December 1 - We leave Nana Juana

December 1 - December 6, 2008 from the Rio Dulce, Guatemala to Utila, Honduras. “Plans Change!”

We had returned to Guatemala from the USA in August. Our passports had been stamped giving us 90 days in the country. That date had passed on November 17th. We were now illegal aliens. Yesterday, December 1, our Coast Guard issued Certificate of Documentation had expired. Know that in early November, from the Homeland Security-Coast Guard web site, I had downloaded a renewal form as a PDF file. This form had to be signed and either mailed or faxed to their Documentation Center in West Virginia. Mail from Guatemala goes pretty fast (4-5 days) to the USA, but I had an idea we could do better than that. We had no good fax options, so after I signed the form, Richard on Tisha Baby scanned it and saved it as a GIF file, which I e-mailed to John MacFarlane, our caretaker in Colorado Springs. He printed the form and had it faxed to the Coast Guard. So the signed renewal form got to West Virginia in a few hours. Three weeks later, we still had no Certificate in our hands.

After good byes at Nana Juana and fueling at the Shell fuel dock, we left Rio Dulce on December first, with Bryan and Dorothy on Pearl S. Buck and Bob on Viva. We only went about ten miles, to Texan Bay, about an hour from Livingston and the mouth of the river. The weather was expected to be a factor and we had arranged to check out of Guatemala through the agent, Raul, at Livingston on the third. The plan was to hang out and relax at Texan Bay for a day after our two-hour run down the river.

We had tired of waiting for our renewed United States Coast Guard Certificate of Documentation and left without it because we were told by other sailors that it is nice to have, but not required. A Bill of Sale will do in many cases and my strategy would be to show my expired Certificate to the authorities and hope that they would not notice the expiration date. If they did notice, I would explain that the renewed Certificate was in the mail to Bruno’s Marina, in Rio Dulce and that we hoped it would catch up to us. We have found that the authorities like to have everything in order, but for the unfortunate sailor who doesn’t have everything in order, they usually (after the obligatory headshakes, short lectures, heavy sighs and warnings) figure out some way to get you out of the office and on your way again any way. The sailor just needs to look sad, sorry and then thankful for the official’s eventual largesse. Everyone has his or her part to play in this drama.

On December 2, we heard on the Rio Dulce Cruiser’s Net that Bruno’s had mail for us. I called on the radio and asked if anyone was headed downriver and could they pick up our piece of mail and meet us with it? M/V Steel Magnolia answered and Roy said that he could do that tomorrow. I suggested we meet in Livingston and we were much relieved to know that our Certificate of Documentation was nearby.

The next day we pulled up anchors and headed to meet Raul and check out of Guatemala. It all went without a hitch (he had not noticed our expired document) and we had permission to leave and head to Roatan, Honduras. Pearl S. Buck and Viva headed out of the harbor, across the sandbar (at high tide as planned, but bumping the bottom like they did coming in six months ago) and anchored across the bay in Bahia Graciosa. Barb and I stayed at anchor and waited for Steel Magnolia. At 2 PM, I radioed and located Steel Magnolia. Roy said that they got off to a late start, but that they would be in Livingston by about 3:30. I said that I would hop in our dinghy and meet them in the river. It was raining hard now, but we needed to get going before 3 so we could anchor along side our friends before dark. After a 35 minute run upriver, I met Steel Magnolia and Roy passed my envelope to me. Thanking him profusely, I took off with the current and the wind. We got Jupiter’s Smile underway right at 3 PM. About half way across the bay, I asked Barb to open the letter and her facial expression immediately indicated we had a problem. After all the waiting and then the transfer on the river, we had been sent the wrong certificate! This certificate was for a person with a powerboat in El Paso Texas. Not us! We had a good laugh (what good comes from crying?) and continued on our way. We got on the radio and related the situation to Steel Magnolia, thanking them again, but due to a mistake on the part of our government, it was all in vain. Our government has made worse mistakes. We rounded the point into shallow water and dropped the hook in Bahia Graciosa next to Pearl S. Buck and Viva, just before sundown.

