Guatemala - Rio Dulce, More Rain & it’s ThanksGiving/FriendsGiving

It had been raining for 3 weeks. The Rio has risen by 4 feet, and some docks are under water.

Our Marina arrival dock.

Chalets at Catamaran Marina surrounded by water

Meshugga’s Dock, water rose to 3 inches from the top before beginning to subside. I had been getting off Meshugga, using 2 steps of the boarding ladder. Eventually I had to use all 6 steps, and then a big step down to the dock.

Grey skies, a break in the rain

The lounge where we do yoga awash with water

Bon Voyage to our Friends Chrissy and Chris of yacht Far Out, leaving Catamaran Marina and the Rio for The Bay Islands in Honduras and then further afield. I hope we meet up again.

A Local Vendor Boat selling Prawns. He comes round calling “Camarones, Lobster” …. I buy 2 pounds every Tuesday. A bit more expensive than if I get into the dinghy, motor 2 miles to Fronteras , walk to the fish market, haggle (as I’m a foreigner), dinghy back. Never mind the diesel cost or the hour of my time. He delivers a good service. I pay Q60/pound. However, my friend Clare, (here at Catamaran Marina) says she pays Q50/pound from him, so next week I’ll haggle with him 😂😂

Ladies luncheons are a good networking and sharing of information over a few libations and excellent meals 🤣🤣

Stir fried with butter, garlic and Chillie herbs. Yum. 

Fun day out with the Ladies at Hotel Boutique

Ruth, Mary and Clare

Me, Muriel, Annie and Irma

It’s time to replace our Port Trampoline. No space to put the Hobie down into the water, so it’s suspended for a few days on a halyard.

Port Trampoline in a poor state, and the big hole where Kieran fell through!

Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving.

Cruisers at Catamaran Marina, from all different nationalities, came together to fund, shop, prepare, cook, serve, and cleanup a Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving meal to thank the staff at Catamaran.

My duties (with a couple of other ladies) was to peel potatoes and carrots, set the tables, and then general cleanup duties afterwards.

Staff beginning to be served by our Cruisers

Muriel, our chief organizer on the serving duty

General overview of about 20 staff and 20 Cruisers

Our table, a few missing …

Our trusty Cruisers on Washup duty

Cruisers Pizza Dance Party

The leftover funds from the Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving Party was used to buy 5 Huge pizzas from the Catamaran Marina kitchen

The Macarena Dance

Chicken Dance

Guatemala - Rio Dulce, It’s Raining

The Political unrest has faded, and all roads are open and markets stocked per normal. We had no impact here apart from no fresh produce for 2 weeks. 

Bacon, fresh bread and butter for lunch…Yum.

We decided our Signwriting was looking a bit tired and faded, and having found Andy Signs in our local Fronteras town with good references, had them come remove, measure, make, and apply our new signage, both to the bows and stern.

Removing the old signage.

Andy and his partner at work

New signage in a darker grey than before

Benjamin, our daily helper has been cleaning decks, and stainless steel.

Furlers are looking new and gleaming

Meshugga is slowly beginning to come together, with Flybridge gel coated painted and decks clean. For Benjamin, it’s now hull cleaning and polishing between the constant rain. 

The brown paper on the aft Flybridge roof window is because Nicholas broke the window when removing all the windows a couple of weeks ago for the Gelcoat painting. 

This is the new window installed and he’s not yet removed the protective covering.

Nicholas is disconnecting and balancing all the Lithium batteries, so he’s working in the Generator locker upfront. He’s also building a new ‘battery box’ as he’s installing another 16 lithium batteries and the current ‘box’ is not large enough.

Halloween / Samhein. 

The Rio put on a day for adults and kids to visit various marinas to Trick or Treat

Catamaran Marina offered to put on sweet treat and ice creams for the kids, and Painkillers for the adults. We had quite a crowd both from our Marina and all the dinghies. 😂

Many of our Catamaran Marina cruisers dressed up.

Meagan and Michael of Tanagara 

Jennifer, aka Christmas Tree, not Statue of Liberty as I thought. 

Ilka and I

Ruth and I on ice-cream duty, doing seconds and thirds for the kids

Aboard, my machine bread making is going well. Second rise just prior to baking.

