So it had been a pretty quiet week or so in Utila. The weather was just blah… and things were getting a bit on the mundane side. About the most exciting goings on during this week were our hellacious poker games at Tranquila. So I was considering sailing over to Brick Bay in Roatan to visit my friend Ann, the Swedish dive instructor, and check out a couple of dinghys that I heard were for sale there. I looked into lining up some people who were looking for a way to get to Roatan to make a couple of bucks in the process as well. About the same time, Sjelle was telling me about all the trouble she was having with her boat back in Rio Dulce. Lots of stuff she was fixing, just kept breaking again, and her hired help was actually causing more harm than good. Things were not going very well for her, and she was having a lot of trouble getting some good help so she can wrap things up. “Duty calls”, I proclaimed, and I told her I’d come over to Rio Dulce and help her finish off her boat. The weather was getting better, and actually giving me some good wind to actually sail there this time. So with only two days’ notice, I put out the word that I was heading to Rio Dulce for a short stay and was open for passengers. I did manage to find a couple of Brits who were looking for a way to Rio, so we set up a meeting time at the fuel dock on Friday the 17th before noon. I would fuel up, get checked out and head out by 2 pm.
Well that morning, a couple things chinked my plans. First of all, the two brits bailed out. They decided they wanted to do more diving for a few more days. Then, when I tried to check out, I found I couldn’t because the immigration officer was off the island for what sounded like a couple of weeks. The port captain said I would have to go to La Ceiba to check out. But if I were to do that, that would have seriously messed up my schedule, and gotten me to Rio Dulce too late for the needed high tide to be able to get into the river’s entrance.
So… to cut the story short, I sort of just left without checking out.
So I shoved off the fuel dock, but not before a huge dive boat that was docked in front of me left a nice gouge in Andiamo’s hull as their crew pushed my bow outward supposedly well off their stern dive platform. The idiot who was pushing my bow off didn’t really know what he was doing, and now Andiamo has a nice little gash on it. Lovely…
So this was going to be the longest singlehand trip I’ve done on Andiamo to date. At an average of 6 knots, the trip would take a little less than 20 hours. But with the wind coming from the Northeast at a nice click, and with the seas moving under me, I figured I’d go faster.
Once I got out of Utila’s harbor, I set the sails for a fairly broad reach, and off Andiamo went. The boat took off like a rocket, and with the help of my good ol’ autopilot, I was having a nice easy sail. It would prove to last like that the rest of the afternoon and evening.
About 9 pm, I found that Andiamo was going way too fast! Over 9.5 knots at most times. That’s a great problem to have, but this meant that I would get to the bay outside of Livingston by something like 4 AM. And that meant that I would have to wait a good 7 hours before high tide came so I can pass over the shallow bar. So, with great regret, I brought in the genoa, which slowed the boat down to about 7 or so knots. This would get me into Livingston early still, but I can manage my course to kill some time on my approach to the river, so no biggie.
The weather stayed nice until about 4:30 AM, and then some hard rains came. The seas whipped up to about 8-10 feet, but thankfully, I was going with them, so it wasn’t too bad. The boat never got overpowered, and kept going on course like clockwork. I managed to sleep in the cockpit most of the night, waking up every hour or so to make sure that there were no oncoming ships. Lucky for me, shipping traffic was light this night, so I was able to relax.
I killed some time in Amatique Bay before approaching Livingston. I got to the river entrance about 30 or so minutes before high tide. Andiamo made it through with no problems, and I proceeded up the river. It was a bit rainy, but Rio Dulce was as spectacular as usual. I never get tired of that ride through the river, that’s for sure.
I arrived in the anchorage at Frontreras about 2:30 PM, Sjelle met up with me shortly after, and we went and got some dinner in town. There was a lot of work to do on her boat, and we were going to start bright and early the next morning.
Since then, we’ve repaired several issues on her boat’s mast, replaced her lights, her spinnaker pole mount, and other hardware. She had a new bow pulpit made, which after much finagling and imaginative mounting techniques, had it mounted on her bow and looking sharp. She also needed her lifelines put back on, along with some other stuff.
After a good week of working on her boat, the “L.F. Ase”, she is finally ready for some sea trials. So tomorrow, we’ll give her diesel a little workout to make sure it’s up to snuff. Then we’ll anchor off of Luigi’s (the italian sailmaker) house so he can have a look at her sails and give us one of the genoas he was re-cutting. After that, time permitting, we’ll take her into El Golfete for a little sailing sea trial, and to test out her new tiller pilot. If all looks good, and if the weather is still holding up, we’ll head out of here on Tuesday back to Honduras.
So it’s been a pretty productive week, albeit not on my own boat. But it has also been nice hanging out with Sjelle once again, and seeing her own boat come together. So I guess it’s all good.
Comment from: Judy [Visitor]
Haven’t heard from you… saw some great pictures on your web site….
Keep on having fun for the rest of us drones!
J.