Team Sol Searcher + Team SeaYeti == Team Adventure!
[16:33] [Monday, March 05, 2007]
Friday morning we headed back into the lake with SeaYeti. Our first stop was back to Denny's beach on the south side of the lake for swimming, frolicking and beer.
We had the hammock hanging over the side and put God in it. He decided he did not want to be in the hammock and attempted to jump back onto the boat but missed completely, going into the drink. We quickly got him out and he was much cooler after taking a dip. Poor cat has to wear a fur coat year round and it has been very hot and humid the last few days.
In the morning we motored across the lake back to Finca de Paraiso to share the falls and caves with SeaYeti. We have been there three times and we never get tired of the place.
Everytime we visit we discover something new, whether it is a new little cave full of bats or another geo-thermal pocket spewing hot water or just picking up rock after rock expecting to find gold. Several times during the day I exclaimed, "Gold!!!" or thrust any green-veined rock into the air shouting, "Jade!!"
After a couple hours at the falls we began to make our way up the stream to the cave through which Rio Caliente's major source runs. We waded straight up the river and climbed over huge rocks carved by thousands of years of water and made our way to the mouth of the cave within 45 minutes.
I always enjoy gulping down the water that flows from the cave. It is crystal and cold and is the best water I have ever tasted, not to mention it has been purified by aeons of gold and jade.
We swam the 70 or so yards into the cave and within the first 20 we were engulfed in blackness. Our flashlights only offered a pinpoint of light in the vast blackness and always in the back of our minds was the thought, "What if the flashlights stop working?"
As we swam further in we began to hear a roaring sound. It is the first of many waterfalls in the cave and is usually where most visitors stop. We attempted to take pictures here and then continued on. We climbed above the waterfall and proceeded to the next, which is about 8 feet high.
After our senses were overloaded we turned back.
There is always a bit of anxiety in the cave. The mind is always playing out scenarios like, "What if I slip off this rock and break my leg in here?"
"What if there is a sink hole at the base of this fall that sucks into a sub-subterranean cavern and I am taken into some far off vein of the cave with no hope of ever returning?"
"What if there's a tremor (Guatemala has them often) and this cathedral ceiling lands on my head?
"Or the seams burst and one of those geo-thermal pockets burps boiling water?"
These are some of the thoughts that pass through one's mind that not only make the experience unnerving but exciting.
In the future I would love to return with proper gear and food for several days and see how far I could really go. We have heard this cave system continues for miles.
Exhausted, we made our way back to the palapa on the shore for drinks and to celebrate another day of cheating death. After the sun went down we enjoyed a spectacular lunar eclipse over the lake. We only managed to catch the second half of the eclipse, which left us no time to prepare any background music; namely Pink Floyd's, "Dark Side of the Moon."
While we slept, God caught a bat on deck and managed to ingest half its wing ... Apparently, bat does not taste as good as river finch. I made it clear to him I would not be kissing him as long as he decided to eat bats. Luckily he received his rabies vaccination back in November.
In the morning the winds began to pick up and SeaYeti raised sails for an excellent daysail. We raised our sails about noon and as the day wore on the winds increased. We had sailed all the way back over to the south side of the lake seeking a protected anchorage for the night but as we arrived the winds switched around and were howling directly into what was supposed to be our calm anchorage.
With winds blowing a constant 22 knots with a max gust of 28.8 recorded we debated whether to stay there and deal with an uncomfortable night or motor back to Mario's Marina. Despite the setting sun and having to motor through the darkness we chose Mario's. It was amazing to see Lago de Izabal change from glass to something you would experience off shore in blue water, but that lake can get very rough. We plowed our way back through white capped waves and flashed our spotlight several times on many of the local boats speeding by, whose skippers can somehow afford a 100hp outboard but not a single light.
We await Wednesday's mail call and hope our parts arrive.
