Worth The Risk: Exploring Lago Izabal By Melanie Wood It’s 11:50 p.m. and the alarm on my cell phone goes off, signaling the beginning of my watch. I quickly and quietly scramble out from beside my husband, John, in the dark comfort of our stateroom and head up to the cabin. I signal to Bill on board Gabriella via VHF radio that I am now on duty so that he can get some sleep. We have buddied up with two other boats on our cruise from Marios Marina on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala to the notorious Ensenada Los Lagartos as a precaution against pirate attacks.   This is my first bandito watch and I’m a little nervous, but also a little excited. I’ve survived night crossing watches and anchor watches when stormy, windy weather called for it, but this is a first. Eileen Quinn’s catchy tune, “Where Have All the Pirates Gone?” runs through my mind as I shine my bright spotlight slowly around the anchorage and illuminate our two buddy boats, making sure no banditos lurk nearby.        The night is alive with the sound of fish jumping as several gar pike pause in the beam of my light. Huge birds catch my light for a fraction of a second as they skim the water. Upon closer inspection I realize that these are not birds, but bats—huge bats with big, fat bodies and wide wing spans. But for the stillness of the night, I would not have witnessed this magical display and I feel privileged to be here in this nocturnal paradise. How We Got Here John first read “Pirates on the Rio Dulce” by Peter Swanson and Ron Wooldridge five years ago in the April ’02 issue of PMM . Dan Caruso from Palmetto, Florida, and his two teenage nephews were surprised by three armed bandits as they lay peacefully at anchor way up the Ensenada Los Lagartos, a remote bay at the far west end of Lago Izabal, approximately 30 miles west of Rio Dulce Town (Fronteras). It seemed a lifetime away to us. We spent our days working and our nights dreaming of the day when we, too, would cruise to exotic locales. Once in a while our fantasies would touch on Guatemala and we would thumb through our magazines until we found the “pirate” issue. After spending the winter in the Bahamas, we were given three choices in order to be covered by our insurance company for hurricane season: We could return to north of the Hudson River, travel south to Trinidad, or spend the season in the Rio Dulce. After making the decision to wait out hurricane season on the exotic, tropical Rio Dulce, we once again dug through the pile of magazines and re-read the pirate story. Would we dare to venture into this remote, unspoiled part of Guatemala? Fast forward and here I am, doing the 12 to 2 a.m. bandito watch as we lay at anchor just inside the mouth of the Ensenada Los Lagartos, not fa...

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