Sailing with the Treleavens

After an interesting start to our 8th season cruising, we’re now departing the Caribbean and heading back to the Mediterranean with a lesson learnt to expect the unexpected and trust no one.

Maria met us at the airport in Guatemala City and her chauffer drove us the six hours to the Rio Dulce River and our yacht on the hard out of the water. Arriving early December after six months, we find her in near perfect condition. The heat and dampness of the hurricane season was taken into consideration before we left by covering the yacht with tarpaulins and a dehumidifier was left running inside. The tarpaulin was in tatters from the sun but the inside was perfectly dry. Several other cruisers reported returning to yachts full of mould and one even had a bee’s nest. Small things seized in the heat including the impellers and others things had warped but with local help, we were soon up and living on board.

At first we stayed with Maria at their holiday house (up a creek in the jungle, servants all around) but when we were in the water we stayed onboard (no servants here). All is well with us and we’re getting more acclimatized to the heat 38-40 every day.

Here for a a few weeks but not too much of a problem as it’s a place of interesting contrasts, rich and poor but with Christmas lights all around and many cruisers to celebrate with, it is a very beautiful place. The shooteroo’s are out at night protecting the crime bosses; let ’s hope we can avoid them. One thing we can’t get used to is people carrying guns.

We were very shocked and sad to hear that a couple on a boat next to us where killed in a car crash while we were gone. The road to Guatemala City is very dangerous with thousands of heavy trucks on the go 24/7.

Still in Ram Marina for Christmas, we share Christmas day with the other cruisers and Mayan Indians. They love fireworks and all night long you could hear them; it’s a long time since we saw fireworks for sale in shops and they also out number the Christmas gifts for sale.

Maria joins us for a week to motor out and cross the bar at the mouth of the river. Timing is important as we need a very high tide but it’s still not enough and we had to be pulled over on our side by a local shrimp boat. New Years Eve is celebrated in Belize on stunning Hunting Cay, the most southern of the islands, and the locals put on another small fireworks show. The contrast of river water to clear turquoise sea is amazing; it’s nice to be back in the Caribbean…or is it?

I am unable to identify anyone or names of places but this next incident has literally taken the wind out of our sails and left us in complete shock. Quite often you meet cruisers with whom you get on well and you travel side by side for whatever length of time. We became friendly with a young couple and their child and they asked if they could sail along with us. For quite a few weeks we cross borders and island hopped and then one day in port the FBI from America were waiting to arrest them. At first we didn’t know what for and my imagination ran wild. We have since learnt that he is a fugitive, travelling on a false passport with a considerable amount of money hidden on the yacht. He is also wanted for firearms dealing in America. TRUST is a big word and we were completely oblivious to his past as they were such a nice couple and solved many electrical problems for us. Thankfully we haven’t been drawn into all of this and have now moved on.

The earthquakes in Haiti are not affecting us but the weather is having its moments and as America is covered in snow we are getting some of the effect down here. When the northerly winds blow we hide behind islands and wait for the warm easterly trade winds to return and move on.

For the past two weeks we have had Janne Sutcliffe and Chris Gillett from Sydney on board. Covering 300nm up the coast with us, we have had a wonderful time visiting amazing resorts, crystal clear atolls and eating plentiful lobster. Our favourite port in Belize would have to be San Pedro once the nerves settle after navigating the narrow entrance through the coral reef. A two metre sea is breaking and in our sights is a yellow buoy; once you reach the buoy it’s a hard right hand turn as another reef is in front of you. You hope like hell it’s not on a wave and in a short distance the depths have gone from hundreds of metres to just 0.25m under our keel. Once inside the colour is magnificent and this is home for a few days. Janne makes sure we have lobster and negotiates 60 tails at $1.60 a tail. Oh no, not lobster again!!!!!!!!

Banco Chinchorro is an atoll 20nm off the coast of Mexico and is as isolated as I ever want to be. The colour turquoise is blinding, the wind is blowing and we are visited by the Military with machine guns strapped to their backs. We can only assume this is a known anchorage in the drug trade. The wind is great for a fast night sail (with a 4 knot current we reach speeds of over 12 knots) to the Yucatan Peninsula. Puerto Aventuras is our destination but on arrival the breaking waves prevent us from entering and we have to sail out to the island of Cozumel and anchor in the lee of the old town San Miguel. To the south six large cruise ships are lined up at anchor.

