GETTING TO THE RIO DULCE

When we left Key West in December, our plan was to sail to Isla Mujeres, an island near Cancun.  We got comfortable in a marina at Isla Mujeres and began learning our way around town, and picking up enough Spanish to get by.


Several other cruisers at our marina had been to the Rio Dulce, a river leading inland from the Atlantic coast of Guatemala.  It sounded exotic and beautiful and everyone said we HAD to go there.  So, after two months at Isla Mujeres, we headed south.


We took our time, making day trips and stopping at night to anchor.  Sometimes, the anchorages were in the lee of a remote island.  

 
Other times, we stopped at small fishing villages along the coast.  Once, we stayed several days at a marina associated with a four-star resort.  Our marina fee was $25/night and included use of all the resort amenities.

In no particular hurry, we day-hopped down the coast of Mexico, then on to Belize.  There were a couple of overnight runs when there wasn't a good anchorage, but most of our trips were slow and uneventful.   


The second largest reef in the world extends down the Yucatan coast.   In Mexico, it comes and goes very close to shore.  In Belize, it is several miles off shore in some places and we could travel between the reef and the shoreline, giving us protection from any bad weather.

Cay Caulker is a small island off the coast of Belize.  It's very laid back, as you can see by the sign in front of this bar advertising "happy day" instead of "happy hour."

There are dozens of islands off the coast of Belize between the mainland and the reef.

I asked these kids if I could take their picture and they immediately went into "pose" mode.

 Finally, we reached the Rio Dulce.  I'll show you what we found in the next post.