Did you know that Guatemala was a sailing destination? No, neither did I until my sailing student and good friend Claes found this really awesome Hallberg Rassy 35 yacht, s/v Safari in Guatemala of all places! Guatemala has a long Pacific Coast but just a small coastline on the Caribbean side where the Rio Dulce meets the Caribbean Sea. The Rio Dulce carves a steep pass through the country and makes a spectacularly beautiful turn through jungly cliffs and opens up into el Golfete and Lago Izabal. In Golfete especially, there are numerous secluded hideaway resorts which are dotted nearby a few well equipped boatyards where skilled local Guatemalans work with foreigners in the know to refit their yachts in this hurricane safe haven. This is where Claes found his boat, had it refitted in the RAM boatyard and had it docked at the Hotel Catamaran where I met him.
Hotel Catamaran is the kind of place that you never want to leave- a really cool community of expat yachties who bond over drinks at the bar every evening, coffee in the morning and volunteer helping the local orphanage during the day- a truly wonderful place. But Claes had to move his boat out of the country since he just bought it and its allowed stay was expiring. The plan was flexible, possibly sailing all the way to Sweden, where he’s from but at least check out some of the destinations on this side of the Caribbean. We decided on sailing out of the Rio Dulce, check out Utila Honduras, back track and check out Belize and then head up the coast of the Yucatan up to Mexico and keep the boat in Isla Mujeres if we ran out of time and couldn’t go any further this round.
So that’s what we did. After fixing a few things on the boat and getting a new dinghy motor from the professional Guatemalan boat people here, we got provisions in the Golfete town of La Frontera. This wild bustling place is on the edge of a busy road with trucks big tires inches away from your toes, blowing exhaust in your face, toxic pollution if you look to your right, beautiful pristine nature if you look to your left – a weirdly surreal experience since we found it easy to stock up on plenty of fresh produce and very easy to eat healthy here. The local supermarket even had a whole section of chia based foods and the local Guatemalan brand of ready mix Ono Chia, Chiabena!
Before we set out, we had to make a trip by launcha boat to Livingston, the main town on the mouth of the Rio Dulce, where Customs and Immigration are located. This cool little town has a lot of character and is fun to explore- we didn’t mind having to wait and come back a few times to get our paperwork done. But once our papers are stamped, we had to go. Cruising down the Rio Dulce, it’s about a full day motor cruise, looking up at the spectacular jungly cliffs all around really puts you in awe of nature.
At the mouth of the Rio Dulce, entering the Caribbean Sea is where it gets interesting. The Rio Dulce deposits silt that makes the entrance very shallow, about 2 ft deep in some places on the marked channel so you have to transit only at the highest tide and even then you’re almost guaranteed to run aground! I don’t know how bigger boats do it, except like we did by just powering through the mud and when you get stuck, just rock your boat every which way to wiggle your boat through the mud. Crazy!
Once we left Guatemala, we turned right and headed for Utila Honduras. Just wanted to explore this place, we heard it was cool so about 1 day sail away in good conditions we got there, anchored out and dinghied in to the main harbor. Checking in with the local authorities was relatively quick and painless as long as you have all your paperwork. Utila is a really cool little island that caters to more adventurous travelers with a few nice bars, restaurants and dive resorts everywhere. Utila is really well known by divers and so I decided to book a boat dive from Utila Dive Center. The diving around Utila is really nice. Taking a dive boat to the further north end of the island is where some of the nicer reefs are and it’s truly a diver’s paradise. We finished our exploration of Utila with a little red moto-taxi ride around the island to check out some of the other sites, like the iguana farm and the resort at the end of the road, and then back to the harbor.
We can’t stay too long on Utila so we check out and we’re off to Belize. Sailing about 2 days up along the coast of the Yucatan, there’s many reefs to avoid. There’s one big reef system that we had to navigate between that and the coast to get into the reefs that guard the coast of Belize. We decided to check out Ambergris Cay, and the cruising guides say the best place to enter is right there by San Pedro, where we wanted to anchor and explore anyway. Getting into the anchorage isn’t too hard as the cruising guides are pretty descriptive. Once at the anchorage, it’s actually pretty shallow and the day we arrived it’s pretty windy so we were a little nervous about setting the anchor but it all worked out well. We arrived too late to check in but the next morning we take care of all that and then explore Belize. Honestly, after Utila Belize seems a little less exotic since English is the official language and the place caters to less adventurous American tourists with more expensive resorts dotted between poorer looking buildings. Gas powered golf carts everywhere too so it’s loud and kind of chaotic on some of the roads.
In Belize I got a chance to go diving again. The first day we were there it was too windy and rough for boat dives and it had been for a few days. So the day I went it was the first day of boat dives for a awhile and this turned out to be awesome because all the fish – and sharks! … had a chance to come back and we saw lots of them. The sharks were especially curious and fearless and some big ones swam pretty close to our group. After diving, Claes and I enjoyed some of the best conch ceviche and found the coolest shopping market for souvenirs and got our friends and families some really unique things like woven baskets and intricately designed bottles with colorful artwork.
After a short but fun stop in Belize, Claes and I continue our sailing adventure up the Yucatan coast to Mexico. We set a course for Isla Mujeres, because we heard it’s the most popular and favorite place to stop for passing yachts. The 2 day sail up the coast and past the island of Cozumel, and passing by the resort city of Cancun, we finally arrive in Isla Mujeres. The sounds of partiers on the beaches can be heard out on the clear blue water as we arrive and we just know before we step foot on land that this place is going to be fun. We weren’t disappointed. The fuel dock when we first arrive is where the port agent is located and they help us with the formalities and give us some ideas of where to dock. We didn’t make arrangements for dock space before arriving, since we didn’t know what it would be like and wanted to check it out. But it’s not a problem to leave the boat on the port agent’s dock while explore a bit and find a longer term solution, since we figured we’ve run out of time on this trip and need to keep the boat here for a little while.
Of the several places to dock your boat in Isla Mujeres, we found Oscar’s Marina to be the best place that had availability for us so we motored the boat up the lagoon aways and navigated through the shallow pass to the dock. The marina, part of a restaurant seems old and quiet when we arrived but has a lot of character and looks like the kind of place that could host some really fun parties. The other boaters and staff of Oscars are really friendly and offered to take care of s/v Safari while we unfortunately had to leave and end this amazing voyage here for now.
