Boat sitting on Lake Izabal: Notes from the Water

“The captain is out to lunch and the sailors have taken over the ship.” (Charles Bukowski)

Day 1 of boat sitting: Tom

It sounded too good to be true. In the mornings, we’d be scrubbing decks for two hours and in the afternoons, we’d sail and explore the area. Hiking trails, caves, waterfalls, the possibilities were limitless. Oo, the wonders of WorkAway, the website we’ve been using to find accommodation in exchange for a couple of hours of honest work. And so we embarked on not one, but two boats, both belonging to Daeli, a French adventurer with a beard so scruffy and long it was probably eagerly eyed by birds with nest-making ambitions far and wide.

He had cruised the whole Caribbean by boat and explored the whole Northern American continent by bus, from Canada to the south of Mexico, his own bus. Now, his ships lay anchored in the little lake that marks the transition from Rio Dulce to Lake Izabal. One boat was a 40 feet catamaran called the Friend Ship, the other a beautiful old sailboat with a name that any Fleming would only associate with an old lady, probably somebody’s aunt, with yellow hair and a tendency to pinch your cheek and marvel at ‘how big you’ve become’… Josée! Yes, no wonder Daeli referred to the boat in English as Josy – it does sound a tad younger.

First job: groceries

Daeli had just returned from a visit to Lake Atitlán, on the other side of the country, and needed to land on his feet – not easy when you’re floating on a lake. “They didn’t clean this,” he said, pointing at the deck. He opened a storage locker and grumbled, “They didn’t clean that. And I have no idea what they did with the engine of my motorboat, probably dropped it in the water when they went to get beers in the evening.” ‘They’ were the wretched previous Workawayers, who had minded the boats when Daeli was away.

“And of course, they didn’t leave any of the food I bought for them.” And thus our first assignment was to go to town for groceries. This included hoisting the yellow ocean kayak into the lake, scooping out the water and peddling the distance to San Felipe de Lara, the closest village. Henceforth I know that a grocery run becomes quite a challenge when you have to keep your balance on the water, ensuring that the veggies reach the boat dry.

Chinese cat recipe

Daeli was tired, but still willing to go sailing. He’d promised us he’d show us the, uh, ropes. The first realisation of our early sailing career: man, those anchors weigh a ton.

All the while, Daeli shouted instructions:

“Can you open the lazy bag?”

“Get ready, I’m going to tack.”

“Watch out for the boom, it’s gonna swing.”

“Use the winch to tighten that rope.”

“Connect the dinghy to the catamaran with a cleat hitch knot. Here, I’ll show you.”

For all I knew, he was declaring Chinese recipes to prepare cats, that’s how much I understood from the sailing lingo. Luckily, our host was patient with clumsy beginners like ourselves and soon… we were sailing.

How about… boat sitting?

In the evening, we sat on the deck. On the left side, the lights of the castle of San Felipe de Lara deposited their shine on the water, on the right heavy honks indicated monster trucks bulldozering over the bridge of Rio Dulce town. We were tired, but satisfied – beat, but beatific. Our fantasies for days ahead were interrupted by Daeli’s sudden request:

“So, guys, what do you think? Could you house sit my boats? I’d like to visit my girlfriend at Lake Atitlán. She has to drive her van up a steep slope and could use some help. You know, I could score some relationship points. I trust you guys more than these previous people, you’re a bit older, and have probably already lived on your own before. You don’t have to answer immediately, think about it and let me know tomorrow evening.”

Bucket toilet

That night, we moved our stuff to Josée, where we would be sleeping. Daeli handed us a bucket. “Here, this will be your toilet. Have a good night.”

No, boarding a sailboat is definitely not an endeavour you should undertake two weeks into a relationship.

Day 2 of boat sitting: Anete

“Can you believe that we are actually doing it?!” Tom said when the night had finally fallen on our new home, Josée. The night sky was covered with stars and everywhere around us was black water. The day hadn’t been easy for first-timers: try to paddle yourself to your bedroom in the darkness, hoping that the waves wouldn’t carry you in the opposite direction. Or worse, that some speedboat wouldn’t notice the little waggling peanut shell in the middle of the vast lake.

But now we were anchored and peace had arrived. We had good feelings that we would survive a week on our own on a sailboat. Tired and happy, we sank into the smelly mattress.

Messy business

On our second day on the boat, we had to get some practicalities done. First, we needed enough food to survive for a week. Second, we needed some kind of internet to be connected to Daeli and the rest of the world. For these things, we had to go to the bigger town, Rio Dulce. Since it was quite far to paddle there by canoe, Daeli decided to sail us with his catamaran.