By ferry we visit the mainland in an area now called the Mayan Riviera. There’s the boutique style Playa del Carmen, its fabulous coast of white white fine sand, turquoise seas and resort after resort. Of course we find the top resort in Mexico, lunch in style and pretend we are rich and famous for a day. Rosewood MayaKoba Resort (the number 1 resort in Mexico) is where you leave the outside world behind and become engulfed in tropical gardens, a spa retreat and private bungalow accommodations each with their own lagoon or beach access.

Tulum is the only Mayan ruins on the coast (A.D. 1200-1450) and a must see but swarming with tourists. Sacrifices of young women took place here to bring rain. The Mayans were great astrologers and all of their temples were aligned in various ways to the heavens. Tulum is famous for noting the changing seasons and to this day on the equinox and solstice the sun still lines up directly through the holes on the eastern side of the temple.

Our next anchorage is Isla Mujeres and with 3 knots of current we cover 50nm in less than 5 hours. From here north we get this amazing current (the start of the famous Gulf Stream that runs up the east coast of the USA and turns right to extend all the way across to the UK) that only flows north and is consistent so will be great to get 3 – 7 knots of stream all the way to Cuba.

Isla Mujeres is a cute small Mexican island village and we are enjoying the naturalness of a beautiful place. The harbour, with it’s bay and lagoon, is the only all weather shelter on the Caribbean Mexican Coast and full of cruisers waiting for the perfect weather window to head south or north. In the far distance we see Cancun, or is it Surfers Paradise only bigger. The resorts have over 30,000 rooms and see in excess of 4 million visitors a year. A quick visit by ferry and we quickly retreat to the idyllic Isla Mujeres for a stone massage on the sublime beach and beer battered lobster at the local fish and chip shop for lunch.

Janne and Chris go home with smiles on their faces and Kevin Horne will join us to sail to Cuba and then Key West, Florida.

One thing I won’t miss when we depart the Western Caribbean are the shallow reefs; we just have a yacht with too deep a keel. The western Caribbean is the ideal multi hull cruising ground.

A belated start to our letters as we have been finalising our second book ‘Letters from the Caribbean’. It is now with the printers and will be launched early June.

Our entrance over the shallow sandbar into the Rio Dulce is unexpectedly dramatic and the captain’s blood pressure rises. Twelve yachts assume the spring high tide to be enough water to cross but three of us don’t make it. Not an unusual happening as a local fishing boat stands by to come to the rescue and charge us plenty. By hauling us over with a long halyard from the top of the mast, they are just able to raise our keel enough to skim the 200 metre length of the bar.

Livingston is our port of entry and six officials, wearing surgical masks in case we have swine flu, visit the yacht before we are allowed ashore. The heat is extreme and we can’t wait to enter the winding river that flows beneath the mountains. As we enter the serenity of the river, gone is the whistling of this wind through the rigging; cicadas and birds are all we hear now. As the mountains close behind us, also gone is the blue Caribbean Sea and now we are dwarfed by a cascading lush jungle wall. At every bend for six miles we see Mayans living at the edge and fisherman casting nets from cayuca’s (canoes carved from logs), until we reach our first marina for the night in a lagoon surrounded by flowering white water lilies and rushes.

The next day we ride in the dinghy up and down the small creeks that lead off the river, watch children paddle their cayuca’s to school, listen to monkey calls and become bird watchers. Motoring another 20nm up the river, we head for the section of the Rio Dulce where all the marinas are located. Hundreds of cruising yachts will spend the next six months here sheltering from hurricanes. A major bridge has recently been built across the river but this is the only road access to the river. Beautiful as it is we are mindful of our security. Thefts from yachts in isolated anchorages do occur and a cruiser was even murdered onboard one last year. It is wise not to anchor in the river and always in the company of other yachts. All marinas have security guards and a patrol boat cruises around at night but despite this, an outboard was stolen from a yacht anchored beside us just off Mario’s Marina.

