24 September 2011

We have been in Rio Dulce at Tijax Marina for almost a month now, most of the little stuff we needed to do is done and now it is time to enjoy the area for a while.  Our daughter Jessi flew in

Bridge to the rubber plantation

from Maui for a month long visit which is great to have her with us for a while.  We have made many friends at several of the marinas on the Rio and it seems the “pitch-in dinners” together is never

Walks to cottages at Tijax

ending. Last week it was bar-b-que chicken at Moko Marina with Matt, Carla, Lenny, Peggy, Miguel, Brian, and Jennifer.  Tomorrow is Miguel’s birthday party and it is going to be a shrimp boil.  Tonight Peter and Karla came over for dinner and we all had an enjoyable dinner on My Peace.

View of Fronteras from Tijax Marina

Swimming pool at Tijax Marina

  

View of the front of Tijax Marina

My Peace at Tijax Marina

Bridge over the Rio Dulce

Jessi and Rose at the Tijax Resturant

 Cottage at Tijax Marina

 Geff grillin' chicken at Moko Marina

Moko Marina group 

 Mia chillin' at Moka Marina

Today Rose, Jessi, and I took the dinghy up the Rio Dulce about 4 miles to Castillo de San Felipe, check out the web site at http://www.mayaparadise.com/izabal/riodulce/castillo.htm it was awesome and the history brings it all to life.  After touring the castle we walked out to the little

 Castillo de San Felipe

village at the entrance , we came by water, there was a hotel called the Buccaneer, it looked interesting so Rose and Jessi asked if they could look around, it was being remodeled but they

 Swinging Bridges at Buccaneer Hotel

allowed them in anyway, and they had a ball. The rooms were connected by swinging bridges one of which crossed a pool with 2 crocodiles in it.  Of course they had to play with the crocs.

Jessi & rose crocodile hunters 

The history of Castillo de San Felipe was interesting, seems that in the 1600s the Spanish treasure ships would come into Lago de Izabal in route to their various ports and lay up in the lake.  Didn’t

 Castillo de San Felipe

 take the pirates long to find them so the Spanish built a fort at the mouth of the lake where the Rio Dulce entered the lake. Over the next 94 years I think the pirates either controlled or destroyed the fort as quickly as the Spanish could rebuild it.  At one point they put a chain across the river to keep

 Castillo de San Felipe

the pirates out with little success.  At one point the pirates not only took control of the fort but also stole all the munitions and canons.  In 1955 the reconstruction project started which was successful

 Castillo de San Felipe

and the Castillo de San Felipe is open from 8 to 5 daily for tours.  If you ever are down this way and want to visit the castle, be sure to bring your own flashlight, the interior rooms are not lite and it is very hard to see what is inside them.

3 foot crocodile

The only bridge over the Rio Dulce is at Fronteras, it has a 90 foot vertical clearance, the only reason for the height is to accommodate the pleasure boats that come here to escape the hurricanes during the hurricane season.  There is no large commercial  vessels on the river, due to the “bar” at the mouth of the river in Livingston where the Rio Dulce empties into the Bay of Honduras commercial traffic cannot get into the Rio Dulce.  At one time in past history Livingston was a busy sea port, but

  6 foot crocodile

with no roads connecting Livingston to the rest of the world, the port was mover further south to Puerto Barrios which had overland access to the rest of the country.  The river is plenty deep to

navigate up river to Lago de Izabal with an average depth of well over 20 feet, but the bar remains at around 6 feet at a normal high tide and maybe as much as 8 feet on a full moon high tide.