beans are mostly black beans. Corn is not what we eat in the states. It’s tuff and is strong tasting. If you like variety bring it with you. The people here are not big on a lot of variety. The locals live on rice and black beans. Every meal is served with tortita bread. They eat a little chicken but all the rest of there meat beef and pork is sold cut in very thin slices We were told that we would stop eating beef and they were right beef is awful and we have just stop trying to find beef. It’s tuff and tasteless. We can get good pork off the launcha that comes by our boat every week but it’s always pork chops or lion. You can get bacon but it’s sliced so thin its like paper. Pam makes home made sausage out of ground pork from the main grocery store here. They slip in a lot of fat before they sell it and you need a lot of fat to make good sausage. Only comes in one day a week so we buy it on Wednesday fresh. You can get eggs never refrigerated setting out on the shelf like when I was young living on a farm and you can get good white potatoes but for some reason they won’t last but a few days. We have been told that we can buy more of what we could in the states when we get to the Bay Islands. We will see. Living in the states you never think about shopping where they have so little to sell. We have been told on the way south through the islands we may stop where they have no stores. They are just fishermen there and we may can trade for fish or lobster. They don’t want money. They want to trade for about anything. If we do. That would be a dream come true. Going to a place like that is our hatchet we use to keep cutting our lines. We are not carrying boozes but we may buy some cheap cigarettes for trade. One boater said carry candy. Last night we watched the space station come over. “What a world we live in.” If we find fisherman wanting to trade lobsters in a place so remote they want to trade how do you know what the rate of exchange is in cigarettes and candy to the lobster. The friends we trust most down here say take batteries for their radios they like music and with a few cheap batteries you can eat well. But where do you find batteries down here cheap? The days of going to the store and buying 3 or 4 shopping carts full of groceries is not going to happen down here. When we were sailing in the states we knew we could not take off more than a few months at a time. So we would buy all the food we could. Then we knew we would not go hungry and this let us leave most of the time with only 6 or 8 hundred dollars for a 3 or 4 month cruise. We were in Louisiana one time taking some time off to cruising the Gulf Coast. We borrowed the dock masters new truck and went shopping. Came out of the store with 4 buggies full to the top. Pam and I pulling and pushing. When we got to the truck and were ready to leave we could not get the door open. Findley I stared to ask people if they had a wire to pull the lock up. Pam walked back a little and said “This is not our truck our truck is over there.” The shopping carts had been unloaded for some time. Back was full. I made a run for shopping carts and we found that throwing stuff in the carts 4 would not do, I had to go for a fifth and then move all the carts over to our truck. There is great adventure in just trying to leave sometimes. But the worst thing we have had happen to us lately happen in Panama City Fl before we left to come down here. We were anchored there hanging out at the Hawk’s Nest before they shut it down for good. A sailor borrowed a SUV and ask if we all wanted to go to the store we called The Dirty Little Store. We went. When we got there he had his computer with him. The DLS is not a place to leave your computer in your car so we hid it and had a hard time getting the doors to lock. To get a better picture of where the DLS is . They keep and of duty cop there all the time they are open to help with security but there’re cheap. When we came out our friends were having trouble getting the doors back open so I found a wire and after some time I got the back window open but not the back door. Every body agreed it wasn’t much help so I jump in and climbed over the sets and the back doors would not come open. Child locks maybe when Pam did it again. She step back and said “wrong car” and I am in side with my wire still in hand. Now I am having trouble getting out. The only door I could get open was the drivers door and I couldn’t get it shut. Finely we made a dash for the right car and left. We decided it best. Hard to explain how you can accidentally break in to a parked car to someone that would shops at the Dirty Little Store. After we got back to the Pamela Ann. Pam said “When are you going to stop being the one to tackle a full grown hog trying to get away while every one stands and watches?” That’s another story that didn’t go well. I tried to explain to her it seamed like the thing to do at the time but looking back maybe I can’t help myself. When people say grab that hog don’t let it get away or any body here know how to open these doors? Finely she said “After all these years I thought social security would help or at least slow you down but maybe there is no help for you.” Maybe not. But maybe not being able to understand Spanish is helping. Hadn’t grabbed a single hog down here or open any ones car doors “with a wire“.

When the Indigenous people come to town they may ride a long way standing up in the back of a truck

When they get to town they make a day of it.

Riding standing up and shopping all day is can be hard on the feet.

 

 

Vista Rio Dulce

Mountains to the west

Mountains to the North

Local Crabbing Boats

 

 

