GUESTBOOK: A tale of two “boat”packing Brits by Tim & Emma
April 2015 For us, a true joy of traveling is the way our life becomes entwined with people we meet along the way. Tim and Emma, a couple of backpacking Brits, were an exceptionally delightful find and the nearest we’ve experienced to picking up hitchhikers on the high seas! I recently shared my account of […]
Read More »
Sampling the Pacific Ring of Fire: Two volcanoes in two days + Ep. 7 VIDEO
April 2015 We were seated at a long, worn table in the courtyard of a building 10 minutes from the center of Leon. Serving bowls of breakfast potatoes, eggs, and bread were being passed between hands. Awareness of the finite time we had in Nicaragua motivated us to tackle as much as we could in […]
Read More »
Lively León: The heart of Nicaragua
April 2015 After a day of tackling a few boat projects and unwinding from our overnight passage, Neil, Tim, and I were bound for another inland adventure! We left The Red Thread tied securely to a dock at Puesta del Sol Marina and caught a 6:30 am chicken bus from a deserted gas station on […]
Read More »
A vommer, a barracuda, y la bienvenida a Nicaragua
April 2015 I uncleated our bowline and heaved it aboard, unthreading it from Puerto Barillas’ mooring, to which The Red Thread had been tethered for 17 days. I looked aft over our dirty boat. Weeks without attention in the midst of the estuary, and she was grubby with a film of dirt speckles along her […]
Read More »
A troop of monkeys and a duo of Brits
April 2015 “Wake up! Hurry! We have to get moving if we’re going to get to see the monkeys before we have to head to Usulután to meet Tim and Emma!” It was a little after 7 am, and the day was calling. We’d barely rolled out of our v-berth, and we were already breaking […]
Read More »
Diving on Utila (Roatán’s cheap little cousin)
April 2015 After Neil’s bout with “baleada belly” had passed, we hit the road again. This time, we were bound for the coast—the Caribbean coast. With more than a week away, I began to experiences twinges of longing for Red Thread. At the same time, I relished the opportunity to gallivant around cities without checking […]
Read More »
Mayan ruins, colorful birds, and “baleada belly” in Honduras
April 2015 What springs to mind when you think of Honduras…? If Mayan ruins, colorful macaws, and epic scuba diving do not come to mind, I hope that after this post and the next, they will be among the first images evoked when you hear “Honduras” in the future.After a cramped shuttle ride, an uneventful […]
Read More »
Majesty behind the walls: All about Antigua, Guatemala
April 2015 Quakes that wrote and rewrote history Antigua’s history is fraught with tales of natural destruction and man’s perseverance to rebuild in the aftermath. Spanish conquistadores reached the region by the mid-1500s, subjugating an already broken Mayan empire. Despite a series of destructive mudslides and earthquakes that devastated the city, Antigua (then called Santiago) […]
Read More »
Celebrating Semana Santa in Antigua, Guatemala
April 2015 We’d been cruising outside US waters for nearly four months but had spent almost no time exploring inland. In mid-February we’d decided not to cross the Pacific this season, in large part because we knew we’d later regret shortchanging our time this part of the world. It was our adventure, and we could […]
Read More »
Toward the crown of an estuary: Puerto Barillas, El Salvador
March 2015 In preparation for an early morning passage, we caught the afternoon ebb and motored across the Golfo de Fonseca, crossing the saltwater border between Honduras and El Salvador. As we cruised the gap between Islas Conchguita and Meanguera, we decided to give The Red Thread a little polish. Music up, we were on […]
Read More »
Hot ‘n happy in Honduras: Experiencing Isla El Tigre
March 2015 It was hot. Really hot. The large wooden shutters in the dimly lit room were swung wide open, like old barn doors, splaying sunlight across the floor. A row of tan little boys with thick black hair stood crammed along the windowsill, watching us in silence. The inquisitive gazes that make children so […]
Read More »
Magic in Meanguera, El Salvador
March 2015 It was early the morning of March 25th, and we were en route to Isla Meanguera from the Tamarindo estuary. The northeasterly winds were perking up for their morning blow, and the tides were beginning to ebb strongly; we were waging an increasingly slow battle against both. Even though we had just a […]
Read More »
Hull scrapes and muddy bottoms
March 2015 “VELERO RED THREAD! VELERO RED THREAD!” I began to stir. “Am I dreaming?” I asked myself. “Where is that voice coming from? When did I start dreaming en Español?” ‘VELERO RED THREAD!” Neil and I jolted awake. “Is someone out there trying to talk to us?” I sputtered. “What time is it?” Neil […]
Read More »
Northbound or bust: Costa Rica to the CA-4 + Ep. 6 VIDEO
March 2015 By the time the clock ticked 7 o’clock on the morning of March 19th, we had already craned our anchor from the sandy bottom of Bahia Huevos. The sky was clear and the waters of the Golfo de Papagayo were glassy. We rarely crave such calm conditions at the outset of a passage, […]
Read More »
Howlers and hermits at Huevos + Ep. 5 VIDEO
FYI: We created a new VIDEO! Check out the link at the bottom of this post! March 2015 Finding a new favorite Even after officially checking out of Costa Rica, it is not uncommon for cruisers to spend a few days vagabonding from bay-to-bay in the nation’s northern waters before crossing the border into Nicaragua. […]
Read More »
s/v The Red Thread 