Amira on the go
Whether it’s reports from distant lands, crossings, or repairs on board: The latest posts appear here on the blog. Older experience reports and articles that appeared on our tracking page will be added to the archive little by little.
Our Amira is pulled from the Rio Dulce and rolls as if by magic across the shipyard. “Go back to square one!” it says. We are back where we were a year ago.
Peter is becoming increasingly forgetful. This is related to Parkinson's. Sometimes he confuses Sylke with Maria, sometimes he talks about Mexico when he means Colombia, and sometimes he leaves the gas flame on the stove. Until an egg explodes.
Hurricane season has begun. We are heading for safety in Rio Dulce, Guatemala. On the journey through the pitch-black night, we are accompanied by constant lightning.
Building our homepage is making me break a sweat. Three systems are getting in each other’s way. The artificial intelligence ChatGPT helps, but in the end it has me consult another AI—and when that doesn’t help, a human. Still: the site sailing-amira.de is now online.
Utila is considered a diving paradise. Together with Belgian sailing friends, we head into the underwater world. Marian Van Roy captures our dive in pictures. Here are the photos.
At the Cayos Cochinos, one of the most beautiful anchorages in the world, we discover them: cockroaches! The battle against these creatures, which can transmit diseases and trigger allergies, begins.
In the Cayos Cochinos Marine Protected Area, plastic bottles and other trash pile up in some places. Canadians Melanie and Eric rally 12 sailors and 23 locals to clean up the beach.
The Garifuna in the fishing village of Chachahuate on the Cayos Cochinos don't just live from fishing. They've built a "restaurant row" on their small island. Behind the huts, entire families cook huge amounts of fish, plantains, and coconut rice with beans.
On Cayo Mayor, an American guides us across rough terrain to the village of East End. Garifuna live there – a people of Afro-Caribbean origin.
Instead of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, where we originally wanted to go, we land on the Pig Islands (Cayos Cochinos) of Honduras. We don't see pigs here, but a Boa rosada - a Pink Boa that only exists here.
