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November 8, 2007
Texan Bay, Rio Dulce
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After a busy morning cleaning the
dinghy, stowing provisions, washing down the boat, and
otherwise organizing ourselves, we said our goodbyes and
left Tijax for the Shell dock to fill our nearly empty
tanks. Nestor, the security consultant at Tijax, had called
ahead to the Shell station to ensure we could get our 700
gallons, but when we arrived, the proprietor told us the
most we could have was 400. Luckily the Esso Station near
Chiqui’s (Tienda Reed) was able to provide the last 300, so
by 11:30, we set off down river for Texan Bay Marina, about
seven miles from Livingston and the entrance to Rio Dulce.
Emma Jo sure likes a full belly – she rides much lower and I
swear, I can feel the difference her full tummy makes as we
make our way over the lancha wakes.
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| Cruising downriver we were much more
confident than we were coming upriver eight months ago.
Revisiting Golfete, seeing the little homes and businesses,
and the lanchas zooming back and forth between Fronteras and
Livingston made us aware of what a very hospitable, friendly
place the Rio is. |
| The proprietress of the marina gave us
waypoints for Texan Bay over the radio – and we confess to
struggling a bit trying to find just where in the vegetation
those waypoints were – until we realized the waypoints
pinpointed the marina itself, not the entrance! For the
record, here they are: N 015°46.035’,
W 088°49.640’.
With a little bit of coaching by radio, we found our way in
through a narrow dog-leg behind an island to one of the
loveliest spots we’ve seen so far on our cruise. At one of
the ten docks, we saw an old friend (or is it nemesis?) –
the charter catamaran Legacy that we had waited for at the
dock in Belize City last March! |
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Texan Bay Marina
is the dream of Mike and
Sherry, lifelong residents of Corpus Christi. Mike is a
bulldog of a man – barrel chested, stocky, and bald – with a
Texas accent you could spread on a biscuit. Sherry is a
skinny little thing with more energy than three women twice
her size. And they are the happiest people we’ve met in a
long time. |
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They left Texas three years ago on
their own catamaran, with the idea of making a living on the
reefs of Belize. They came upriver to Fronteras that first
hurricane season, and became so taken with the place they
began looking around for property. And find it they did –
13 miles downriver from Fronteras, a stunning, protected bay
with a stream and several channels through the mangroves --
and enough water for just about any cruising boat that can
make it over the Livingston Bar. There was an existing
structure on top of a small hill at the head of the inlet,
with a Mayan family living in it “informally”.
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| Now, buying property in Guatemala is not
for the faint of heart or the short of patience. Mike and
Sherry got themselves a lawyer and made several trips to
Guatemala City to be sure of a clear and unencumbered title
with faultless paperwork. Then they had to deal with INGUAT,
the Guatemalan Tourist Agency, and it’s cadre of government
ministers and bureaucrats, to file a business plan, get all
of the permits they needed, and begin working on building
their vision on Texan Bay. Mike proudly told us, that first
afternoon we met, that he did not spend one dime on
“mordida” (bribes) – didn’t believe in it – and wouldn’t
hear of anything standing in his way. It took him two
years, but this summer he finally got all the permits and
paperwork to approve the serious, backbreaking manual labor
his project requires.
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| He’s rebuilt the foundation and repaired
the original building and added a huge kitchen onto the
back; he’s built a new home for the Mayan family on the
property; he’s put in bathrooms and showers for the
boaters; he’s built a reservoir to catch rainwater; he’s put
in ten 50-foot docks, and has built the sweetest
lancha/dinghy dock we’ve seen on the river; he’s brought in
a generator, and runs it four hours in the morning and four
hours in the evening, and has plans to extend power to the
docks. All of this with building supplies hauled downriver
by lancha from Fronteras and up the hill by himself and some
hired hands.
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Sherry told us that the Mayan family
kind of “came with the property,” so they are currently
supporting a family of 11 with the business. One of the men
acts as guardian and resident muralist. The women help in
the kitchen. The kids are learning English, and going to
school. Sherry sponsors a medical clinic of sorts, with a
doctor who visits once a month to look after the usual cuts,
scrapes and bruises, as well as the general health of the
kids and cruisers in the marina. While we sat in the
bar enjoying a cold beer, she hit us up for a "small money
contribution" as a graduation present for one of her "kids"
who had just graduated high school. We were glad to
offer 10 quetzales, as was everyone else in the place.
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| And they both cook. Coffee is free to
boaters in the morning, and good old fashioned American
breakfasts are cheap and home-cooked. Happy hour finds most
of the boaters up in the bar enjoying a cold Brava or an
improvised gin and tonic (Sherry will buy bottles from
boaters when her bar stocks run low), with old time rock and
roll via the Sirius satellite. And once in awhile dancing
breaks out. |
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Mike offered to take us down to
Livingston in his lancha on Friday morning to check out.
The 7-mile trip took only about 20 minutes with his 4-stroke
50-horse outboard. He walked us up to Raoul the Agent, who
collected our boat papers and passports, then suggested we
wait at a local café for tapado, a spicy coconut fish stew
unique to Livingston, complete with a whole mojarra (kind of
river perch), a little swimming crab, and plenty of shrimp.
By the time we finished lunch, Raoul had our boat papers
ready for a November 11 checkout -- and we zoomed back
upriver to Texan Bay and a nap.
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| That night we opted for dinner at the
marina -- it was no kidding chicken fried steak with country
milk gravy, just like mom used to make. After dinner, while
daintily wiping his lips, Mike said, in a momentarily
alarming dry drawl, “it always gets a might hard to breathe
after a dinner like that.” |
| One of the highlights of our stay at Texan
Bay Marina was a dinghy ride through the mangrove lagoons
and channels that really put us in mind of the Tarzan movies
of the 30s that were filmed in the Rio Dulce gorge. We
were able to stalk a couple of egrets by rowing through the
water lotus then just drifting to within 3 feet. And
we heard the most amazing bird call, tracking it as it took
flight to something called a
Montezuma oropendola. (On the link is a flash of the
call it makes...spooky!) |
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The nights at anchor were spectacularly
quiet – save for sudden outbursts of British patriotism that
broke out on one of the sailboats at the dock: Rule
Britannia and Jerusalem at 200 decibels scared
the night herons out of the trees but the incongruence of
the music with the location made us giggle. |
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Jan the Webmeister
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