Well, we finally made it. An easy trip from Belize, and an easy crossing of the bar. We followed recent waypoints we'd been given and the lowest we saw was about 6 feet at a mid tide.

It took us a couple of hours to get our paperwork done, but the officials were assisted by Raoul, a very pleasant English-speaking agent. They all came and visited the boat, but it was a nice relaxed social hour. An hour later we went ashore, got some Quetzales from the ATM machine on my Space Coast Credit Union ATM card, and picked up our paperwork. The fees were: Q200 for Immigration ($26.67) Q75 for 'le doctore' ($10) Q125 for the Port Captain ($16.67) Q196.88 for Boat Clearance/3 Months ($26.25) and Q153.12 for ?? (we think paper prep and/or lancha). We are good now for 3 months. In 3 months we can get a 3 month extension on our passports and a 9 month extension on the boat.

Livingston is an uncomfortable place to stay for the night (an open roadstead and lots of boat traffic), so we hurried up into the Golfete and stopped at a new place for the night. A friend had told us about Texan Bay Marina but we weren't exactly sure where it was. When we got close, we looked for boats and masts, and very slowly made our way toward them. As we get close, a small lagoon opened up and we could see 4-5 boats at the marina (and some more masts inside).

Once next to the marina, there was another, even smaller lagoon with only 2 boats in it. We anchored next to a Westsail 32. Posn: 16-46.07N 88-49.60W.

What a beautiful place! Completely surrounded by rainforest, with locals in dugouts going by...fishing, on their way to work, etc... birds, etc etc. We are taking pictures of everything, but it will be hard to really portray the beauty in a static photo.

We went ashore and had dinner in the marina restaurant (a little thatched hut). There we had a nice time talking with the first cruisers we've seen in a couple of weeks.

We decided to stay here a day and use the kayaks to explore up the little stream that empties into the lagoon we're in. Being finally in a good anchorage with no expected weather issues, I got a really sound sleep last night and we both slept in til nearly 9am.

Tomorrow we'll head further upriver to Fronteras, where all the boats and marinas are.

Labels: Guatemala