What's Missing

This is not a story I wanted to tell, but it is too often part of the cruising life.  We discovered yesterday morning that our dinghy with outboard was stolen during the night.  For those not cruising this is equivalent to having your car stolen.  We are backed into our slip and we raise the dinghy up on the davits so we felt pretty safe.  This marina like all on the river has had dinghies and outboards taken before but they were in the water at our dinghy dock or otherwise easily accessible.  This was the most brazen they have been since they had to board Ariel while we were sleeping to release the lift lines.  There have been a number of thefts recently and based on past patterns they will intensify into the holiday season.  They are only interested in the outboard and sometimes the discarded dinghy is recovered.  So far no word on ours.

I immediately had the Navy called in.  They patrol the river, attempting to stop this sort of thing and will be notified if someone spots our dinghy.  They were a sight when they arrived, as they showed up in mass, heavily armed to take down the report. 

I then went to the police station with John our marina manager to file a report.  John speaks pretty good Spanish which is absolutely essential to file the report.  Even at that it was a struggle.  I did secure a police report to submit to our insurance company.  I am scheduled to travel to Puerto Barrios to further meet with the police.  After that they would send an inspector to investigate the crime.  I doubt I will follow through with the visit to Puerto Barrios as I am certain the time and money expended will not lead to a recovery.

We have ordered a replacement dinghy which will be put in a container on a ship leaving Los Angeles on October 31 with an expected arrival here in three weeks.  We have been down this road before waiting on a container so we have proper expectations.  I met with the Yamaha dealer here and if I understood enough Spanish he can get what I want delivered from Guatemala City one day after I order it.

I guess we will still be at Monkey Bay for Thanksgiving this year.  It wasn't what we were expecting, but we just go with the flow. 

Ready For New Season

We are back in Guatemala ready for a new season.  We have been back on Ariel just one week, but have already accomplished much.  There is always a lot of cleaning as the tropics, during the summer in particular is very harsh on a boat.  The interior was again just as we left it, protected all season by a dehumidifier.  This was our second time returning and it was so much less stressful as we are now familiar with Guatemala City.  We were in luck this time as John, our marina manager happen to be making a trip to the city so we caught a ride back in his van, thus avoiding the scheduled five hour bus ride.  As it was, the van ride which should have been four to four and one half hours took eight hours.  As is typical on the mountain roads in Guatemala after heavy rains, there were many landslides which were partially blocking the road.  We were extremely thankful we were not on the bus. 

We had a wonderful summer, especially our time with our grandchildren and their parents.  Last year just before returning to Ariel we bought some property just outside Corning, New York.  We actually completed the closing after we returned to Guatemala so we didn't really get a chance to really know what we had.  In the mid 1800's it was a farm, which is still evidenced by the remains of a stone fence around the perimeter.  It has long since been allowed to re-forest.  In 1935 a hunting cabin was constructed on the site and this was added onto over the years, so that it is now a small house but in need of much improvement.  There was a tenant at the time we purchased and it appeared she was taking good care of the place so we let her stay.  It worked well until this past spring when she basically ran out of money.  We returned in May and started working on the issue and finally in August we had her and her possessions out.

We worked very hard all summer on repairs to the house and correcting some drainage issues with the land.  We discovered that the previous owners had discarded scrap metal along one of our lanes.  We recovered almost 10,000 pounds of metal which more than paid for the mini backhoe we needed to rent to move it. 



1982 John Deere - A Landlubber's Life

We moved in in August.  We soon found it very comfortable as a summer home, but  Ariel is our primary home.

We plan to leave the river soon first returning to the Bay islands of Honduras and then we'll see.