Bahia Graciosa is a pleasant place and the next day we decided to explore a bit, enjoy being in salt water again and then head out the following day. We did that, except we left this anchorage and moved about three miles west to a spot just behind Cabo Tres Puntas for a bit of a headstart for tomorrow’s run. We raised anchors at 4 AM to avoid being out too late in the afternoon and coming into an unfamiliar anchorage in unfavorable light conditions. A sailor wants the sun high overhead so he might see the shallows in the uncharted waters. In this part of the world both the electronic and paper charting leave much to be desired so we consider all the waters to be either uncharted or poorly charted. Your safety is in your own hands.

As we rounded the Cabo Tres Puntas and headed east. The sea conditions left much to be desired as well, but once we passed the last point we had settled into a reasonable point of sail and boat motion. The boats sorted themselves by length and, therefore, their speeds. Soon the big catamaran, Viva was way ahead with 41 ft, Pearl S. Buck inching slowly away from us (37 ft). As we approached our planned anchorage, Laguna Diamante, Bob had already made his way through the cut and had anchored Viva securely. He radioed to us relating what he had found as he entered and advised us to avoid “that big black thing.” We didn’t realize what he was talking about until it became apparent that it was the approaching squall that was going strike us. Barb and I struggled to get our headsail furled because it wrapped our spinnaker halyard. We had done this before in the Chesapeake, and it was obvious that we had gotten rusty after not sailing for six months and had forgotten to move this line to a safe position and out of the way. By the time we got the headsail furled, the wind was blowing and rain was pounding so hard that we could hardly see the bow of our own boat and the mainsail was still too full. Without too much difficulty, we reduced the main to a manageable size (hoorah, furling mainsails!). Pearl S. Buck radioed that they were coming back out away from land and wanted to know our position so that they wouldn’t run into us in this deluge. We were near, but not too near.

I had not been pleased with how our radar had been working and I had had a Raymarine technician check it before we left Rio Dulce. Last year, as we sailed with Stardust down the east coast in the fog, I was able to see seagulls floating on the water on the radar screen! This year I don’t feel as confident. The rain was so dense that I didn’t even try to filter it out on the radar and so we couldn’t see Pearl S. Buck, let alone a seagull, just a yellow screen. I need to have this looked at again.

The inundation abated and we could see our friends just ahead and to the right of us heading toward the anchorage once more. We went through the cut in dry air and the sun breaking through, but the water had so much runoff from the surrounding hills that it looked like mud and we had no hope of seeing any shallow areas. We followed Bob’s radioed directions and anchored without incident with well-rinsed decks and canvas. Bryan, Dorothy, Barb and I joined Bob for sundowners on Viva and while the local Mayans tended their nets in the lagoon, we talked about our day. It turned out that Bob had broken an engine mount on one of his two engines and the other one wouldn’t start because the solenoid was badly rusted. That made what to do the following day easy to decide. Fix at least one engine on Viva.

By nine o’clock the next day, after over an hour of investigation, Bob decided that he could sail to La Ceiba’s shipyard and, if he needed to, he could gently run the engine with the broken motor mount to get there. So we three boats decided to go together to La Ceiba, instead of Roatan, in the interest of Bob’s safety. As we exited Laguna Diamante, we saw another sailboat heading slowly in our direction. This turned out to be Grace with John and Elaine aboard. We were docked near them at Nana Juana for five months and we attended many events together. They had left Guatemala the day after we did. They had sailed all night, but had engine problems now. Like us, they have only one engine, but unlike ours it was not running and they had planned to sail into one of the lagoons to rest and figure out what to do next. We encouraged them to turn around and go with us to La Ceiba for repairs and that we would stick with them to make certain they made it in safely. They did that. We all stayed in radio contact and we sailed in light winds toward La Ceiba. Bob turned on his gimpy engine to ensure that he got anchored safely before dark, but Pearl S. Buck and we continued to sail with Grace trailing. It was a downwind run and this time Jupiter’s Smile was the fastest boat thanks to David’s help in Washington DC for our acquisition and use of our trusty whisker pole. It got dark with about eight miles to go, so we turned on our engine and made it through the breakwater, once again with Bob’s directions and anchored safely. By the time Bryan and Dorothy got in I had sounded the bottom from Bob’s dinghy with my hand-held depth sounder and we got them anchored in a good spot. As Grace approached slowly under sails alone, Bob and Bryan went in Bob’s dinghy and I went in ours and we towed them through the breakwater and to a spot to anchor. I think I was in bed by midnight. I really don’t remember.