Guatemala, Belize and Honduras 2018

Well 2018 has been a busy year of travel and the best news, we are grandparents. Evan James Langel was born on August 29th and is healthy, happy boy! 💙 

We left Guatemala at the end of December and arrived in Placencia, Belize on New Year's Day. We stayed in Belize until we had a weather window to get to Roatan and in April we made the passage to West End, Roatan. We did some diving in West End, then came up the Fantasy Island Marina in French Harbor. We then went to Hawaii for the birth of our grandson. Here are a few highlights.

Guatemala

A side road in the town of San Felipe.  

A friend of ours, Josha and his mom.  We gave him the hat 😀

Our friend Patric, s/v Southern Mist, before he left for Switzerland.  

Mike finally got his quadcopter drone.  Check the link at the end of the post to see his footage.

The beautiful bridge path at Tortugal Marina that leads to the road.

Another bridge at Tortugal.

One of our favorite restaurants, Kangaroo's, beautiful place.

Before we left Guatemala we took Ka'imi out on Lake Izabel to test all her systems.

Castille de San Felipe is a fort that sits at the top of the Rio Dulce and the mouth of Lake Izabel.

Hanging out on the pulpit.

Another favorite restaurant, Casa Perico.  Enjoying with good friends Susan, Patric, Gaby, Charlie and Jerry.

Belize

We enjoyed the January blood moon in Placencia Harbor.

Fishermen coming home.

The waters in Belize can be so clear.  This picture was taken from the deck of our boat.

The island of Ranguana, the last we see of Belize as we head out the cut on our passage to Roatan.

Zoey on passage, not too excited about it. 😟

West End, Roatan

West End, Roatan harbor.

West End beach.

Mike making new friends. 😂

Zoey loving being at anchor. 💕

Another beautiful sunset.

The USCG Eagle is a 295 ft. training cutter that is the only active sailing ship in US military service. She dates back seven generations of ships to 1792 when US coast guard used its first ship – ‘Revenue Cutter Eagle.’ The Eagle was originally christened Horst Wessel in Hamburg in 1936, after a Nazi hero, in the presence of Adolf Hitler. She trained German sailors until WWII broke out and in 1942 she was armed and patrolled Baltic Sea. After the defeat of Germany, Horst Wessel was won by the United States in a drawing of lots with the Soviet and British navies and given to the US Coast Guard. Since 1946 every single new US cadet undergoing officer training has begun his or her career by learning to traverse the seas the old way, by trimming sails and scrubbing the decks.

We visited the ship with our friends Deborah and Chris.  We found out about the free event while we were having beers at the Booty Bar in West End.  We were sitting next to some of the the cadet crew and they told us about it.  Very nice ship and crew!

Of course we must end the day with beers. 🍻

French Harbor, Roatan

Deborah crewed with us on our passage to French Harbor.

The water is so clear and the beaches beautiful.

Zoey chillaxin' again. 😎

Fantasy Island has three monkeys left a baby and two adults.  The baby played with us a bit, but the mother bit Kim in the ankle. 😖

The Garífuna people trace their ancestry back to a slave ship that wrecked on the reefs off the island of St. Vincent (Lesser Antilles) in the early 18th Century. As a result of intermarriage, the Garínagu (this is what the Garifunas call themselves in their own language) are a mixture of African, Arawak, and Carib genes. When the British took over Saint Vincent after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, they were opposed by French settlers and their Carib allies. The Carib eventually surrendered to the British in 1796. The British separated the more African-looking Caribs from the more indigenous looking ones. Five thousand Black Caribs were exiled to Roatan, but only about 2,500 of them survived the voyage. The village of Punta Gorda in Roatan was the first Garífuna village and remains today. 

Once a week on Sunday they perform a show of African drums and their own unique dance, the Punta. It was very exciting.

CLICK HERE for some of Mike's drone footage.

It has been a fun and exciting year, next post will share some pictures of our grandson Evan 👶💕

Cheers Kim, Mike and Zoey.

West End, Roatan to Rio Dulce, Guatemala

We are currently at Tortugal Marina finishing up our projects.  We replaced the back deck, removed the teak and added fiberglass panels, and the ceiling panels inside Ka'imi.  We are enjoying the atmosphere at Tortugal after a disquieting summer.  Our friends are returning and the projects are winding down.  My (Kim's) sister will be arriving in a week so it's time to relax.  I finally have time to update the blog, so we'll go back to Roatan and start from there!

After leaving Guanaja we set sail for Roatan.  We made an overnight stop at French Harbor to do some grocery shopping then headed back to West End for some more diving! One of our favorite restaurants is Bite on the Beach.  It is a long walk down the beach from West End Beach to West Bay Beach, well worth the walk.

My favorite was the white sea bass tacos with coleslaw, beans and rice!  Mike had a cheeseburger and fries and they both went perfectly with our favorite beer Salva Vida, which means Life Saver in Spanish..LOL

The view from the restaurant toward West Bay.

The view from the restaurant toward West End.

West Bay

Our friends Deborah and Chris from Sea Sister flew to Roatan and stayed in this really nice, air conditioned apartment right next to Bite on the Beach restaurant.  We had fun hanging out, and a drank a few (hundred) beers..LOL

In West End anchorage you are required to moor on a mooring ball if any are available.  They did not maintain the mooring balls this season so each cruiser usually went down and added there own lines and safety lines.  We added several. Unfortunately, the Boat below, had it's mooring line snap in the middle of a rainy night.  It passed right between us and another boat and went aground on the reef.  We were awoken by the calls on the VHF radio and quickly got out of bed and dressed.  We lowered our dinghy to help along with other cruisers, but after a few attempts she went back aground. The Marine Park was called and tried to get her off but they went aground.  Rescue was also called but said it was too dangerous to go out and they would come out at first light.  It was a tragic accident and the boat sank by morning.  The only bright light in this is the couple did have insurance.

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They put balloon sacks under the boat and towed her to shore.

Back on the Rio, we figured we would have some fun before we began our many projects.  Donna and John from Tried and True joined us for some bowling in Fronteras.  It is a small bowling alley, Hoodee's Boliche Bowling, owned by an American expat. There were two lanes, cold beer and a lot of fun!

The Marina Staff are always ready to help you..LOL..this is Angel having a little fun with his pressure washer gun!  

Ricardo, also Marina Staff.   The entire staff at Tortugal are friendly, helpful and very nice!

Oscar working on our back deck.  We will show completed pictures of this in another post.  It looks great!

Cheers!