Boatbuilding in Honduras

Several years ago my wife and I, along with two friends, took a river trip through Honduras' Mosquito Coast. We ended up in an outboard-powered dugout canoe for a week for a trip across the bay and up the Rio Juarunta. In one of the villages we visited, the people were building a dugout canoe. It was about 25 feet long and carved from a single tree. The stern was shaped from rough-hewn mohogany logs, caulked with a glue made from a styrofoam fishing float they had found and a cup of gasoline that we bartered for some food. These pictures show the progress made on the boat in the space of one week. The only tools we ever saw them using were an axe and an adze.

	A long shot of the boat in progress. This is from the bow. You can see the rough-sawn lumber stacked to make the stern. The logs were shaped with an axe, then caulked with styrofoam liquified with gas. They were then nailed in place with 6" or 8" spike nails (they had about six total) smacked in with the blunt back end of an axe.
This is a better shot of the stern. The hole in the hull was where they had removed a piece (I think there was a knot) so that they could put in a patch.
	Shaping the stern with an adze. This started out as a solid mass of wood.
This is the progress they made in a week. The stern has been shaped with an axe and a small adze. The craftsmanship that they exhibited was pretty amazing in this remote village with no electricity, no running water, no modern technology. I would imagine that most of us would have a pretty hard time replicating such a product in a shop filled with modern tools.
	Kids on the Rio Juarunta. They start out in boats from birth.
The village where the boat was being carved. A couple of dugouts are on the shore
	A collection of the village's boats. The boat on the left is ours.
Working our way slowly up the river.

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