Rio Dulce Return

It has been a long wi-fi-free week. Sorry it has taken me so long to update.

We arrived at the airport at 4 am for our 6 o’clock flight out of Oklahoma City. They got us all on board but held up the plane on the tarmac due to Houston fog. We finally got off about three hours late and, of course, missed our connection to Guatemala City. United has only two daily flights to Guat City so they re-booked us for the 7pm flight. This time, instead of being stuck on a plane waiting, we got to use our free United Club passes. We claimed a seating area and piled up a plate of free snacks. We napped and read and Lily found a friend to hang out with. We finally arrived in Guat City at 10pm and headed to the hotel.

Our boat neighbor, Michel, patching up a net.

The next morning, we hailed a cab for the short trip to the Litegua bus station. Questions followed which seemed to be focused on whether we wanted a round trip or one-way trip. We replied “one-way” and jumped in the cab. We wove in and out of morning traffic and passed up Zone 1 which is were the bus station is located. As we headed farther away, Randall asked if we were headed to Zone 1 and the bus driver replied “No Antigua?” Apparently he thought he was taking us for the one hour drive up through the mountains to Antigua. Thank goodness we cleared up this issue before we got out of town. We took a maze of single lane back streets and ended up at the bus station with only a few minutes to purchase tickets, go to the restroom and get on board. I sat down in some seats up front, forgetting that Litegua has assigned seats so we had to relocate once a concerned Guatemalen senora started repeating “otra personas. Otra personas” at us and looking at her tickets.

We got into Rio Dulce mid-afternoon. Foxtrot was floating right were we had left her, looking a little like the hundreds of semi-abandoned sailboats we used to see in Kemah whose owners didn’t have time for sailing and swabbing the decks. We opened the door and the moldy air came flowing out. We have spent the last three days moving things around to wipe down cupboards and cushions. We sorted clothes into two groups: too moldy to save and the maybe-try-to-save pile. We did have a nice welcome back pizza party Wednesday night with Yollata’s Scott, Tracy, Will and Molly.

The next few days were more of the same but we did manage to take a swimming break each day. There were a number of items missing, too. The guy we left in charge of cleaning the boat dropped by so we asked him about the items. He confirmed that he might have them. We explained that we needed all of things back on the boat. He left to go get them and returned with a few of our items and a few things which we had never seen. We explained that our socket set was a better one with all the parts. He is still looking around for our stuff and is supposed to return with them and a growing list of other missing items. We shall see.

Water Testing

One of our tasks since getting back on board was to fill the water tanks. Nauna Juana Resort does not have filtered/purified water at the dock, only river water. We will have to buy purified water to drink but have also been trying to decide how best to treat the river water so we can use it for cleaning.

Lily conducted a water testing comparison with our TDS water tester.

She got the following results: Purified Water – 36 ppm, Filtered water obtaining using a small 0.10 micron filter – 91, Nauna Juana Faucet Water – 91 and Straight From the River water – 91. We were surprised that the river water was so clean of particles and also that our filter did not really change the ppm any. Also, we aren’t really sure if Nauna Juana runs their faucet water through any type of filter and it appears they do not.

So we ended up filing our water tanks with filtered river water, treated with bleach. We will us it for cleaning and probably some cooking. The purified drinking water we will buy will be about $10/week so that isn’t too bad.

Taking a reading.

Today we officially started back to homeschool. Lily spent most of Monday morning on math and this afternoon we have been reading an English/Spanish book about a sheep-herding dog with Will and Molly. The kids read the English and I try to read the Spanish. We also now have the dinghy running so hopefully I will get some more pics taken around here. I will post a Marina tour soon as Nauna Juana is quite pretty.