Working Hard in Guatemala

We are ask sometime what it is really like to be a cruiser. This would take a book to explain. It’s up to where you’re going, what kind of boat you have and how much money you have to spend. Maybe I can tell some of what our day is like. At 7:30am Monday through Saturday they have the cruiser’s net on the VHF radio here on the river. Cruisers have a net in a lot of places where cruisers stop. First time we heard the net it was in Isla Mujeres, Mexico and it wasn’t as much what they were saying as much as the feeling we had arrived and now we were cruisers ourselves. We had just made a three day-passage in the ocean, and we were there safely anchored up. Living the life of a full-time cruisers now. The net usually starts out with anyone needing help of some kind. Maybe they’re sick and need help. It goes on with what people want to buy or sell. The weather, what is happening boater need to know about. Sometimes it can be funny. Remember cruisers are from all over the world. Speak many different languages but the net is usually in English. One of the controllers in Mexico was from Jordan but spoke good English. Found out later he never checked in because he was a Muslim. His girlfriend checked the boat in, and he was just quiet about him being there with her being Muslim. In the Western Caribbean they don’t care for Muslim or Cubans. No one could pronounce his name, so he went by “Z”. This was best with him slipping around and not being able to be in their country. One morning a women ask on the radio how to spell the name, “Z”. No one seemed to be able to explain to her it was just a letter in the alphabet, but it was funny hearing them try. We have seen them all over the Caribbean slipping in and out of countries, I guess. Once in the Bay Islands, Honduras as we came in, they had been told to leave. The girl was going crazy when she saw us. Came right to our boat. Saying they had to leave and were out of everything. No food no fuel and didn’t know where to go where they would let then in. Said, they were hungry. Trying to catch fish with no way to cook. No propane for their stove. We went to an ATM machine and got money to give them in Limp (the currency in Honduras, at that time it was 21 Limp to one US dollar) 100 in US money. The currency of the country. This is something to know. Getting money out of ATM in these country, it comes out in their currency. They went shopping. You are not supposed to be walking around town not checked in but they said they had to have food. Sometime later they showed up the river in Guatemala. They were there a long time working with no paperwork. Never gave us our money back. Who would have guessed that? Heard later they got caught in Belize and got deported. There is a lot you hear a that is not true. One man we know the talk here was he had died even what they did with the body. Walking around town later had people talking again. These cruiser’s hot spot “anywhere” are notaries for outrageous gossip. First trip up the river here had Pam, crying as we came to the bar in the river. We had heard outrageous stories about being pulled across the bar with a rusty cable with your boat sliding on its side by an old tugboat. And once they stared pulling, they would not stop. Timed it for weeks and came across on a very high tide and my biggest problem then was convening Pam, we had made it across the bar, and we were now in deep water. Sand builds up at the mouth of rivers and can be troublesome at times all over the world. If you have ever heard someone’s big fish story you cannot imagine the stories some people tell at gathering where alcohol is involved about sailing through hurricanes or how fast they made a passage somewhere. Always hundred-foot waves they sailed through. I guess it’s not just sailors that can impress me with what they can tell. Years ago on the Appalachian Trail, Pam and I stopped at a place to rest for a few minutes and there was a Neo-Nazi from Germany there that could speak English. A South African speaking English. Two gay hippy girls from California. two more people one was a Yankee from up north. Beside Pam and I all having a political description about their views of how the world should be run. It was so crazy I still remember it today. How does this effect cruising. Maybe it will make you rely on common since and check things out as you go. If you listen to some of these stories it may make you head for home. The world is getting smaller every day with the population getting greater but it’s still a big world out there.

                                 The Adventure of Life Goes On

We are looking forward to being at the dock again.

We got a chance to see this Bad Boy onetime.

