Third time lucky

As a rule of thumb, we had discovered that we weren't too keen on places called San Pedro. The one on lake Atitlan was a smelly, dirty looking place (in its defence, the worst part of town was the tourist bit, which seemed to be suffering from a hangover), The one on Ambergris Caye was such a shock to us after the peace and quiet of Caye Caulker that we pretty much left on the boat after we arrived.

Sn Pedro Sula, coming hot on the heels of the Kir affair, had an opportunity to redeem the good name of saint Pedro.

Our Taxi driver was very proud of Honduras and, whilst swerving in and out of traffic on the motorway; honking his horn for many reasons (some of which were a mystery, most of which were reasonably, if not worryingly, obvious) and nattering away on his mobile phone - managed to give me a running commentary on the many attractions we passed.

"Beautiful View", "Clothes Factory", "Cement Factory", "Big Cement Factory", "Bad Smell (Sewage works)" - Honduras has all the things to drag in the tourists - most of them were missing from our guide book for some reason.

After trying to locate our hotel in the metropolis (San Pedro Sula is the second city of Honduras), by talking to anyone he stopped next to in traffic and asking them if they knew where it was, our driver hit upon the novel solution to his lack of knowledge by stopping in the middle of town, pointing to a police car and informing us that it would be illegal for him to go any further with us. 10/10 for style - not going to get him a tip though.

We arrived at the Copantl and Keri arranged to fly out to Roatan that very afternoon. We said a tearful goodbye to our adopted Canadian and retreated to the pool for a swim.

T had had enough of being on an adventure and decided that we were going to be tourists for a while. We booked a flight for the next day to Panama City and, as we were due to arrive at midnight, booked a hotel for the first night.

Our stay in Honduras was to be very brief.

Exit strategy

The three of us (Keri, Trudi and myself) were less than convinced of the ability of the boat and Eric to safely deliver us to Utila. Eric had stuck the pipe together with a bit of epoxy and claimed that it now worked - however - luckily for him - he still made for the safe waters of an anchorage at Puerto Cortes.

Eric, Margot and Mango (pronounced Mongo - a la francais) the dog set off in the tender for port to get some extra food.

We held a council of war.

T was not going another fathom on that boat. Keri wasn't keen either. I'd have taken my chances - but I guess that would have been daft. When Eric returned, we told him that I'd always wanted to visit Puerto Cortes (keeping a straight face should have been quite hard - given the sight of the busiest container port in Central America strewn before us, however necessity is a great aid in controlling facial expressions).

After a bit of grumbling and ensuring that we didn't want our money back - he agreed to let us off in the morning.

After a sleepless night (Eric disappeared into town after smoking a joint or two and did not reappear until 8am - I was convinced we were about to be attacked by pirates) we got off the boat and made landfall in the miniature boat that Eric carried with him as a tender.

T survived the three minute journey by talking to Mango.

After polite farewells at the Immigration office - we got in a taxi to San Pedro Sula and beat the hell out of dodge.

We learned many lessons on the Kir. One day we may have recovered enough to document them.

Pear shaped

We had been sailing for 9 hours when Eric decided that we needed to put a tack in to get us around a headland that was about 5 miles in front of us. He started the engine to help a bit and then had a bit of trouble getting the foresail in (it was a roller foresail and a halyard had got caught in the sail, making it impossible to furl completely.) I went up front to help (by holding the halyard out of the way) and we got the job done.

At this point Eric said to me that there was a problem - I thought he said that the rudder was broken - which would have been a teency-weency problem. However, he actually said that some rubber had gone. The connecting hose of the sea-water cooling system had perished and broken in two. We had no engine.

Now, on its own, on a sailing boat with favourable winds, the engine isn't the most important thing. However, if the wind changes, or you want to maneuver in port, or charge the batteries or anything else goes wrong - it is kind of critical. We instantly agreed to make for the nearest port - which was about four miles due downwind of us - Puerto Cortes.

The natives were getting more than restless.

... into the fire

It didn't start too well. Eric (our French captain's name) prepared some lovely smelling chicken with garlic and all sorts of things and placed them on the rail-mounted BBQ at the rear of the boat. After about 10 minutes of yummy smells wafting to our nostrils, we heard a bang, a sizzle and a very loud Merde!. The BBQ had deposited its contents into the Rio Dulce. Margot (Eric's travelling companion) whipped up a pleasant enough substitute.

