Isla Mujeres, Mexico to Rio Dulce, Guatemala: The Maraya II

When last we left our intrepid traveler, he was "working" at a dive shop on Isla Mujeres, Mexico. It was good at first but had grown tiresome and boring as the number of tourists (and, therefore, opportunities to go diving) declined. The question, then, was how to flee an island paradise with the most possible panache.

The answer, of course, is as a deckhand on a 63' motor-sailor.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Maraya II. Ain't she purty?

It is completely ridiculous how quickly and easily I became a deckhand. I had heard from a few other travelers about working on sailboats and it seemed like a good idea. One night at the bar I met a fellow who was already working as such and figured there might be enough work for another guy, so the next day I went down to the marina to meet the captain/owner. That didn't work out, but I'd already come all the way down to the other end of the island so I decided to walk back and ask at every marina I passed.

No joke, at the second marina I tried:

Me: (to a marina employee) "Hey, do you know if any of the boat owners here are looking for deckhands?"
Employee: "Uh, yeah, actually, the owner of that big one over there. In fact, there he is. His name is Dave."
Me: "Hi, Dave, I'm Benjamin and that guy over there said you might be looking for a deckhand."
Dave: "Well, yeah, I am."
(ten minutes of interview/discussion ensue)
Dave: "Ok, then. We sail in two days."
Me: "I'll be here."

Ridiculous.

I wrapped up my affairs at the dive shop ("Hey, boss, I'm outta here" or, actually, "Oye, jefe, me voy") and got on the boat. It wasn't to be a long voyage: 10 days to go from Isla Mujeres to Rio Dulce, Guatemala, where the boat would be moored for hurricane season. It is prohibitively expensive to insure pleasure craft during hurricane season so pretty much everyone docks and flies home from June 1st to November 30th.

According to Google, it's about 450 miles. Click to view huge.

Alrighty, then. 10 days of sailing plus a few more at dock cleaning and stowing; a bunk and 3 squares a day; a ride in the direction I wanted to go and..

..and..

$500.

Not bad, eh?

The living room, complete with flat panel television.


My bunk. I had a skylight!


Dave the captain (on the right) and his buddy Fred, who did all of the cooking. Nice thing about being the captain: no one can tell you not to have a bloody mary at 9 in the morning. Nice thing about the captain having a bloody mary at 9 in the morning: then the crew can too.

While we were under way, my duties as a deckhand were, quite frankly, laughably easy. That didn't stop Dave from yelling at me about how stupidly and/or slowly I was doing them, but that's neither here nor there. All I really had to do was raise and lower the anchor every morning and evening (ie, press the button on the anchor chain motor) and crank the sails up and down. Once the sails were set and so long as they didn't need adjusting, I was free to do whatever I wanted, though my options were somewhat limited: read, nap or stare at the ocean. As you might imagine, I did a whole lot of all three.

There were dolphins!


Frolicking in the bow wave! Yes, I said frolicking. There is really no better term for it.



The photos are good, but you need video to truly appreciate how cool it was. There isn't much to see until about the 30 second mark, and then just before 1:00 you can see 4 or 5 go by just below the surface.


Sighted off the coast of Cozumel, the bane of budget travelers everywhere: the dread cruise ship.

Consider, for a moment, an economy built on daily deliveries of 1,000 fresh tourists, anxious to see and do as much as possible in their 12 hours ashore. Prices skyrocket and any local culture that can't be summarized in an after dinner show or doesn't fit into the tourists' preconceived notions dies a quiet death. I don't want to get too wrapped up in that whole "quest for authenticity" thing, which is also largely bullshit, but suffice it to say that pretty much every place the cruise ships stop goes kind of Disney. Thankfully this was about as close as we got.

I mentioned staring at the ocean earlier. It wasn't meant to be funny. I like staring at the ocean.


Between Cozumel and the passage through Belize's barrier islands, we could see the squalls approaching. There would be a mass of cloud tracking perpendicular to our course and, just before it hit, you could even see the line of rain coming up. Then, a half hour later, you'd be through it.


After passing through the channel at English Caye (you can even see it on Google Maps) we anchored alongside a few little specks of land only a few feet above sea level.


Fred and some clouds.


Me and an island and some clouds.


A boat and a Fred and some clouds.


It had been a long haul from our previous anchorage at Cozumel: something like 250 miles and 30 hours of continuous sailing. We'd earned our drinks.


I strung my hammock on deck that night.


There was lightning off in the distance.


We stopped at Placencia, Belize for fresh provisions.

