Added S/V O’Hana’s blog to our links.

CB 25 August, 2014
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We met S/V O’Hana in Port Angeles last year. Then caught up with them in Newport Oregon and had a great drunken time waiting on weather to head further south.

We also visited what is possibly the best Taco Bell in North America with them.

They stopped in Half Moon Bay to work for another year. They are getting ready to head south next month to Mexico and beyond.

Check out thier website at http://www.svohana.com

I do not have any pictures of them. So here is a picture of us leaving Newport Oregon slightly hungover.

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Nothing very exciting happening.

CB 16 August, 2014
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This post is about a whole lot of nothing. Actually, that’s not true. It’s about our hammock.

Prior to us leaving on this trip on of my absolute favorite things to do while at anchor was to string up the hammock on the foredeck, between the forestay and mast. Grab a beer or rum and coke and a book and just chill the fug out.

I would sometimes (almost all the time) sit in my cube at work day dreaming about doing just this while at anchor in Mexico, or some other Central American country.

The sad, sad truth is. We have only strung up the hammock two or three times in the since we left Seattle in May 2013.

Once in Ried Harbor in the San Juan Islands, Once somewhere in Canada (I don’t recall where exactly), and one time in Ensenada, Mexico. That was in October 2013.

Not once since then.

The main reason is that it is so hot that we keep canvas tarps strung across the decks and cockpit to help keep the interior of the boat cooler. Without the shade, the decks get scorching hot and it radiates though the deck and heats it up down below.

That’s it. That is the entirety of this post. Now that I’ve read back through it. It’s not very exciting at all. Luckily the title sets you up for a little bit of a disappointment.

To make up for it, here is a video I just took of our view from where we are currently anchored.

God dammit, that was boring too.

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Surfin safari.

CB 7 August, 2014
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We are currently anchored in an estuary. Bahia de Jaltepeque in El Salvador.

Arcross the penisula on the ocean side there is a pretty shitty surf break, but a couple times a week we will grab the surfboard and head over there with a couple of our friends that are anchored here as well and are surfers too.

Actually, they are surfers. I’m just a person that owns a surfboard at this point. If your friends with me on Facebook, you’ll probably know that I ended up getting six stiches in my lower lip last week in an incredible display of my surfing skills.

A week or two prior to that we all decided we wanted to go surfing somewhere with an actual/good surf break.

So we rented a van and driver. Loaded that up with our boards and headed up the coast about an hour to a little town called El Tunco, which is near La Libertad, El Salvador.

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Our little group is quite the collection of surf/boat bums from around the world.
Tawn & I: USA
Christian & Jay: Chile
Darrin & Jodi: USA
Morgan & Petra: France & Sweden

There is also Gaston and Valentina from Argintina, and Paul from the States, but they did not go on this trip.

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Halfway there some local farmers were protesting the fact that some large corporation left some sort of chemicals laying about and it was leaking in to the ground water and poisoning the farmers and their families. So we had to wait till that ended. I think we made it on the local news though. There were a couple news crews that kept walking by us and just filming us.

“Tonight at 11. Why were these gringos standing around sweating so much…..and how it might effect your family”

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Made it to our hostel and set up camp by noon anyway and had time to go out for some surfing as soon as we got there.

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We unfortunately did not take any pictures of the actual surfing. Sorry about that.

I’ll hit up some of the other crew and see if they can get me some of the pictures they took.

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3 Weeks, 3 Countries and a Shitload of Buses….Parte Dos (Rio Dulce to Livingston, Guatemala)

Tawn 22 July, 2014
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In this episode CB and Tawn take a panga down the Rio Dulce to Livingston…I’ll let the pictures do all the rambling.

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The Rio Dulce goes way up into Guatemala and serves as transport to numerous villages. The lower portion where we stayed is a one hour launcha ride out to the Caribbean.

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The river goes through straight up jungla…the sides go straight up into the jungle canopy. There are numerous rustic villages along the way that are accessible only by launcha.

DSC_0811?Numerous resorts and floating homes are found along the flatter areas of the river. Some are on posts up above the water. The birds are thick in here and roost in all the trees.

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This little guy was captured with my new telephoto lens that CB got me on his last trip to the States!

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It’s kinda sad to see the deforestation along the way…the hard woods are cut down for housing and cooking sticks forcing people to go higher and higher up into the jungle every year.

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Some local flora that reminds me of back home in Michigan…this is for you Mom

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As we got closer to Livingston (which is only accessible by boat) we saw more launchas transporting people and more stuff around….what? How else you gonna get your motor cycle to town?

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As you come around the last bend of the jungle you are welcomed by the sights of Livingston, a rough and tumble little frontera town…from here you can take launchas into Belize, Honduras or back to Guatemala.

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We stayed at Hostel de La Iguana this cool little hostel with a small bar and great happy hour and amazing owners from England and Ireland…they also can hook you up with all kinds of tours and tickets for the launch a ride to Belize.

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This is a cool little wash center for the locals providing clean water to hand scrub your clothes…as it was hot as an armpit, I kinda wanted to jump in, but figured that would be frowned upon…

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This is the staging area where boats wait to go over the sandbar and up into the river Dulce. A pilot boat will attach a line to the boats halyard which is raised to the top of the mast. The pilot boat pulls his boat to the side to heel the boat so the keel passes over the bar. I tried to get a photo of the actual event but it was too far away.

Our next post will be about our time in Belize…you’ll have to wait for it Papa Miller:-)

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