 

Haul-Out

We are still up the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala in a boat yard in Central America in the Western Caribbean. Warm Caribbean breezes blow through the palm trees. Living in Paradise. All that sounds so good. The truth is most of us gringos that is any one with white skin down here can make a hobby out of complaining. This is the hottest time of the year and the driest time of the year. Everyone every where says it get hot here. Well down here when we say it’s hot the boat setting in the sun here in the boat yard most days will hit up to 110F by two o’clock. At night by midnight you’re lucky if inside the boat it drops to 85F. Like I said step up the complaining. It’s dry here right now so it hard to keep the fresh water running. If you find out it’s on you run and fill up your tanks. Power is hit and miss. Our 2000 Honda generator is always on stand by. Food is getting better. New grocery store means more compaction. Beef is just out. No way to know if is worth eating. Pork is getting better. There is always chicken. This can always be a hit are miss if you buy it off the street with free range and what it was eating. Who dressed it? When it was dressed and how long it has been the hot sun? The really big thing. What type of chicken and how old. An old game rooster that has been with a bunch of hens for years can be so tough. You can’t eat it. I’m not kidding it like rubber. We all know people this far down south like hot pepper and spicy food. The taste of this food is the reason. Spice it up to eat it. One of the spices they love down here is garlic. They put it on everything. They put it in their batter they fry their chicken. Like I said some of us can make a hobby out of complaining. What is happening good in our world? Pam and I decided and built the boat. We call home. After it was almost ready to go in the water, I wanted to change the for-foot on the bow. Pam wouldn’t let me. Now in the yard, some of the hull needs to be replaced. Got some rust and it’s easier just cut it out and replace it after 30 years. Some rust in the stem so I cut it out and now I’m replacing it the way I wanted to years ago. Will it perform any better? Only time will tell. How doses it look? I love it but Pam says. I’m not so sure it’s worth it. Were hoping in the next 6 weeks to have the hull like new again with no rust. We’re going back to our little house out on the prairie then to spend the summer up there and get out of this heat. We have a life up there now it seems with doctors. It’s my knee replacement thing. It’s not doing so good. There is more to do up there than just doctors. We are working on having the book, Little Lies we have published, republished as a revised edition. Adding pictures and rewriting some of it to make a better book. Have another book we want to publish later this year about going sailing and how little we knew about what we were doing. This is the book people have been telling us we need to write for a long time. Our life has got crazy at times in the last 60 years Pam and I have been together and maybe still can be now even with us getting old. One thing for sure is we are not ready to stop and set and wait to die. Never have worked any harder to make our next Adventure happen. Hard as this is it’s still a hell of and adventure. Maybe I should not have said hell as hot it is.

                                    The Adventure of Life Goes On

This is what the stem looked like for years. We will see if the new design stem helps PAMELA ANN perform better when we go sailing again.

We are dreaming of putting the sail up and heading to sea again.

 

 

 

Guatemala Holiday

Our crazy life is getting crazier. We are here in the boat yard working on our boat and it is Semana Santa here. That is the Easter holiday in Guatemala. They start the holiday on Wednesday before Easter. People all over the world celebrate Christmas and Easter, they are not into the church thing. I think here it’s the same thing. Not so much religion as a time to have fun. Pam and I have tried to understand what they do to have all this fun. Anywhere in the Caribbean is island time. Let’s just say they are a little loose with it. If they say we are having a parade, and you ask what time they will say today. Ask when today you will get the same response. “Today.” It’s hard to know when they’re doing what. Here in the little town of San Felipe there are just a few stores as I have put before in our blog. We went up town to see why there were so many people in town. Chicken buses with their wild paint jobs. Small pickup truck with standing room only in the in the back. The road going into the old fort here (Castillo DE San Felipe) was lined with little stands with people selling everything from belts to seashells. Everyone trying to sell you food but “is this the celebration?” They closed the boat yard down and wouldn’t let the hired workers in to work. (No Work Thursday through Sunday) They had young people parking cars, chicken buses with standing room only, small pickups as I said.

Cars, Buses, Pickup trucks and cow trucks.

Cars parked under boats.

Trying to get to the bigger town here was out. We just worked around our boat and stayed here. With us here working on the outside of the boat was like being in the zoo. Thing is we were the ones in the zoo and the people was the ones watching us. Watching us like we were on display. Still don’t know why so many people were here and what they were doing to celebrate but thank God and chicken buses there are gone.

Chicken Bus

Back to work on our boat in the hot Caribbean sun. Back to the crazy of trying to shop in a town nearby with no sidewalks and wall to wall people on a normal day.

                                 The Adventure of life Goes On

Pam working her way through the traffic to go grocery shopping.