Funny story about Belizean immigration officials: we arrived on a Monday that happened to be a national holiday, so obviously all government offices were closed. When we checked in the next day, we were (1) yelled at for not checking in at Belize City (doing so would have required sailing north - the wrong direction - after passing English Caye) and (2) charged overtime for checking in on a national holiday. But wait! It was now Tuesday, a normal business day, right? Ah, yes, but one cannot check in and check out on the same day! Clearly, because we were checking out on Tuesday after having stayed only one day, we must have checked in on Monday, which would have required overtime.

That makes sense, right?

The Guatemalan immigration contingent, with Livingston in the background. In Belize, you have to go find the immigration office in order to be robbed. In Guatemala, the immigration office finds you. In Central America, this is known as "quality service."


The entrance to the Rio Dulce.


Sailing up the Rio Dulce is quite dramatic, what with the jungle clad cliffs towering above you.


I wish it hadn't been raining cats and dogs, though. This would prove to be a frequent wish over the next couple of months (Central America's rainy season begins around June 1st, shortly after my arrival in Guatemala).


Now that's local culture. That wasn't built to be kitschy for the tourists. That's someone's house.


Like I said, these people are still rocking it old school. They're sitting in a dug out tree trunk, by the way.


There is a hot spring and restaurant about half way up. Dave had been talking about it for days.


Quite frankly, I was underwhelmed.


The Maraya II, riding very prettily at anchor on the Rio Dulce.


Dave and Fred admiring the pretty boat.


Dave doesn't like beer ("Beer makes you fat!"), so we inquired as to the existence of mixed drinks at the little restaurant by the hot springs. There were none. So Dave was all like, "No vodka? Wtf, brb."


Shockingly, the marina had a bar. Pretty swanky. Photo credit: Steve Jost Photography.

After sailing up the Rio Dulce and below the bridge at Fronteras, we arrived at Marina Tortugal, where Dave would be anchoring the Maraya II for hurricane season. I still had a few days of work, cleaning the boat, stowing sails and lines and whatnot and, in general, getting the Maraya II ready to sit at dock for 6 months. This included washing the hull and polishing all of the brightwork (ie, anything made of stainless steel, of which there was a lot).

Now before I get to the real point, let me just note that while I was washing the hull, standing in the little inflatable dinghy holding onto the boat with one hand and sponging with the other, stripped to just board shorts and still sweating buckets, Mike, the marina owner, saw what I was up to and informed me that what I was doing was not necessary. That Dave's dock fees included regular washings. When I asked Dave about this, his deadpan response was "Yeah, but if I have you do it, it gets done the way I want."

Essentially, Dave's a dick. A dick with a great big boat, to be sure, but a dick nonetheless.

Right, so, the point: while cleaning the hull I came across some black scuff marks from the rubber bumpers that get deployed between the hull and the dock. When the big soft sponge I was using didn't clean off the scuff marks, I used the dishpad I had along with me for scrubbing the brightwork. Not steel wool, or anything like that. No. A dishpad, the kind with a green side and a yellow side. A green side that is apparently just about a million times too rough to be applied to a sailboat hull.

Fine, it was scratched. Weeelll.. maybe scratched isn't the right word. It was dulled. Where before the hull had been so highly polished you could see yourself in it, it was now, for a 4' long, 6" wide strip, somewhat less reflective. In Dave's eyes, though, I might as well have spray painted swastikas and giant penises over every square inch of his precious boat. He couldn't even look at me he was so pissed. He just said I needed to get my stuff and get off the boat. Now.

$12/night. Oh, yeah. Photo credit: Steve Jost Photography.

So I checked into the nicest dorm I have ever seen, opened a tab at the bar and hoped like hell that he paid me.

After a few nervous (and progressively drunker) hours, he did, indeed, give me my money. Talking to some other crew at the bar that day, I learned that no captain in his right mind would stiff his crew. Word gets around. And I derived some pleasure from Fred apologizing on Dave's behalf: "He's kind of always been a hard ass like that. My wife doesn't know how I stand him."

I ended up spending several more days at the marina, waiting for the weather to clear. Tropical storm Agatha had flooded towns, caused landslides, washed out bridges and generally made a royal pain in the ass of herself (all I saw was heavy rain, thoroughly indistinguishable from your standard Central American thunderstorm). In the same couple of days, a volcano erupted and a couple of sinkholes opened up in Guatemala City.

That's one helluva one..


..two..


..three punch. It's like for one week, Guatemala was covering for the rest of the world in terms of natural disasters. "Don't worry about it guys, I got it." Photo credits: one, two and three.

Volcanoes, sinkholes and tropical storms are all good omens, right? Right?