The Read Family Adventures

I knew I was passing up my one last shot of heading back south.

Amy had wanted to get the boat and crew up to Florida so we could spend Christmas with my mom in Georgia.  This request required that we speed through Mexico and Cuba and then find a reasonably priced marina to leave the boat in while we rented a car and headed to Cartersville, Georgia for three weeks.

Robert is really in to superheroes these days.  He was Batman for Halloween, he has a Spiderman hat and mittens and Spiderman bike, he has Batman pajamas... you get the idea.  This is heaven for Mark, as it gives him a great excuse to watch all of the Superman, Batman and Spiderman DVDs: father-son bonding time.

The other day, Robert asked me how do you call Superman.  "What do you mean, how do you call him?" "You know, how do you call him to tell him you need help?" Now I'm catching on.  The Commissioner uses a bat-shaped search light to call Batman, so how is Superman contacted?  "Ohhhh," I say, playing along, "you don't need to call Superman.  He just knows."

Rio Dulce, Guatemala is a cruisers' paradise and legendary as a Hurricane Hole.  Hundreds of Cruisers and their vessels from all around the Caribbean spend hurricane season up in the Rio to safely hide during storm season.  Many cruisers come for the hurricane season and love it so much they never leave.

After a wonderful month on the island of Roatan - Honduras, we decided it was time to move on.  It was getting close to September, the height of hurricane season , and my homesickness gets worse in September because I love fall in Kansas City.  So, we shoved off from our idyllic Fantasy Island and headed West, which is our path to heading North.

Our final destination was Livingston - Guatemala, entrance to the Rio Dulce, but it would take us a couple of days and a couple of stops to get there.  Our first night we stopped in Utila - Honduras, another divers' paradise, but we did not go ashore here.  Our next stop was Puerto Escondido.  Funny name, because it is not a port at all, but it is hidden (escondido means hidden in Spanish).

I realize it has been over a month, in fact almost two months, since we have updated our blog.  That's too long!  We have been busy having fun, mixed with the occasional bout of home sickness.

We are currently in Rio Dulce, Guatemala, hiding from hurricanes.  We watched the news with awe and horror as Hurricane Ike ripped through Houston- our final destination.  We pray for all of our friends and family there, some land-based, some boat-based.

In Zihuatenejo, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, we met a family from the Pacific Northwest of the US.   They were unsure of where they would be going next- whether to cross to the South Pacific, or to head to Panama and go through the canal, or turn around and head back home. 

The mom, Susan, was tired of sand and sun and palm trees.  She was looking for some culture, some history.  She thought there must be more to life than sitting under a  palapa drinking a cerveza.  She was home-schooling her two daughters, aged eight and ten, on the boat, and she was really enjoying their American History  curriculum, so she thought maybe she'd like to head to the East Coast of the US and visit all the historical sites.

When I got an email from my sister, Amy, asking if anyone wanted to come down to Panama to help them transit the Panama Canal, I thought, Sure! I’ll go!

Then I looked at my calendar. In order to go, I’d have to catch a flight the morning after my two kids finished school for the year, missing their first swim meet and leaving my husband, David, to manage on his own teaching Sunday school for that week. I could only stay in Panama three days, returning before David was scheduled to go out of town to play golf with friends.

Regular readers of this blog will note quickly how different my life is to Amy’s right now. I, like every suburban mom I know, am scheduled.

After celebrating Mothers Day with the  red Macaws flying around town in Puerto Jimenez, we finally ended our two-week stint in Golfito, Costa Rica on May 13 and headed for Panama.

People who are in a hurry can make it from Golfito to the Panama Canal in about a day and a half.  We were not in a  hurry and planned to spend ten days in the islands of western Panama. 

We have continued to poke down the Costa Rico border, finally having made it to Gulfito, the last stop before Panama.  As we turned into the large 20 mile wide bay which Gulfito sits in, I pointed out to both Amy and Robert a small sliver of land which ran down the back of a mountain and down to the sea.  I told them that that skinny piece of land was Panama.

Amy broke out into the David Lee Roth song, "Panama."  She told us she had been waiting an eternity to be able to sing that.  Robert quickly learned the words, added his own dance and then modified the tune to "Panama Canal".  It appears the crew is excited to be getting closer to Panama.

Since arriving in Costa Rica, we have had the "opportunity" to learn A LOT about various animals and insects. 

In one day Amy made a list of "friends" we currently had visiting in our home.  A mouse, one brilliant blue/green moth, several small translucent crabs which had crawled up our drain pipe into our bathroom sink, one medium size crab which has taken a liking to our rear swim step locker, and a small gathering of fruit flies in our refrigerator.