By Andy Lund
Ed note - This is the eighth installment of a multi-part series by Andy Lund on his first year of cruising on board Resolution , the Nordhavn 46 he took delivery of in February 2004.
Part VIII
We laid over two nights in Cristobal at the Panama Canal Yacht Club, to go touring to Portobelo, and to watch the NFL football finals, creating the Superbowl match-up of New England and Philadelphia.
Sunday, January 23rd, was spent driving east along the coast to Portobelo, the key Spanish port for their gold and silver trade. Portobelo, ringed with forts, is an excellent sheltered harbor with natural defenses, but that didn’t stop the English pirates and privateers. Sir Francis Drake lost his life here during an attack, and is supposedly buried at sea nearby. The town is very small, but with an interesting restored Customs house and a quite large, well appointed church. The Spanish hauled treasure and trade goods over the mountains to Panama City along a narrow trail, using mules. Then once a year the treasure fleet from Spain would arrive, drop off European merchandise and pick up the gold, silver and jewels brought up from Peru to Panama City and across the mountains.
Monday the 24th we departed Cristobal just before noon, and sailed down the coast just 15 miles, anchoring in Portobelo by 230 PM. I can see why the Spanish liked it. There are about 20 sailboats dotted about the anchorage, and we are the lone power boat. We swam, read, and watched some fish thrash around on the surface until a pelican arrived, and ended the party by having most of them for supper. As I write this at 6PM, the sun has just set and a fat full moon is rising over our bow, peeking in and out of the clouds.
The San Blas Islands
The next morning we were underway early for the 50 mile trek along the coast against five-foot seas to the San Blas Islands. We rounded the extensive reef system off Porvenir, the western village in the group and made our way into the very tight anchorage. Piloting is not easy, and requires good light (late morning to early afternoon) to read the reefs. I got into shallower water than I would have preferred. The anchorage at Porvenir is windswept and exposed to swell from around either side of the small island. On the island are a couple of shops, a very basic hotel, a narrow short concrete airstrip built by the US Army during World War II, but still in use for twin turbo commuter planes from Panama City, and a grass hut “air terminal”. As soon as we anchored, we were greeted by Kuna Indian women in their colorful costumes, paddling dugout canoes, ready to sell us Molas, their native weavings based on articulating a design from many layers of material.
About a half-mile west are two more islands, totally covered by houses and buildings – the principal Kuna Indian villages. Mike, Ian and Mark went over to the village island, explored, then joined a rousing game of three-on-three and five-on-five basketball with a bunch of village kids in their late teens. A great time was had by all, never mind the language barrier. The kids were barefoot, so our gang played the same way, on a rough concrete court. We doctored blisters with Neosporin and bandaids later, with medicinal applications of rum taken internally later, for “pain” relief.
A Krogen 42 trawler called Reel Estate arrived a bit later, breaking the sailboat “monopoly”. Aboard were a father and son team, and a buddy of the father's. They came over for drinks and told us about their planned trip to Cartagena, Columbia, then through the Canal home to southern California. The owner had recently bought his 1989 boat in Florida.
The next morning we sailed east about 12 miles to an anchorage in the west end of the Cayos Hollandes. Not as rolly as Porvenir, but again windswept and exposed, just off a small island with a few native huts on it. The guys took the dinghy and went exploring, playing football with a coconut on a sandy beach. Mike got a spike from a sea creature in his foot, ending the game. He later dug it out with a knife, and more Neosporin was applied. I stayed aboard, and swam a few times. After two days here, we went back to Porvenir for the night, and sailed for Roatan on Sunday, January 30th.
None of us were overly impressed with the San Blas Islands, which don’t appear to live up to their hype. Granted, the cloudy, showery blustery weather didn’t help, but the advertised beaches were small and the anchorages were marginal. We dragged anchor a bit at Hollandes, even in 15 to 20 knot winds with a 110-pound Bruce anchor, 3/8 inch chain and about 5 to 1 scope, more than normal.
Roatan
As I write this, we are completing the 700-mile four-day passage to Roatan Island, off the north shore of Honduras. Our route took us about 100 miles off the NW tip of Nicaragua, to avoid the extensive system of shoals, rocks, reefs and cays offshore. We avoided the inshore route because the charting is dubious and there is reported drug smuggling activity in the area, which we didn’t want to get caught up in. Indeed, about half way up the Nicaraguan coast while at least 100 miles offshore, we were overflown twice by a US Navy four-engine P-3 patrol plane. They were about 500 feet off the water, close enough to read the tail numbers. I called on VHF 16, but got no answer. I suppose they saw our US flag, noted our slow speed and decided we weren’t “interesting”.
