Oceanic Ventures, Inc.
The Strange Chronicles
October 2000
October 05, 2000 No swimming in the Rio Dulce. There is the exaggerated problem of poisonous snakes and the rains are rumored to bring them out in droves, or schools or pods or whatever the gangs of young toughs are called. A more likely problem is simply bacteria in the river from the very large number of humans living in third world conditions along the banks. That leads to a nasty worm who works his way into your system and stays there for awhile. I can't remember the name of the worm, but he can be introduced by walking barefoot on beaches with traces of human feces or swimming in polluted water. Then there's a common problem in South and Central American rivers - liver flukes.
Of course, all of this is second hand knowledge passed from cruiser to cruiser. Not that we're too paranoid but we do want to be careful. We wade in the river near the mouth of springs, wash our clothes in swift moving river water away from population groups, etc. However we've pickled our water maker and are enjoying collecting rainwater from the almost nightly showers.
We're also living with screens on all hatches and surrounding the cockpit. The local clinic confirmed Dengue Fever and Malaria in the area. Dengue is passed by a daytime mosquito. Malaria comes with the early evening, night variety. Not too many mosquitoes around, but we're not taking any chances since both diseases require long recovery periods.
The river is an experience and the fresh water is a treat, but we're looking forward to getting out into the clear waters of the Caribbean Sea.
October 04, 2000 Belize is a disaster [from hurricane Keith]. The marinas are full of sand, turtle grass and trash. It time for us to get serious about changing our plans. [Carl and Karen were planning to return to Belize after hurricane season for a brief visit before moving on back across the Caribbean.]
During the hurricane’s pass through Central America all we really saw were cloudy skies and a gentle breeze. There were 12’ seas at Livingston, the entrance of the river but nothing here. We have our awnings and rain collection plumbing up and have been hoping for rain but nothing yet.
October 02, 2000 My old binoculars were Steiners of course. Commanders I believe. They are good binoculars and lasted a dozen years or so in the tough environment of a boat. However, they're having two problems.
First the rubber, protective coating is separating from the body of the binoculars. Others have had this problem and reported the rubber eventually cracks. The larger problem is what appears to be a "lens fungus" attacking the inside of the optics. I've carefully cleaned the lenses with proper fluid and paper, but the optics remain fuzzy. My meager understanding is the lens, or perhaps binoculars, can be disassembled, cleaned and recoated. However the treatment only seems to last for a year or so. Since I bought a new pair, I'd love to have the optics cleaned and have the Steiners as backup. [Oceanic Ventures, Inc. is a Steiner Dealer as well as a dealer for a number of other optics such as the Fujinons that Carl purchased as a replacement for the Steiners]
I chose Fujinons after talking to Bob on s/v Ayacha. He'd spent some time looking at various manufactures when he bought his last pair. He's owned a pair of average binoculars, a pair of Steiners and finally his current pair of Fujinons. I believe his Funinons rated similar to the Zeiss binoculars.
Binoculars are very important to us. GPS is nice, but charts aren't as accurate as the position data. When approaching a new landfall in an area where we're not sure of the chart errors, we navigate in the traditional mode. The binoculars, handheld compass, triangles, dividers, a pencil and an eraser are in the cockpit and kept busy plotting our relationship to the land. We keep tuned up by navigating with these DR techniques when moving around an area. I'm looking forward to the built in compass
Belize is the most confusing area we've been in with all the Cays hiding behind each other. Several times we've decided to relax, listen to music, enjoy the ride and let our electronic charts keep track of where we are. What a luxury!
October 01, 2000 Our first couple of nights we anchored off La Marina just up the river from Livingston. We enjoyed three nights in a row of dinner ashore. It was served family style. Basically all you can eat for $7.50 US. The third evening was a large platter of mysterious looking BBQ ribs. The owner claimed they were pork ribs but I've eaten a lot of pig and the ribs were never this small or this round. There are some very large members of the rodent family in South America and we suspect we enjoyed a dinner of rat ribs - tasty, tender and not too much fat.
We made the trip up the river through the canyon early in the morning. It was quite an experience to be surrounded by all that green after seeing almost nothing but blue for so long. We're anchored off the local clinic just inside the canyon. The Rio is very broad here and there are a couple of settlements along either bank. We enjoy watching the children heading to school in their dugouts, the fisherman throwing nets and the ferries running people to and from the small towns. With the exception of weekend traffic, this is a nice quiet area. The earlier $7.50 dinners seemed like a great deal until we ate at a local restaurant and had spinach quiche, chicken stew, salad, pasta, potatoes and fresh tortillas for $2.60.
Hurricane Keith is tearing up the Belize reefs not to mention the small settlements and Belize City. The storm isn't moving much and this is the forth or fifth day of very strong winds and heavy rains concentrated in the area. The Rio Dulce is a very good hurricane hole which is the main reason we choose to explore here this time of year.
We listen to the Ham radio hurricane watch net for news. This is a group of amateurs who operate an information collection service in times of disaster. The information is gathered from ham radio operators in the affected areas and passed to the local governments, various relief agencies and the hurricane forecast center in Florida. People forget how quickly a major storm will disrupt normal lines of communications. Telephone and electric lines go down and your cell phone battery dies after a few hours. The ham radio operators fire up their small gas generators, string some wire to replace their larger antennas when they blow down and continue operating.