Adios, Guatemala!

Today, we successfully escaped Guatemala, clearing out before noon. We had a lovely time motoring through the gorge of the Río Dulce under sunny blue skies. There seemed as if there were many more birds than when we went upstream in November. Literally, there were thousands of egrets, cormorants and brown pelicans and hundreds of frigate birds. The frigate birds soared overhead. The egrets waded along the edges of the river and sat on top branches of lush green trees rising up the canyon walls. Brown pelicans glided by, only occasionally flapping their wings, in small groups just above the surface of the water. Seeing fish in the water, they would land with a spectacular splash and bob up to gulp down their catch. Other pelicans roosted on branches together, sometimes weighing them down until it seemed that the limbs might break. Little white breasted swallows with iridescent blue-black backs and wings flew acrobatically around the boat and landed on the lifelines, where they sat stock still except for their flat-topped heads, which they moved side to side continuously, seemingly curious at the world moving by as they perched quietly. I could have dropped anchor and watched the birds for hours, except the open sea was waiting for me and I was almost there!

Tree swallows along for the ride

After stopping briefly in the colorful, lively town of Livingston to get our passports stamped and obtain our zarpe (official entrance and exit paper) for the boat, we took a water taxi back to Mantra and hauled up our anchor. Hector arrived in his powerboat Wally to accompany us out of the mouth of the river, attaching a strong line to our spinnaker halyard in order to pull us over when the water became too shallow. When we saw that we were at zero meters under the keel and felt our boat ploughing into the silt and slowing down, Hector hauled on the line and we heeled over about 20 degrees, freeing the prop to surge ahead. It was an interesting experience hearing the starboard side of the hull grinding softly against sand and mud.

Once free of the shallows and untethered from Hector's boat, we bid him "Hasta proxima!" and sailed into Honduras Bay and the Caribbean. Dolphins came to welcome us back. We tested out the sails, enjoying 20 minutes of motionless propulsion, but we were headed into wind and had to turn on the engine again. Now we are peacefully anchored just south of Punta de Manabique in Honduras, and we will clear into Belize (finally!) early tomorrow morning.

Open sea!

Sunset from our anchorage