After a little bit of scrubbing and cleaning in the boat’s kitchen, it was time to go to the city. I decided to wear my pretty purple dress. What a mistake! I still hadn’t learnt that sailing is a messy business. For example- even before you can get going you have to sit all in a row and pull out the damn heavy anchor. My muscles, already sore from yesterday, had to go through another open-air gym session. Uh-puh! That’s how it sounded. And sometimes the anchor got just stuck and didn’t move a millimetre. First, we pulled out metres of rope, then came the chain, covered with mud and seaweed. Soon all that mud was printed on my dress. Great!

Sailing, as we learned, is all about pulling and releasing ropes. It’s the beauty of seeing how the sail goes up and how it catches the wind. Daeli explained the theory, but all I remember from the experience is hanging on some rope with all my body weight, hoping to pull it a tiny bit more. Red-faced and covered with sweat, we ran around like lost chickens. Sometimes when it took us too long to understand what Daeli wanted from us, he just took the ropes with both hands, pulling with one, releasing with the other. He didn’t seem to be even a bit tired.

Bucket overboard!

Just when we got the sail up, I went through a really scary experience.

“Take the bucket and throw some water on the anchor to clean it,” Daeli said. That sounded like an easy enough task, I thought and ran to clean the anchor.

Buckets on the boat had ropes. All you had to do to get some water was throw it into the waves and heave it up again. What did I do? I lost my grip and looked at how the poor bucket sailed into the sunset. Okay, to be truthful- there were still a couple of fruitful hours before sunset, but the fact was that the space between the bucket and our ship increased rapidly.

“I’ll get it!” I shouted without thinking.

The boat was already moving- so I had to be quick. Without thinking twice I jumped head-first into the waves. Only one thought drummed in my head: the bucket had to be saved. I swam for my life- so happy when my fingers finally touched the rope again.

Then I felt tiredness swarming over me. And I saw how the catamaran slowly moved away from me. They shouted something from afar. But I couldn’t hear what. I had to rest so I swam to Josée instead. Swimming with a bucket was not an easy task- it pulled me back and made moving forward much harder.

Harder than it looks

Finally, hanging on the ladder of Josée, I panted heavily, knowing that I still had to swim back to the catamaran. Luckily, the catamaran returned to pick me up. All I had to do, was jump in when the boats were at their closest and close the final gap. Easier said than done. The closer I got to the boat, the harder it was to swim. Water pushed me away and I really felt like I was never going to make it.

I’m not very comfortable swimming in rough conditions-I dislike strong currents and water splashing in my face. Swimming behind the boat was all that. I was exhausted and swam as hard as I could, but I was nowhere near the ladder. Swallowing the lake water, I saw Tom’s outstretched hand. I stretched mine out, but it didn’t reach far enough. Then miraculously our fingers touched and somehow Tom managed to pull me up. I climbed the stairs. Coughing and dying of tiredness, I fell on the boat floor. I was alive!

“It seems easy, but it’s not, is it?” said Daeli.

I barely had the energy to nod.

Hunt for internet

Every time the nose of our canoe touched the land I shivered with happiness. Land! Even though the ground was still shaking under my feet- it was land- dry, familiar, safe, and trustworthy. We often celebrated it with two watery beers or sugary cokes.

The land, however, had its own problems. For example the hunt for little luxuries like the internet. Since the magical waves of wifi didn’t reach our boat, we needed a stick to let our loved ones know that we hadn’t sunk just yet. We ran around on the main street, packed with phone shops, only to reach the conclusion that the stick cost 300 and not 30 quetzales as we thought. We didn’t have that much with us and none of us was willing to peddle all the way back to the catamaran to get more money. Slowly, we started to realise the frustrations of boat life.

How to drive a motorboat

Back on the boat, we faced one more task before we could all gather around the pot of boiling beans and call it a night. We had to move all our stuff back to the catamaran. After all, it was easier to peddle less and live and cook on the same boat.

The easiest way to get our huge backpacks to another boat was to use the inflatable motorboat. When we had all taken a seat on the boat, the captain decided that he was not going. Instead, he started to shout guidelines on how to drive a motorboat. With the engine whirring next to us, we couldn’t hear anything. We could only see how Daeli waved his hands and made some signs- we had no idea what they meant. Tom pushed some buttons which made the boat roar and then he managed to switch the thing off.

“I have never driven a motorboat. I cannot do it!” he shouted the obvious and instead we peddled ourselves to Josée.

Eventually, Daeli helped to move our things back to the catamaran. We went to sleep, counting the hours until the next morning when we could be alone on the boat and the real adventure could finally start.

