An Update from Rio Dulce, Guatemala

/ Kristian Beadle

Hello everyone! For this hurricane season, we went 20 miles up a river called Rio Dulce in Guatemala, to stay safe and do a HUGE retrofit on Nesi. Here is where we are.

Man wearing a straw hat standing on a catamaran deck with sail covers and a tropical bay in the background
Nesi anchored in Rio Dulce with Damian the rigger, repairing the headsail furler.

Rio Dulce has been a fantastic place to get work done on the boat. Unlike the Caribbean, the labor here is affordable, competent, and motivated to work. We’ve done a TON of important projects.

Guatemala is a remarkable country — exploding volcanos, surreal lakes, and an unreal steaming hot waterfall that is a natural sauna.

Family posing by a lake with volcanic mountains in the background
Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Being so close to USA, we were able to get off the boat and visit friends & family in California. After being 2 years in East & South Africa, and 2 more years in transit, we were glad to finally re-connect with our community.

Group of adults and children posing together on a vine-covered porch surrounded by greenery.
Potluck in Santa Barbara, California
Friends relaxing on blankets at a sunny beach lined with tall palm trees.

What happened last year?? We sailed all through the Caribbean. We went radio silent for awhile, because our schedule was non-stop. We had no extra bandwidth!

We felt like those college backpackers who travel through Europe at Mach Speed, trying to see 15 countries in 20 days… just packing it all into a flurry of sights and sounds.

Why were we moving so fast?

As you know, the Atlantic hurricane season (June-Nov) is no joke. The “reasonable” insurance options only allow us to sail in most of the Antilles around December 1-May 30. We’re technically permitted to sail only half the year!

Map of the Caribbean and western Atlantic showing numerous colored hurricane tracks and storm names.
Satellite image of a large hurricane swirling over the Gulf of Mexico and southeastern United States
August climatology map showing likely hurricane paths across the Atlantic, Caribbean, and United States, with the Caribbean highlighted as an active region.

Insurance companies give sailors four basic options during hurricane season:

  1. Stay in Grenada/Trinidad for 4-6 months. This is a preferred approach, but we found it gets old and expensive quick.
  2. Sail to New England or back to Europe. A long way to go, in the wrong direction 😉
  3. Sail to Aruba/Bonaire/Curaçao, which is off the coast of Venezuela — so we decided to avoid going there.
  4. Sail to Panama; but there is wild lightning and torrential rain after June. We’ve done that before, and we didn’t love it.

Can you believe that insurance companies don’t offer storm coverage for boats in Guatemala– even though it’s one of the safest places around? Go figure! So it was a little gamble on our part, but it paid off.

Map of North America showing Guatemala highlighted in red, with the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Arctic Ocean labeled.
Map of Central America showing a catamaran route from near Belize toward the Caribbean Sea, with Belize City, Guatemala City, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, and other locations labeled
Satellite map of Río Dulce, Guatemala, showing the river, surrounding towns, hotels, marinas, and Castillo de San Felipe de Lara.
Click to see map.

The Caribbean has LOTS of amazing islands. With limited time to sail each year, many sailors end up doing multiple seasons here.

We decided to go fast and furious, in our quest to return to the Pacific, and avoid the ongoing insurance headache of the Caribbean.

We took the risk and went the long way — sailing up from the Antilles up to Bahamas and Florida, then around Cuba and down via Belize to the eastern seaboard of Guatemala.

Illustrated vintage map of the West Indies and Caribbean with a red route tracing Central America, the Caribbean islands, and Florida.
Nesi’s route in the Caribbean — we plan to head to Panama by December, then to Galapagos in February.

Stopping in Rio Dulce also aligned our timing with Panama’s dry season (which begins in December) and the best time of year for a transit to Galapagos.

In the coming weeks, we’ll share highlights from our travels in the Caribbean, reasons why this route worked so for us, and the impact of our experience here in Guatemala.

Cobblestone street lined with colorful colonial buildings, cars, and scooters, with a large volcano rising in the background.
View of Antigua, Guatemala, looking at Volcan Agua.