What has surprised us is that the wealthy citizens of Guatemala City have beautiful thatched roof homes with open plan living and big powerboats on the river. From here they can access the Belize islands very quickly. After being invited into two separate homes for meals, one could almost be tempted to live here. It is a small world; on chatting to a local on a beach he asked if we knew a guy in the South Island of NZ. As it happens Ian went to school with him. Or is it the South Island that is small!

We are leaving ‘Cape Finisterre’ at RAM Marina for six months out of the water but it’s not quite out of the hurricane belt. As none have ever come up the river and since we’re 26nms inland and behind a mountain range, we feel comfortable with this even if our insurance company doesn’t. Although there was an earthquake last night while we were still at anchor which registered 7.1 on the Richter scale and was centred 250nm away. Ian was woken by what sounded like someone coming along side the boat; but once on deck on hearing all the bird noise and dogs barking realized it was the earth (and the river) moving. So much for coming inland but at least we are safe from the possible tsunami out at sea.

The heat is exhausting and debilitating. We get up at 5am work till 9am and then hibernate in the air-conditioning till 4pm. When the yacht is packed up, we decide to tour the Mayan ruins of Tikal for a few days. By bus we travel 300km north through green cattle country, our only mission is to visit the temples of Indian Maya civilization and try to understand the rise and fall of a great empire. 2000 years ago, 10 million people lived in the area compared to today’s 300,000. Howler and spider monkeys swing through a canopy of tall trees, a habitat shared with exotically coloured birds like the big beaked Toucan. Below, temples rise, having been lost to the jungle for centuries until recently cleared. What was their demise? General opinion is over population in a barren area with assistance from prolonged draught (global warming as politicians call it today) and of course, the supposed failures of the gods. Long thought to be peace loving it has now been realised they were very war like and cruel with their neighbours and this also hastened their downfall.

The Mayans were very advanced in astrology, numbers and dates of the year. All their temples are aligned to the sun for the seasons of the year; they calculated 365 days with adjustment for the leap year and also added 0 and the decimal point to the numbering system. All this before the Europeans understood any of it. But they never used iron and whilst they knew of the wheel, they never used them.

Guatemala is a beautiful country with a population of 12 million. 80% are Mayan Indians and the rest are mainly of Spanish origin and living in the capital, Guatemala City. At the time of the Spanish invasion in the 1500’s, Central America was divided into departments with Guatemala the capital. All the departments make up the various countries of the region. For years run by the military, it is now in a period of stability.

We have now cruised both the Mediterranean and Caribbean extensively and it is amazing to note some of the similarities in these two wonderful cruising grounds. Both seas are surrounded by land and are almost identical in area; the Med is 842,125 sq nautical miles and the Caribbean 844,123 sq nautical miles. They have also both played their part in history with the Europeans being heavily involved in the Caribbean development. Of course the Med gave rise to a great many civilisations and also gave birth to the three great religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). But the only great civilisation in the Caribbean was the Mayan Indians of the Yucatan Peninsula, which includes Belize and Guatemala. By the time the Europeans arrived, they were already in decline. They actually knew more about numbers and astrology than the early explorers who came after them and the pyramid type temples they built are as precise as the Egyptian pyramids. It is also worth noting that both areas have very little tide.

Our seven-month season in a coconut shell: the vivid colours rate first, and then the fantastic sailing conditions followed by how fit and healthy we feel.

Thank you for being with us all the way and see you down under soon.

From West End on Roatan, Honduras, to the outer atolls of Belize, we have a perfect 80nm daylight sail and manage to hook two beautiful Dorado. As provisions have not been easy, we have become hunters not gatherers. Arriving with the sun behind us, entering the most outer atoll requires a bow watch to negotiate the coral heads; my t-shirt is flapping against my belly in time with my nervousness. Lighthouse Reef Atoll is 40nms outside the Barrier Reef that borders Belize and her hundreds of cays. Here the cobalt blue Caribbean Sea turns in an instant to turquoise blue over the sand. The depth and width through the breaking reef is only metres with clear visibility (too clear) but once inside we weave our way to Half Moon Cay and anchor.