At the northwest tip of Nicaragua about 100 miles off Cabo Gracios a Dios (“Thanks to God”) we threaded our way through a 20-mile deep channel, between two extensive shallow banks, then the rest of the trip was clear sailing, with a following sea down the Honduran coast to Roatan. We had a favorable current all the way from the San Blas Islands, probably gaining an advantage of about one knot on average. That’s huge for a 6.5 knot boat like Resolution.
Roatan is a 30 mile long, narrow hilly and wooded island in the Honduran “Bay of Islands” group about 25 miles off the north shore of the country. The locals speak English and Spanish, I gather a heritage of the English colonial black slave days of the 17th and 18th centuries, and are very friendly. We’re berthed at a small marina in French Harbour, on the south side of the island, called Roatan Dive and Yacht Club. It has 12 wooden fixed slips, in this area of minimal tidal change. Up about 150 feet above the docks are a small hotel, a pleasant outdoor restaurant, a nice pool and bar and the offices. The owner, Nikolai Winter (from Munich), and his staff were most hospitable. The German chef made great salads, fish and pizza, but the meat was a little dodgy.
Things are expensive on Roatan but available, with a well-stocked Eldon’s supermarket just 150 meters down the road from the Yacht Club. Gasoline is about $4.00 a gallon, and I assume diesel is equally expensive, so don’t plan to fuel here unless you have no other choice. I took a taxi into Coxen Hole, about eight miles west, and handled all the formalities myself. Migracion (immigrations) took ten minutes and charged $10 per entry. With our short stay, they agreed to stamp us in and out at the same time, which we also worked out through our agent in Panama. Aduana (customs) took five minutes, charging 40 Lempira, the local currency – equal to about $2 US, for the form for the departure Zarpe. The Capitania (port captain) kept the Zarpe form, since they can only be issued within 24 hours of departure, so I went back Saturday morning, February 5, to pick it up. All three offices are down on the waterfront next to each other, and across the street from the only ATM on the island. I did not get any Honduran cash, as dollars seem to do fine.
Mike had a great time out diving, with “Subway Water Sports”. They picked him up right at our dock, and took him out to an interesting reef. The whole gang went over to “Fantasy Island”, a resort with some moorage about five miles east, and played tennis and basketball on some nice courts. The place had a nice swimming beach and a pretty view out over the lagoon to the west. Bob and Mary Lunde, on Nordhavn 46 “Eagles Nest”, whom we’d last seen in Acapulco, were moored there so we had a nice visit. They’re on their way to Isla Mujeres, Mexico then straight across the Gulf to Mobile, headed up the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, and the Ohio, Mississippi and Illinois Rivers home to Minnesota.
There is an airport between the yacht club and Coxen Hole, with nonstop weekend jet service on Continental to Houston and WestJet to Toronto, plus daily commuter service to Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s capital. The support infrastructure on Roatan is quite well developed, and it’s a really pleasant place to spend some time.
Rio Dulce, Guatemala
The morning of Tuesday, February 8th, we got underway for Livingston, Guatemala (130 miles west) and the Rio Dulce. The bar in front of Livingston has about seven feet of water so we plan to cross just before high tide (930 AM Wednesday), since we draw five and a half feet. The seas are mild, with a four foot NE swell and light chop in a slight southeast breeze. Yesterday was rougher, because a northerly front had just passed.
We reached the Livingston sea buoy at 730 AM, having picked up speed from a following current, and were anchored off the town by 8 AM. Water under our keel shrank to three feet (!) as we crossed the bar, and we stirred up mud as we anchored. That’s one nice thing about the dry stack exhaust (smokestack in non-boat parlance) and the keel cooler (heat exchanger under the boat) – no mud, weeds or grass through a wet exhaust into the engine cooling system in shallow water. Just before nine, the local officials arrived in a panga – a naval officer and petty officer from the Capitania, a fellow from the Aduana (customs) and another from Migracion (immigrations). All very friendly and organized, they took copies of paperwork, said come ashore in an hour to collect everything, and gave us a map to find our way around the town.