Simple Living

Last week we posted a blog about our little schooner and how we built her. I have said over and over that we live simple but maybe some people may have the wrong idea about how we live We are not trying to go back in time and live with out the good stuff that makes life better on a boat like a refrigerator or LED lights. We have that. Having a valve that letting cold air in to the ice box in the winter where it’s cold enough to save on power. I think it’s simple but some people may not. It may be like this. We were in Key West, FL. A boat came in with a man on board had a sign that said “Woman Wanted” One day when he came off his boat he had enough gold on him to make it hard to swim. We were walking by. Some of our friends said that’s the way you should dress. I said I couldn’t afford his hair-do. His hair looked like a TV preacher. I don’t know how you get your hair that prefect no part just perfect and I said I didn’t really like jewelry. A woman walking behind us said then what is that in your ear. I never think about my little gold ear ring. Its so tiny and it has been there for over 30 years so maybe us saying we live simple is like me saying I don’t like jewelry and having a ear ring. You may have to judge for yourself if the way we live is simple. We do like thing that make our life better. I would never leave today without a GPS. Its so affordable and crazy to go with out. I believe its crazy to do without things that make your lives better if it’s affordable but there is a lot we can’t afford.. We can’t afford a water maker. I may can make one but then we would have to have power to run it so this is how we handle water. We think it’s simple. We have a water tank with a 12 volt Sure- flow water pump, wholes 150 gallons we call the shower tank and is plumbed to the hot side in the galley and the head sink but it plumbed to the hot and cold it the shower. This will let you temper the water the way you want it. When I designed the boat I designed a 3 inch rocker in the decks so if the scuppers get stopped up there can be no more water on the deck than 3 inches. With that we put in a 2 way valve at the scupper. If we turn the valve all the water that hits the boat will go in the shower tank turn it back and it goes over the side. So we can catch rain water for showers. In a heavy down pour 150 gallons in 15 minutes. On the cold water side we have a cold water tank. 150 gallons plumbed to the galley sink and the cold water side in the head so there’s fresh water always on the cold water side with a foot pump at the floor so if the electric pump won’t work you can pump water with your foot. And there’s no way you can get rain water in the cold water tank so it always good to drink. The longest we have went without taking on water was 4 month after Katrina. We were working in Past Christian Mississippi and they had on water at the marina after the storm. We kept the decks clean and caught rain water for showers so we had water for that. For drinking water. Its takes a long time to drink 150 gal of water. Remember if you bring soft drinks or milk on board you are saving drinking water. To heat the water we have a lot of ways. For solar we have a separate pump with a rubber hose in a locker in the shower. We take a 6 gallons water can outside and leave it in the sun. It’s blue. The Yankees up north will get mean if you don’t have the right color can for “every thing” and water cans are blue so we have not painted it black. I don’t know if it would help and I don’t know when we will be back living with the Yankees up north enjoying the cool air but it works like it is so we will leave it blue. When it’s hot from the sun we take it back put it in it locker with the rubber hose in it and if you turn the pump on it will put hot water it the hot water side of the water lines. Simple solar water heater. We have a electric hot water heater that’s one of those fancy water heaters from Italy. It’s made with a stainless steel tank inside a stainless steel tank with insulation between them. It holds hot water longer that way. It was set up to be used at 180 degrees. The temp of our motors. That’s hot, way too hot, with a valve on the back you adjust to let cold water in the line coming out so you won’t get burned. It blew a gasket and Pam said “ Order the right part and don’t “Tim a-size it.” That’s what she calls it when I engineer things. On the 3rd gasket I broke the thermostat. Last chance for the Italians. I made a stainless steel plate with a gasket made out of rubber you can buy in any hard ware store in the states. Put in a common 110 volt heating element and an adjustable thermostat, cost less than the fancy gaskets now we keep it at about 120 just right for a shower and our portable Honda 2000 gen-set will bring it to 120 in less than 20 minutes if we are at anchor. The VW motor exchanger is about the same. We cut the water going from the motor to the heater off after about 20 minutes so it won’t get too hot. At the marina we just leave it on the thermostat will take care of it and we almost always have hot water any time we need it. We can always get a shower if the sun is out. The motor will run or the gen-set will start and it works at the marina with us hooked to power.
One of the things we have that makes our life at sea possible and “I mean that” is our auto pilot. Steering for days is just too hard anymore and I think it’s simple. We were in our home port years ago and I new if we were going to make it a long way we needed and autopilot so I ask Captain Leroy Potter if he new how they worked and he said he new how to use a autopilots but if he was trying to make one he would buy a used brain. That’s the compass rudder indicator and the computer part most people call the brain. He said he believed drive unit failure was the part that made people buy a new units along with of course just wanting the newest thing on the market. The brain could be from almost any autopilot but what he thought I need most was to build a drive unit to turn the rudder and steer the boat. So I listen to him and stared to draw up a drive unit. But where to start? We went on to Fl and there I called a company that sold and repaired autopilots and ask them how they worked and could they please maybe send me something to help me understand how they worked. When I told them what I was doing they hung up on me. I read up on all the units for sale and one thing they all had in common was the speed to change the rudder from hard over one side to the other. That was a start. I read one time that Thomas Edison said he went to his junk yard when he need to think so I went through my junk and decided to use a Sureflow water pump motor to power the autopilot. My favorite catalog for parts to build things is McMaster Carr. You can find them on line. so with my McMaster Carr catalog I set out to draw up a drive unit with two drive timing belts to make the rudder turn from one side to the other in 15 seconds. The motor has a small pulley to a larger one with a half inch timing belt through a shaft with a small pulley and a 3/4 inch belt to a larger pulley mounted on a acme screw. The screw works through a nut mounted on an arm on the quatrain with a locking pin. Two tapered bearings mounted to the hull lets the screw turn but keeps the screw from going back or forward. I tried taping the wires to a battery and from hard over to hard over was 16 sec. So far so good. I found and old unit for the brain A Simarad,12 years old. Brought it off a mechanic. When I put it in and tried it out it worked but there is always a but it would steer the boat beautifully. Then with out warning it would quit and the control panel would say compass failure. I went back to the mechanic and he said it was my fault and the problem was in the home made drive unit and no money back. It worked most of the time so we went sailing. If it quit just stared it back up and away we went some times it would go all day with out any trouble then it would quit. Hit the button and all was well till it would do it again. But like all things that want to quit it finely did and would not start up again so we bought a new Furuno unit the salesman said it would work that the Viennese used them on all kind of boats in Louisiana and all kinds of drive units maybe not a home made ones. But he was right put it in with our old home made drive unit and all is well. Now 6 years later. We never hand steer. The first thing to happen when we get ready to leave is raise the foresail and set it. Throw the lines on desk let the boat slide of the dock hit the auto pilot let it steer have another cup of hot tea then raise the rest of the sails. It’s going to be a good day.