We have been in Rio Dulce for about six weeks now. It is the rainy season and boy, does it ever rain almost every night. Torrents I tell you.
It took us around 12 days to get here from Isla Mujara, Mexico. We were plagued with problems. Starting with the Yucatan Current. I hate sailing into currents, I really do. It took a lot of jigging, or tacking if you will, before we found a sweet spot that eliminated most of the current. Hugging the shoreline and keep the depth between 60 and a 140 feet seemed to do the trick. only took almost two days to find that out. Master Mariners indeed.
Bad thing happened and it was 100% my fault. Normally we take the sails down at three in the afternoon and motor through the night. It was such a perfect sailing day with light to moderate winds off our port beam. Three sails up. I said we will wait an extra hour before dowsing the sails. Well in just 45 minutes, a squall hit us and almost laid us flat. Started the engine to turn us into the wind and we were laid flat again, and the engine raw water intake sucked air and fried the impeller. Rats. No engine and wind just killing us. Wait! Whats that sound? Why, it's just the jib tearing itself in half. Rats. All we could do was spill the stay sail and main. Even with those two spilling and the jib torn in two we still did a ridiculously respectable 6 1/2 knots. Not in my wildest dreams can I get this tub to do 6 1/2 knots.
So, no engine, we "sailed" the night until I could repair the engine in the morning. I was too hot and I would have been BBQ'd on it changing the impeller.
Next morning, we fixed the engine and managed to lower the remaining sails. We found out we popped out the top two main sail lugs that guide the sail up the mast. There was still about 6' of jib still up the stay.
We motor to and drop anchor in Tobacco Cay in Belize for four day to get our Mojo back.
After we left Belize it was a a day and night trip to get to Livingston, Guatemala to clear in.
Clearing in was a snap. A launcha pulled up with all the officials we needed on board. It cost extra but we didn't have to chase any official down!
I talk later about the wonderful trip upriver, a total opposite of our trip down, thank god.