Today, between rain showers, we made it to a local Lawyer, to get documents and letters Notarized so that my sister-in-law, Penny, in Cape Town can collect our Renewed Drivers Licenses. We had applied for them whilst in Cape Town, but due to a backlog, (and the only Drivers Licence printing machine in South Africa broke down🤣), hence they were not ready for us to collect prior to flying back to Guatemala. Now I’m hoping that the Drivers Licence Department will accept the scanned documents- otherwise I have to DHL them to South Africa. 

It’s been pouring with rain the past 10 days due to Tropical Storm Pillar in the Pacific Ocean, and a System i94 in the Caribbean Sea just off Nicaraguan coast, ie abeam us. The expectation is still for more rain for another week, and the river rising with all the run-off.  Right now our river water is definitely ‘brown’.

A plus, is that temperatures have ‘plummeted’ from 100F / 38C to a cool 80F / 26C and although we have little solar incoming due to the heavy cloud cover, we also don’t need to run the aircon. Further, with Nicholas having many solar panels and batteries disconnected, it seems the ideal time to be using shore power (which is hugely expensive here in Guatemala at US 52c/KWH).

My makeshift Tarpaulin Tent over the Generator locker so that Nicholas can continue with his Battery stuff and servicing the Generator.

Guatemala - Rio Dulce, Political Unrest causing Road Blocks Nationwide

Another 2 weeks have passed since my last post.

We've had Political Protests in Guatemala as the current Attorney General has jailed the President Elect, who was voted in by a 65% margin. So all main roads are blocked, which means our local town, Fronteras has no trucks delivering fresh produce. Thankfully I'd done a stock-up of fresh produce on the Friday two weeks ago, and the Road Blockades started Saturday! So I'm good for 2 weeks or so. 

Street scene in Frontiers with NO vehicles

A Street Vendor for Fresh Produce, with nothing available, except a few old peppers and tomatoes.

Local Supermarket  La Torre, Egg shelves bare

La Torre Vegetable baskets empty

All shops and markets had a few old apples, and a few other fruits at horrendous prices.

The Road blocks has had an awful impact on Cruisers trying to get back to their boats, or to leave Guatemala due to Visas expiring. It’s impossible to get to Guatemala City where the International Airport is located, and even if you could, the airport has no Jet fuel.  😳

However the situation is slowly resolving, and after 10 days, the blockades were opened for food trucks as prices in the supermarkets went sky-high, and locals could not get fresh produce or afford the processed foodstuffs.  Now trucks are allowed thru but still No vehicles.  

Back on Meshugga, I do Yoga every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and lead our Catamaran Marina Group using the Apple Fitness App which our family subscribe to via Apple One. My iPad is connected via a HDMi cable to the big TV in the Blue Lounge. We move all the couches out the way, sweep the floors and switch the overhead fans on.

Nicholas reads the news and catches up on world affairs. Getting back after Yoga for me, it's a quick cold shower and Iced Coffee, and then a look around as to what My Daily Chores will be.

Nicholas continues with Upgrades, Repairs and Maintenance. This week, we had Benjamin come start work for us. He is local and a really good hard worker. About 35 years old the heat does not seem to affect him.

Three new additional solar panel installed on our aft cockpit. 

New additional Lithium Batteries on charge and Balancing before installation 

We removed all the solar panels from our Flybridge, 10 x, and removed all the attachments ropes to hold the Flybridge to the awning structure, covering it with heavy duty plastic, Ceran wrap on the junctions etc. It is time to Gelcoat the underside of our Flybridge.

Flybridge relieved of solar panels, masked up and lifted from the frame so that the underside can be painted

Benjamin painting the Gelcoat on the Flybridge

This has been a whole week project$, and will take the whole of next week to complete. Tarpaulin has to be moved to protect decks and cushion backrests. Benjamin has been a huge help. 

The Solar Eclipse was very visible from Meshugga at about 85%. We used Nicholas’ Welders Helmet to view the spectacle. Unfortunately my photos don’t do it justice.  

I've been busy with normal household chores, laundry, cleaning etc, and giving the cockpit Screens a good cleaning. Can't believe the muck that has settled on them during the last 6 months.

Dirty screens

Cleaning the screens on the trampoline

And another month has passed so it’s Ladies Day Lunch again, this one not so well attended, as both the prices were higher and a noisy restaurant location which made speeches, chats and sharing difficult.

Fish with caper sauce, with sautéed veges and fried rice

Cheesecake

Our Catamaran Ladies en-Route back from lunch. Me, Maureen, Jennifer, Ruth and Annie. Thanks Steven for ferrying us. 

Sunday: Fresh baked bread and bacon for BLT lunch.