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Day 3 of boat sitting: Tom

Sleeping on the boat was not easy for me. I’m quite a troubled sleeper in general, and the boat didn’t help. Cramped spaces, fair enough. It’s no fun, but hard to avoid if you want to stay on a ship. But my body didn’t seem to be able to adapt to the rocking and swinging of the boat. Or at least not quickly enough. The lake itself was flat as a pancake, but passing traffic caused waves, sometimes so strong that they could knock over your cup of coffee.

Or, in this case, keep you from your sleep. It was Friday morning and I was twisting and turning – early morning sunshine falling onto my face – in a vain attempt to still steal five minutes of sleep from an already expired night. My body had, however, accepted the harsh truth. No sleep tonight, it was a brand new morning.

Terrorists on water

Daeli had told us that this anchoring spot was much quieter than the marinas of nearby Rio Dulce. With one exception: on Saturday and Sunday, weekending Guatemalans would terrorise the waters around Friend Ship and Josée.

The previous evening, we had gotten ample evidence that the weekend actually starts around sundown on Thursday. We had finally escaped the loud Garifunas and their rowdy get-togethers in the streets and living rooms of Livingston and our quiet new surroundings had turned into an open-air karaoke in no time. Bad karaoke, if that should ever be in doubt.

Now, jet skis were racing all around us. They didn’t just disturb my morning sleep-in but also created lots of waves for the poor little Mayan ladies in their dugout canoes, returning from grocery shopping in town. Lanchas, small motorboats with a roof like a party tent, ferried local tourists around the lake and towards the castle. Some of the tour guides, I noticed over the weekend, treated those gringos on their boat as an extra attraction.

The bravest/stupidest (strike through accordingly) of the weekend pirates sped right through the gap between the Friend Ship and Josée, no more than 50 metres. I remembered how Daeli had ordered us to light up the boats every evening, to avoid accidents. “Especially in the weekends,” he’d emphasised, “when people get drunk and drive home afterwards.” He told us that once, a drunkard in a speedboat had crashed into his boat when the guy, motivated by drunk hubris, thought that he could easily manoeuvre his vehicle between the boat in question and its anchor chain at full speed.

Ruined honeymoon

Our morning routine involved a swim around Josée before we’d stuff our books in a dry bag and row to the Friend Ship for breakfast. I saw how Daeli waved at us and thought I understood he wanted me to bring the catamaran’s bucket that Anete had deposited on Josée the previous day. Assuming Daeli had an urgent call from nature, I complied as quickly as I could.

“Did you come here specifically to bring me the bucket?” asked Daeli.

“Yes,” I said, “I thought you really needed it.”

“Naah,” he said and shrugged his shoulders, “I just wanted you to bring it when you came over for breakfast.” And then, as an afterthought, he added, “O, by the way: I’m not going to Lake Atitlan after all. My girlfriend thinks it’s not a good idea if I can only come for a week. She’s right, I have to figure out a long-term solution. I’m sorry if I ruined your honeymoon.”

Lost like a kitten

How to say fickle in French? Two hours later, instead of just us, there were five people on the Friend Ship. Two van lifers, a Spanish-German couple, had joined spontaneously, friends of Daeli’s girlfriend on their way to Honduras stopping by for a couple of days.

“We can go sailing together on the lake,” said Daeli.

Yesterday’s routine repeated itself, only now the instructions were shouted in Spanish. This was no longer a recipe in Chinese, it was a recipe in Chinese communicated in sign language. Lost like a kitten, I sat down on the back of the deck, trying not to get in the way of the sailing operations.

Pillow talk

“I’m going to Lake Atitlan after all,” said Daeli after the sailing trip. “Now you can keep each other company.” That remark shone a different light on our dinner conversation from the previous evening. Daeli had asked us whether we’d like to be alone on the boat or if we preferred company.

I had danced around the question, said that we were writers and thus didn’t shun solitude. That it all depended on the kind of company. “Yes, of course,” Daeli had replied, “but if it’s a nice couple, you probably wouldn’t mind? Then you can talk about couply things.”

Yes, we had fallen victim to the diktat that states that, as a couple, you somehow have to get along with other couples. That you could babble endlessly about spa weekends, romantic restaurants, the latest episode of the reality show in vogue or the arranging of decorative pillows. The horror.

The dog stays

When I said that there were five people on the boat, I was not exactly lying. But I wasn’t exactly revealing the whole truth either. We shared the Friend Ship with Diesel, a black dog. When he had first revealed his plan to travel to the other side of the country, Daeli had said he would take Diesel with him. His girlfriend wanted to see the dog.

