Fushing Feefs
[21:13] [Wednesday, May 02, 2007]
** Wrote this post several days ago and meant to post it ... We have been pretty busy pursuing a business opportunity, alerting authorities and fellow cruisers about the mishap, searching for a place to stay this summer and other errand-type shtuff .. Which is all hard to do when you don't have a motorized dinghy!
[27.Apr.07] So ... yeah. We left our cozy anchorage off Marios Marina last Sunday with three other boats: Sea Dragon, My Jo and Skol. Brady and I rounded up the fleet to tour Lago de Izabal, and damn, we had a great time! Izabal never ceases to excite us, and being able to jump into the water at any time made everyone very happy. Though we can't say we had any blistering hot days ... We hope cool breezes from either of the sierra ranges are a regular occurance on the lake; they will make our summer on the Rio far easier to handle.
At any rate. Our last two destinations were Ensenada los Logartos and El Estor. We took a dinghy tour of los Logartos at the crack of dawn, and WOW. Of course we remembered how incredible the estuary is from our last visit, but the jungle growing right over the water still left us breathless. And the howler monkeys!! Last time we visited Logartos, we saw a single troop of howlers resting quietly at the top of a tree so tall we mistook the primates for termite nests at first. This time, there was no mistaking any apes. We passed six troops of howlers, all waking up, munching lazily on the foliage they had nestled in overnight.
One family of three hung upside down in a tree whose branches extended over the creek. We all dinghied right beneath them, and for a while the monkeys seemed not to care. The littlest one watched us with wide, curious eyes, crawling slowly closer as he chewed on a cluster of leaves ... As he crawled face-first toward us, however, daddy monkey decided he had had quite enough of our intrusion. He squatted up on his perch and hooted a warning before breaking into a full-blown howl, which was far louder than you might expect from such a small creature!
We hung around for another minute or so, enamoured by the monkeys' show, and then moved on down the creek, snapping pictures and practically whispering at each other.
Our next stop was El Estor, which Brady and I found to be unimpressive but, as with all of Guatemala, worth a look. Everyone also needed to pick up some staple provisions (eggs, bread, etc.), so we headed out just before lunch and planned to spend the afternoon on the town.
The second time around, El Estor was much easier to handle than our first visit. We beached all four dinghies and chained/cabled them together, and then poked around the mercado and located a neat little palapa restaurant for lunch. Most everyone we communicated with treated us warmly, lunch was delicious without being expensive, and our self-guided tour of the town hall (a huge coral building with a very Spanish facade and an inner courtyard/garden) left us feeling as though we just hadn't given the town much of a chance before.
Still, as with Sonatina and Samcharsa on our last visit, we chose not to anchor right off town. A park/finca a couple miles east offered a more protected anchorage, a prettier backdrop and -- we thought -- better security.
We spent a quiet evening in our own company, having borrowed some movies from Skol and deciding to finish off some old leftovers for dinner. The sun set in all the glory one would expect on Izabal, sinking slowly behind the mountains to our north, setting them on fire with its final, brilliant orange glow. We fell asleep without the generator on, allowing our wind scoop to cool us off in the "V" berth, the fan providing just enough help so we could sleep in comfort.
"Team Adventure, Team Adventure," came over the radio at daybreak, waking us. "Team Adventure -- Sea Dragon has lost a dinghy!"
I jumped from the sheets and poked my head out of the berth hatch, still blinking sleep from my eyes but very much awake. Lo and behold, a cayuco approached Sea Dragon under power, towing a motorless dinghy behind ... I looked around, startled, and noticed then My Jo and Skol had lost their dinghies, also. Brady asked me to report what had happened, not being entirely certain the call we'd heard was real. He jumped from the berth and headed for the cockpit on hearing the news ... And we found our dinghy still tied to the side, but it lacked the outboard.
"Oh ... Shit."
A sort of stifled chaos ensued for a while, as the supposed fishermen who had found the three dinghies floating on the lake returned them to their rightful owners. We found the padlock we used to lock the outboard on the dinghy transom in two pieces, broken open with bolt cutters. Everyone else found locks in the same condition, and any other valuable items taken from the dinks. Gas tanks, Skol's dinghy anchor, Sea Dragon's brand-name sandals ... All gone. But no one was boarded, and the dinghies -- despite their painters having been cut -- had been left intact.
I am tired of speculating about how this could have been avoided, or how it was that none of us heard or noticed the thieves in action. God appeared after we had finished watching our second movie looking very rat-like and dripping all over the cabin. I leaned out into the cockpit to make sure he hadn't punctured the dinghy or damaged anything to get back aboard, but I cannot say for certain I saw our outboard. It just was not something I even thought about.
Skol paid the "fishermen" a substantial reward for returning the dinghies, and all of a sudden they thought perhaps they knew who might have our motors ... If only they could use a phone. They tried to gather reward payment from Sea Dragon and My Jo, insisting they could help us further ... No mas denero, they were told, and suddenly their services were terminated. We hauled anchor almost immediately and got the hell out.
We felt violated, humiliated ... And now our life is far more complicated than we'd like. We can be thankful no one was hurt. We can be thankful everyone still has a dinghy -- though the cost of another outboard will sting, at least we don't have to track down another dink. And we did have a wonderful trip.
But man, I hate thieves.