A much less sweltering night saw us awaken to a pretty dawn and another sight of Livingston as we motored past.

Once we were out of the bay, sails were hoisted and we we on our way, driven by nothing but the wind.

T started getting a bit concerned about two things.

1. Eric's penchant for sleeping and letting the auto-pilot steer the boat.
   
2. The amount of heel (leeward leaning for you land-lubbers) that the Kir was doing.
   

I wasn't unduly bothered, as the heel was well within limits (it was quite mild, if truth be told) and the lack of Captain vigilance could be made up for with us setting up an informal watch.

Out of the frying pan ...

It's amazing what a good night's sleep in a safe, warm bed can do. On Friday morning, we decided to discover just how easy it would be to get to Honduras. T and I just wanted to get over the border to somewhere we could carry on our travels from - Keri was trying to get to Roatan - one of the Bay islands.

We discovered that the fast lanchas would only go if there were six or more people wanting to go, and we were just about to book a whole boat for the three of us - although we would have been happy to share the costs had others joined us, when we were introduced to a chap at a bar who was about to set off for Utila (another Bay Island) the very next day on a sailing boat. We couldn't believe our luck.

I was dispatched to look at the boat whilst the girls showered and did whatever it is that girls do.

When I returned, I gave a less than glowing report, however, spurred on by what can only be described as It can't be any worse than syndrome - we talked ourselves into it.

So, at six pm we found ourselves clambering over rusty oil tanks to reach a lancha to take us to the Kir

Las Sirenas - day six

Again, we were moving at the crack of dawn, with yet another unpleasant motor through the choppy seas.

T and I had decided against another night of purgatory on the Rio Dulce (it was about this time that the Pirate issue was mentioned by the crew) and so decide to alight at Livingston to see if we could get by boat to Honduras - that had been Keri's plan all along and so we decided to join her.

We left the party to enjoy their river cruise.

We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool and an OK restaurant - with local Garifuna dancers thrown in.

We had all suffered a bit from the sailing experience, lack of activity, the nightmare of the first night and the awful bashing through the wind and waves conspired to make the trip a little less than perfect. We enjoyed a nice hot shower (there we no showers on Las Sirenas!) and a nice big bed. Oh, and we will draw a veil over the toilet facilities on the boat:

Las Sirenas - day five

After a wet (the hatches didn't seal properly) and hot night, we awoke and had breakfast. On the horizon appeared a boat bringing our two missing Dutch passengers, once they had arrived - we set off to a new place.

Unfortunately, the wind had changed direction completely, so the engine was required once more - for a rather unpleasant 3 hour bash to another reef. That reef was nice.

Another wet, warm night followed.

Las Sirenas - days three and four

We spent two days moored firmly to the bottom - doing little but swimming, reading and sun-bathing (on Sunday - it rained on Monday).

Mala entertained us all with tales from Greenland - which seemed to consist of hunting and killing things, then carrying them back home to eat.

On one snorkelling trip, Mala found a shark minding its own business and resting at the bottom of the sea. After calling me over to have a look at it (which I thanked him for) he then dived down and pulled its tail (which I didn't).

Many fish were caught and prepared for our dinner - which was nice.

On Monday night, we had to shelter from the rain - in the rather cramped conditions below.

We still had not seen our missing two voyagers.

Las Sirenas - day two

After a most uncomfortable night, we awoke to the swaying of the now underway boat. The scenery was quite stunning and made up for the blood (to mosquitos), sweat and tears of the night just past.

We made our way to Livingston where we stopped to clear customs. Most of us chose to go for a refreshing swim in the crystal clear waters of the Rio Dulce as it flowed past the town. In retrospect, once we were out, we did think that the turgid brown sludge we had been bathing in may not have been as clean as we'd hoped. Nobody seemed to suffer any ill effects though.

The rest of the day was spent with the motor on, beating into the wind to reach our mooring point before sunset. Once we arrived, we swam around a bit and then tried to play UNO in a howling (but warm) gale.

Saturday night was cool and mossie-free - beautiful.