You should start reading below at the bottom castle picture.

As most of you know reading spanish is not our forte but we tried to decipher the history that was given to us. We believe the merchants on the banks of lake Izabel and the Spanairds got together and built Castillo de san Felipe. The Merchants were being terrorized and the Spanairds needed a safe harbor in this area to rest their ships that were under constant attack by the Pirates. After it was built around 1595 the Pirates attacked took it over for a while then destroyed it. The Spanairds then rebuilt it and the cycle started over. I think the Pirates had control almost as much as the Spanish untill about 1736.

On this Day 2 Gringos took it over from the Guatemalans (for 40 Quetzales thats 5 US dollars) and held it proudly by themselves and no Pirates were able to take it from them. The great warrior linda manned the cannons while Captain Joe stood watch from the tallest tower. The whole time these two brave soldiers held San Felipe not another soul dared to enter.

Inside the castillo there was a maze of hallways with rooms on both sides many of which had exits on another side of the room. it was easy to get lost in there but you could always go up a few stairs and look out a window and get your bearings. Some of the rooms were so dark that we dared not enter next time I will bring a flash light.

The park had very few visitors on this day. we were given a map and brief history of the fort all in spanish of course. we managed to cross the moat via the draw bridge and conduct a self guided tour.

This is Castillo de San Felipe as seen from our dinghy as we approached to take a tour on monday 07-27-2009

And they taste so sweet and good.

If any of you guys want Linda and I to give you a tour of Guatemala's Rio Dulce send us an E-Mail and we can work out the details.

Here is a hint when you take the peel off

there is white piece of fruit inside.

We don't know what this is but it is sold in the market I went to today. Any ideas please let us know.

This is not a great video but it will give you an idea of the size of the cast nets the fisherman use on the Rio Dulce. I will try to get a better clip for you later. I have not even pulled out my cast net for fear of being laughed at.

This is the main highway north to south through centrial america. The tallest bridge in central america is right behind me. What traffic there is goes very slow through here.

Here is Linda picking out some food for the boat. There are many markets like this in Fronteris.

This is live lobster being weighed in at a fishing village at Bahia del Espiritu Santo. On this day there were over 100 baskets like this being sold in this one little village

This is just one of the lobster tails we have enjoyed. There are lots and lots of them

this was our anniversary--we were fed by a Mayan family lobster salad and lobster ceviche

And here is one of the plates of sashimi we enjoyed--

We bought the biggest fish cleaning table we could find --but it was not big enough for this fish

This is the Dorado we caught in Mexico while we were in Puerto Aventuras. See why we stayed there so long.

here we are in the jungle--orange trees loaded with the sour organges the locals use for marinating and this palm that they use for the roof of the palapas. we are learning a lot