Finally, Back To Fortuitous and the Rio Dulce!

 We arrived at Fortuitous on March 6th. Here we are with our travelling sideshow of boat parts, guitar, uke, and clothing.

 Fortuitous was in decent shape, considering she's been here two long years.  Last time we were here, over a year ago, we had lots of mould and mildew. We bought a dehumidifier and, WOW, what a difference!!!  Not a speck of either of the "M & M's"!!!

 She was nice and  clean and the gel coat was still in good shape.  Ropes and lines were green and gross, though!  Let the cleaning begin!!

 This is the view of our "backyard".  This is the palapa for Monkey Bay.  Unfortunately, we haven't had a lot of time to use this area.  When there's some time, it's dark and the bugs come out...they love me!!

 Orchids growing wild on the Monkey Bay Marina property.

 SOOOOOOOO beautiful!!!

 These guys are our constant companions and seem to  "laugh" at us all day long, chastising us for wasting a beautiful day working!!

 They all have their pecking order and fight over who gets which post!

 Efrain, the caretaker/dock worker gives us a hand cleaning ropes, lines, and sunbrella covers. There was a lot of outside work, and with 30 + degrees, and more than 90% humidity, we were happy to pay $5 an hour for the extra help!

 Glad to be working on the "shady" side of the boat for awhile.  We had to sand, scrape, and re-varnish toe rails,grab rails, and bow decoration.  I'd made covers for all, but the wind had blown off the toe rail covers in a couple of spots.  The marina manager did his best to keep them in place, but that's a tough job.  I've now added some more weight bags, and ties so, hopefully, they will stay in place better next season.

 Fishermen come by daily.  They throw that ball out aheadof their dugout canoe, then follow with the net.

This boat, with lots of foodstuffs, came by our marina.  This is the easy way to provision. Veggies and fruits were very nice, and the meat was pre-frozen...gotta love that!!

This is the HARD way to provision.  Carry lots of bags full of stuff and shop at all the little stalls.

Fronteras has to be one of my least favourite places to be or shop. The stalls pour out in to the street, as you can see.

The foodstuffs are fine, but it is so hot and humid that it is a brutal job to go from stall to stall looking for what you need.

Add to that, that this is a one road town and all the traffic to and from Guatemala City, Belize, and Flores passes down this street.

You have to be especially careful of the cattle trucks...for the obvious reasons!!

These large trucks pass within inches of the stalls...which means less than that between YOU and the trucks!

Somehow, even though these are good shots, it doesn't really look as bad as it is! You have to be there, I guess!!  Trust me, you wouldn't want to be!!

These aren't the best shots as it took Ralph a bit too long to get the camera out. 

However, I just had to include them...take a look at the freeboard on this canoe!!  Not much between these boys and the water, is there?  Pretty scary considering the pangas and other motorboats aren't that considerate about their speed!

This is the local gravel truck.  It comes and goes, most days, just behind our boat.

We were planning on heading down river to Livingston, today, and checking out of Guatemala. Then, we were heading out for an over-nighter to Roatan tomorrow morning.  However, the weather report says there is a front coming and the winds will pick up to 25 kts.  We're not fond of that, nor the resulting sea conditions, so we'll wait here for a couple of days.