02fpart5 - Page: 2 of 5

After that, it was time to head for Honduras. We made overnight anchor stops at Tres Puntas, Bahia Diamonte (diamond bay) and finally checked into Honduras at the bay island of Isla Utila. These are all places we have visited and written about before, so I'll just skim through this part. After Utila, we made for the north shore of Honduras to La Ceiba where we put the boat "on the hard" to paint the bottom. The route from the Rio to La Ceiba was about 150 nm. The weather and seas for the trip were ideal.

At the shipyard, we cleaned and repainted Francesca's bottom and in the process, I was bitten a few times by mosquitos. After 5 days on the hard, Francesca got wet again and we went a half mile up river to our favorite Lagoon Marina. We planned to spend a week or two there to restock and do some small maintenance jobs. During the stay I came down with malaria again. Bummer. Well, we have been through this before and had the medicinal cure on hand. It wasn't a big deal.

Also, while at the dock, we had a norther roll through with 50+ knot winds. A dredge barge had just recently been moored at the mouth of the river leading to the shipyard and marina. During the storm, the barge broke its moorings and drifted toward a rocky disaster, but the crew scuttled the barge before it hit the rocks. All this occurred at, you guessed it, 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM. Before the barge went down, the crew was safely taken off.

At the marina, Rita and Tony the owners, were just as nice as we remember them and it was a good visit. The marina is doing very well and nearly all of the slips were full, all of the time.

While the Gulf War raged, we were able to follow it with the SSB radio and the BBC broadcasts. The BBC had excellent 24 hr coverage.

Also during this time, our friends on the sailing vessel "Enkidu", whom we hoped to cruise to Panama with, were making their way down the Mexican and Belizean coasts. They arrived at Utila just about the time a really big weather window opened up. The weather forecast promised calm winds and seas for a week or more. Perfect for a trawler, but not so perfect for a sailboat. We had to take advantage of it even though Enkidu was not ready to go. Many of the boats at the marina had sung the praises of Panama. After several years of visiting the NW Caribbean, it had become as familiar as the Intracoastal waterway and we were well baited for new experiences while heading south.