Livingston is a laid back little town with plenty of backpackers, and locals who depend on fishing and tourism. Concrete paved streets, and all quite neat and clean, but quite poor. It is not connected to the Guatemala highway network, so the only links are by boat, to Puerto Barrios, the commercial port 20 miles south, or up the Rio Dulce, or by light plane. The bank had an ATM, which was a good thing, since we needed “quetzals”, the local currency, for all the fees, which amounted to about $75 US. Walking along the bluff to the Capitania was fascinating, partly for the great view out to sea, and partly because of the great choir music coming from the local Church of God along the way. Monday must have been practice day, but the voices singing gospel hymns in Spanish, with piano accompaniment were really nice.
We were cleared into Guatemala by 11 AM. Mike had gone ashore with me, but he sat in a sidewalk café and had an egg while I hiked up and down dealing with the paperwork. We then found a slow internet café to check our home emails. By 1130 we were back aboard and underway, up the Rio Dulce. The first six miles are through a deep, narrow and winding gorge, with jungle on both sides, and periodic stretches of limestone cliff. Spectacular hardly does it justice. The gorge opened onto a ten-mile long lake, then the river narrowed as we approached the community of Rio Dulce. Here the road crosses on a high concrete arch bridge – apparently a 25-year-old American foreign aid project. The river before the bridge was lined with expensive homes and funky marinas, some without road access, all full of tired sailboats. Past the bridge we rounded a promontory with a 400-year-old Spanish fort – Castillo San Felipe – then traveled another 200 yards to the dock in front of the Banana Palms hotel. We were moored up by 3 PM and enjoying the nice hotel pool by 4. It was pleasant to be off the boat in a hotel room for a while, letting the shower run for 20 minutes!
The next afternoon, through my cousin Stuart Rolfe’s good offices, we were picked up in a van, and headed north 125 miles to Tikal, in northern Guatemala. Tikal is one of the largest Mayan cities, and was “discovered” about 50 years ago by some chicle (raw material for chewing gum) harvesters. It covers an area of about 10 square miles, and has two temples as tall as 20 story buildings, all built in the era of 700 AD to 900 AD. Before we toured Tikal, we spent the night at a Francis Ford Coppola resort called La Lancha, down a dusty road from the paved highway, high above a lake. The cabins were comfortable, and we were serenaded by howler monkeys at 5 AM. They sound like muted lions roaring.
We spent four hours wandering Tikal, first exploring the central plaza, with two ceremonial towers or temples, north and south, and amphitheatre style stone seating east and west. We then hiked further on, to another tower about a mile to the northwest, which soared up out of the jungle. The guys went all the way up to its doorway, while I sat in the forest below, and watched and listened to the birds and the animals, all the while gazing up at this incredible stone structure 500 yards away. This Mayan society rose and fell quite rapidly, disappearing for no apparent reason well before the Spaniards arrived in the 1500s. The strongest theory is that a drought destroyed the region’s agriculture, removing the economic underpinnings of the Mayan empire.
The drive back and forth between the Rio Dulce and Tikal was interesting in itself. The well-engineered and pretty well-paved road ran through hills and flatlands either covered in scrub jungle or deforested by “slash and burn” farming. The poverty was quite severe, yet kids had bicycles and people appeared pretty well dressed. Guatemala apparently suffers from some banditry, and the roads are supposedly not safe at night. Considering the animals wandering around loose and the rickety trucks, I suspect the risk is more of hitting something unlit than being held up by bandits.
Stuart Rolfe, my cousin, joined us in Rio Dulce at the Banana Palms on our return from Tikal. Three of his American expatriate friends living in Antigua, the old colonial capital of Spanish Central America, just west of Guatemala City, came down with him. We all had a good time around the pool, and some of the gang played basketball on the hotel’s court. They went in for a night on the town one evening, and a good time was had by all.
Monday, February 14th, Stuart joined us aboard and we sailed back down the Rio Dulce to Livingston, where we moored at “La Marina”, a minimalist place with a dock constructed of railway track driven in for pilings, shaky power, which fluctuated too much to use, and a little restaurant under a thatched roof. It was a half hour hike into town on a meandering trail – no road – or a ten minute panga ride. Tuesday morning Stuart and I went in to town by panga, and visited all the officials to clear out of Guatemala. That took another hour and another $75. Next stop - Belize.