Daeli had complained about it extensively. How the bus drivers wouldn’t take him unless he put the dog in the luggage space or on the roof of the collective buses. How instead he’d have to hitchhike and spend the whole afternoon in the backs of pick-up trucks, in the blistering Guatemalan sun. He made it sound like the whole undertaking was like travelling to the moon in a paper aeroplane – impossible until proven otherwise.

So when we were enjoying our communal meal in the evening, Daeli’s last supper before his midnight departure, I asked him how he’d do it with the dog. “Diesel? He’s not coming, he stays here.”

Day 4-5-6 of boat sitting: Anete

Van lifers Marilene and Mario turned out to be a relaxed and quiet couple. Marilene climbed all over the boat to find the best places to read. Mario divided his time between fixing the motorboat engine and standing on the roof of the boat with a fishing rod hoping to catch his next lunch. They’d been on the road for six months. Marilene confessed that she wanted to make her trip more meaningful by trying to find a shaman who could open a door into the spiritual world.

Even though they lived in a van, they admitted that the sleeping conditions in their Volkswagen were bigger than the ones they had on the boat. Marilene especially was not very much fond of boat life.

Soaked wires

One night, heavy rain disturbed our dinner preparations. We closed all the windows that we had previously opened because it can get fairly hot on the boat otherwise. But that was not all. Friend Ship was full of leaks. When we had placed dozens of pots and bowls under the dripping water, it was time to deal with the door. Or to be precise with the door hole. There was no actual door. You had to cover it to make sure the water wouldn’t get in. Or worse, that it would soak a bunch of wires close to the entrance.

After we had made sure the water couldn’t come into our waggling living space, Marilene stood in her bikini in the middle of the living room. She shook her head and didn’t have to say anything. You could read from her face that she was not particularly happy with certain aspects of boat life.

Thinking about electricity, a vivid memory struck me. There was no light on the boat when we first arrived, so it had to be fixed. Knowing nothing about electricity, I was terrified when Daeli handed us two pairs of wires and asked us to keep their ends tightly together. Then he pulled a handle. I sincerely hoped nothing would go wrong. Thankfully we didn’t get electrocuted and I guess, somehow, he managed to fix the electricity problem.

Day trips away from boat sitting

The great thing about having four people to do the boat sitting- someone was always around, so others could leave for a trip.

The day was bright and sunny, as always when we heaved the yellow ocean kayak into the lake water. The mere idea of leaving the boat behind for the entire day was thrilling. In the end, it was just plain travelling. If you have been tied to one place, like we were during this boat sitting stint, it’s always great to take a peek and to see what was on the other side. So we took off to discover the lake.

Exploring the Rio Dulce

When people say they love Rio Dulce, then often they don’t mean the loud and buzzing city. You have to take a boat and find the little rivers to discover paradise. The green jungle river systems form a little city in itself. There are jungle lodges, houses and restaurants that are accessible only by boat.

Before staying on the boat, we spent a couple of days in one of the cutest guesthouses I’ve ever seen, called Casa Perico. To get there we had to call a worker to come and pick us up by boat. Entering the green wonderland, we found little bungalows drowned in a jungle. The restaurant was surrounded by water and trees. We admired jungle life from our bathroom window. Everything was peaceful and magical.

So I wasn’t surprised when paddling into a green jungle river, we saw cute houses and fancy catamarans next to them, just like cars in the city. We stopped for a drink in a little restaurant. Admiring the river and boats passing by, you forgot that somewhere out there were roads and cars instead. My favourite attraction in this little getaway was a Tarzan rope with which you could swing yourself directly into the river. That was a well-deserved relaxing day!

Internet data gone

Arriving home, we were welcomed by a bad surprise. Do you remember our struggles in getting internet on board? Once, we didn’t take enough money to get the connection going. So we had to go back. Finally, equipped with the stick, a horrifying realisation struck us- unless you close all the background programmes, the data went down really fast. Finally, we learned to use it in a way that it didn’t eat all the data during half an hour of browsing. We always checked only email and Facebook, avoiding any kind of picture-heavy browsing or video-watching to keep the data for the days we wanted to write and research.

Returning from our relaxing trip, Marilene and Mario admitted that they’d used Tom’s computer to access the internet. Within a moment, we realised what that meant. They probably didn’t close all the programs and without knowing used up most of our well-kept data. Tom was almost banging his head against the wall. The couple apologised and promised to buy us the missing data so we wouldn’t be left without the lifeline after they drove to Honduras the next day. Now, it was just us and two boats on Lago Izabal.