This is the perfect cay; a grove of coconut palms, a red footed booby bird colony, white sand and waters 27 degrees Celsius for snorkelling. Well…almost perfect; just as we are about to jump from the dinghy, a three metre shark passes under us in a depth of 1½ metres. Big, black and whilst only a nurse shark, it stops me from getting wet. I know they are harmless but I have lived in Australia for too long. Ian ignores it and is thrilled to find lobsters everywhere in only 2 metres of water. Unfortunately it is out of season, we have to be content to look at them now.

In the middle of this 24nm long reef is the famous Blue Hole; a perfectly round, very deep hole with all the features of a cave including stalactites at 120 metres. Made world famous by Jacques Cousteau in 1972, his discovery of the stalactites proves it was at one time above the water. It is too shallow to cross the lagoon to the hole in our yacht so we hitch an early morning ride with the park rangers. On arrival I couldn’t believe we had arrived but as you look closer you can see the deep blue perfect circle 150 metres across. We snorkel the rim which is covered in colourful ferns, coral and teaming with exotic fish. My exit is quick as a blue bottle wraps its trailing long tentacles around my legs…..ouch. Ian loves his new found hobby of underwater photography. We are content to just snorkel as a few divers, including one only three months ago, did not return to the surface.

Through sparkling seas, we meander from atoll to atoll, Lighthouse to Turneffe to Glover, until we enter the Barrier Reef which runs the length of the country for 190nms and is 15nms off the coast. It is the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere and second in the world to our Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Unique to this area are the small islands on the edge of the reef. Saltwater Cay has a perfect resort where you can snorkel out to the edge and then observe the sheer drop deep into the Caribbean Sea.

We meet Ray, a local, who is out here with a group from the USA on a ‘reefology’ tour. On learning we are from Australia he tells us the story of Steve Irwin’s visit to their local crocodiles. Apparently he hopped into the enclosure, as was his habit, and when they chased him he hurdled the fence claiming “crikey they are more ferocious than ours”.

This is the season to visit the whale sharks which come every year to feed off the spawn of the snapper. Growing to over 14 metres in length, we just missed seeing them as they are moon dependent and we were a day too late. Next time!!

Belize is a very small enclave wedged in between Mexico and Guatemala. Not of interest to the Spanish during their quest for gold and silver in the early 1600’s, it became a haunt for English pirates and subsequently became a British possession known as British Honduras. In 1981 it converted to the independent nation of Belize. Unlike other Central American countries and due to their British heritage, they have had very stable government. The current English speaking population of only 300,000 people is a mix of Creole (European and African, mestizo (European and Amerindian) and of course full blooded Mayans.

The government has developed the country as an Eco friendly destination preserving her national treasures. Over 45% of the country is national park protecting the Mayan ruins, forest and especially jaguars which still roam wild and were idolised in Mayan culture. The reef has similarly been protected with many parks to preserve this beautiful area. Eco lodges are to be found everywhere. Believe it or not we are still in the Caribbean with this area known as either the North West Caribbean or Continental Caribbean.

Turning south there are so many cays to explore; some are covered in mangroves and some a circle of white sand with coconut palms. We can’t enter the Rio Dulce until May 25th because of a very shallow sandbar at its entrance and we can only enter on a high spring tide, so will stay in Belize until that time.

Placencia is our main landfall where Moorings have a large fleet of charter yachts and we suggest you consider cruising Belize sometime, especially in a catamaran. The feeling is like being back in the Eastern Caribbean with colourful Rastafarians, cottages with thatched roofs and reggae music filling the bars at night. Nearby is the upmarket resort Turtle Inn owned by Francis Ford Coppola (of The Godfather fame), which along with another one in the mountains are run as eco resorts.

The Sapodilla Cays are the most southerly islands on the barrier reef and it’s very nice to spend our last days here in such idyllic surroundings. After seven months sailing 3200nm through the Caribbean Islands, with wonderful following winds, we are now motoring our last days as it is steaming hot, there is no wind and the seas temperature is now at 28 degrees Celsius.

As we depart Belize a new experience awaits us up the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. We will be swapping turquoise seas for the huge fresh water river, sandy islands for a green jungle and fish for monkeys and maybe a jaguar. But as the hurricane season approaches ‘Cape Finisterre’ will be well protected here.