Day 7-8-9 of boat sitting: Tom

This post about boat sitting on Lake Izabal could’ve been called ‘A Million Ways to Die on a Boat’. I wonder if there’s a world record for hitting your head against the boom, the pole attached horizontally to the mast? If so, for four days Mario and I were in heavy competition to break it and improve it so vastly that surely it would stand for a couple of decades. But now, Mario had left our sloop on Lake Izabal and I was the sole number one, the uncrowned king of head bumps.

Post-nuclear cockroaches

Every evening, big, post-nuclear cockroaches crawled out of every cavern of the Friend Ship, and god knows that fucking boat has many caverns. Daeli had told us to spray them fuckers with his mix of water and soap, an ‘ecological’ way of getting rid of them. But seeing the roaches creep over our vegetables – there is no fridge on board – I suddenly got a vision of a hardened exterminator releasing some chemical bombs on board. The cockroaches were too quick and slippery for the soap shower treatment anyway. I’m usually no animal killer – I’m too soft-hearted to kill even a mosquito – but these bastards bugged me big time. Soon, I figured out that a swiftly aimed sneaker was the best way to get rid of them.

Sea legs

No wonder that every moment on the land started to feel like freedom – despite the age-old adage that the waves of the endless sea offer the biggest freedom known to humans. I had, nevertheless, found my sea legs. Every time I stepped onto the land, I felt the earth moving under me, rocking and swinging like the rhythm of the boat. My body adapted quickly to the regular trips to the land and got ecstatic upon the sight of a ‘normal’ toilet. It was a victory, every time I could avoid the dreaded bucket.

There was a motorboat to go to land, but I preferred not to use it. Know thyself – I can get myself killed in a golf cart. The excursions to the land thus meant lots of peddling, peddling, peddling. Why would anybody ever buy a gym membership when they could also board a sailboat? After the departure of our boatmates, Anete and I had to go and walk Diesel. Which meant peddling him to shore in the yellow ocean kayak first. Luckily, the dog is well-adapted and knows how to behave when being ferried to the land.

Alarm code red!

One morning, we were enjoying our breakfast on the deck when I smelled a faint burn. I wondered if I had left the fire on, if some forgotten toast was slowly but surely turning black in a pan. I rushed inside to discover smoke fuming out of the electrical cabinet. Alarm code red! What was the deal with all those batteries that got solar-charged during the daytime and that had to be switched on and off, depending on electricity use? I switched everything off and prayed for the best. Miraculously, it worked. The smell evaporated, the smoke disappeared.

That evening, Diesel needed to be walked. Anete didn’t feel well and volunteered to stay behind and keep an eye on the electrical cabinet. We were still worried, even though all the signs were comforting. “Fine,” I said, “But if something goes wrong, just jump in the water and swim to Josée. If there’s a fire, don’t try to extinguish it. Just flee. Your life is more important than this lousy boat.”

Dog and human reached the land, and hurried past the angry dog on a leash that practically barked his head off. Diesel was especially restless on the land, sniffing even more brothers and sisters’ behinds than usual. But when we finally started peddling back from town, it was the human’s turn to get unsettled. I struggled to move as I’d never before during the numerous trips to the land. The wind kept pushing me aside.

Male membership card

Every time I tried to turn around, the wind blew me back. I was facing the land, the little marina barely a hundred metres ahead. I saw the old fishermen untangling their nets. Their day was finished. Mine hadn’t even begun, or so it felt. Friend Ship and Josée lay 500 metres behind my back. I started peddling, peddling, peddling, to turn around. But just when I was about to face forward again, the wind blew me back. Over and over again. With 20 kilos of groceries on my back, I tried again and again. I lost hope, gradually, just like the strength seeped out of my arms.

Diesel twisted and turned on his seat in front of me. He finally turned around, looked at me with critical eyes, as if he said: “You got us in a pickle, stupid human, better get us out of it.” I was afraid I’d have to return to the land, hand in my male membership card (which would be shredded on the spot) and ask the fishermen for help, for a hitch towards the boats. They’d surely help me, especially if I tossed 10 quetzales in their direction.

But I was not ready to give up, not yet. One last time I peddled as if my life depended on it. Even though I was drifting away from both the boats and the marina, I kept peddling, kept going strong. Yes! I made it, I had manoeuvred back in the right direction.

Good times during boat sitting

The nicest moments of boat life always came when the peddling was over, when the heat had subdued and those pleasant pre-dusk sun rays fell on the deck. The limes were freshly cut and the Ice Dorada had never tasted so good. Had I ever earned a beer more than then? Yes, travel happiness is in the small details.

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