Costa Rican Cruisers

 

We finally said goodbye to everyone at Bahia Del Sol, headed down river at 6 AM and across the bar with a pilot boat leading the way. We were moving along nicely about 2 hours later in very calm waters running just one engine when the engine coughed, sputtered, and quit. It was our own fault because I had just mentioned how well the motor sounded. We sailed south for two more hours trying to decide what to do and finally decided that the best idea was to turn around, catch the bar at Bahia at high tide again and get the motor fixed before we entered the wilderness known as Nicaragua .

We crossed the bar back at Bahia Del Sol again at 5 PM after a beautiful day of sailing (but not getting anywhere) and the faulty engine fired right up. With not enough caution I took this as a good sign, but as we tried to approach the dock in a very strong current the engine suddenly quit again leaving the boat with little control on one engine and in fast water. We barely missed hitting several very expensive boats before slamming into the dock. Luckily we came to a dead halt when we hit and several friends grabbed the boat and hauled her in. We thought we had put a hole in her, but the damage turned out to be mostly cosmetic (scratches, small dent, and lots of creosote). This was the worst landing of my life and the scariest. Rule #1 in boating… “Don’t hit the other guy’s boat”, and we narrowly missed hitting several.

The next morning we got a repair guy aboard and cleaned our carburetors thoroughly. The winter storage may have allowed a varnish buildup in the carbs as the gas dried and evaporated. That varnish (or just dirt) was blocking the small gas tubes. With both engines running we made plans to head out again just 48 hours after our first departure.

 

We had a 24 hour sail to Puesta Del Sol , Nicaragua where we checked into the country. Puesta is a remote location, over an hour by bus to a town, and we were limited to exploring on foot and walking the beaches. The huts and homes surrounding the marina were the poorest living conditions that we had encountered in our travels and it reminded us that Nicaragua is the second or third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere . It looked like a terrible way to live, but everyone was smiling and waving as we walked along the dirt paths that pass for streets.

 
A second 24 hour sail brought us to the town of San Juan Del Sur , Nicaragua . The anchorage was a beautiful broad bay with white sand beaches. We spent our first afternoon aboard because of the heavy swells and winds in the anchorage, but the next morning we headed for shore for a pleasant day exploring this legendary surf town.

The town was full of young Canadians and Americans who use Nicaragua as an inexpensive base for exploring Central America by bus. Hotel rooms ran about $15 and beers, while more expensive than some places, cost about a dollar. We have a tax client/friend living here who showed us around town and then treated us to cocktails at a beautiful sunset bar on the beach. Justin also warned us to be back on the boat before dark to avoid the possibility of petty theft while we were ashore. He keeps his own small boat in the anchorage for charter use, and he pays someone to sleep on the boat each night. He said the locals know the thieves, but in Nicaragua the attitude is “I don’t have much, he doesn’t have much, so why make trouble?” so the stealing just goes on. We have been warned that this is a continuing problem in all of Latin America , but nowhere more than Nicaragua and Costa Rica .

 
Nicaragua is a short coastline on the Pacific side so Costa Rica was our next destination. We had picked a remote, almost landlocked anchorage (Bahia St Elena, Lat 10 55, Lon 85 48) for our first stop that was less than 5 hours from Nicaragua . We got hit with big winds on the beam so the trip turned into a 3 hour fast sail, and we were thankful that we could sail right into an anchorage that was so well protected. Only one other boat occupied the bay that was at least a mile and a half deep and a mile wide. That afternoon and evening we got drenched with our first real rainstorm of the season… buckets of rain washing the salt and dirt from our decks.

Another heavy weather sail around an exposed Punta and we arrived in Bahia Culebra , Costa Rica. Snake Bay. This beautiful small bay had at least 6 good sand beaches to anchor and lots of clear, turquoise water. Anchoring is complicated a little by the changing wind directions. We try to guess where the wind will come from in the evening and then choose a leeward anchorage that will allow the islands or beaches to block the wind. Unfortunately this is a little like building a snow fort as a kid. You build a crude wall of snow waiting for a frontal attack and when you are all ready… WHAP! Someone hits you in the back of the head with a snowball. Wind shift. We did spend three nights in Culebra (well protected in our snow fort) and one night ashore in Playa del Cocos where we explored bars and restaurants.

 

The Gulf of Nicoya was now 120 miles south and one more overnight sail away. We had a memorable hour near Tamarindo where the winds went from calm to 30kts in less than 5 minutes and then almost exactly 60 minutes later dropped back to dead calm. We sailed the hour blow with a triple reef on the main, a reefed jib, and we still saw boat speeds of 11–13 kts. Mr Toad’s wild ride while it was happening followed by a “where did that come from?” when the winds suddenly died.

We are currently sitting at the Costa Rica Yacht Club in Puntarenas , Costa Rica. It is quiet here with only two visiting boats in the anchorage. We have been enjoying pool privileges, some nice dinners, and even intermittent internet access. The weather for all of this trip has been incredibly hot and now the humidity is rising. The steaming temperatures fall slightly with the afternoon rains, but overall this is a very warm place to be in May.

We have one more destination in Costa Rica and several anchorages planned along the way. We will pass close to Isla Del Cano which is reputed to be the place most frequently struck by lightning in all of Latin America . We have already seen some spectacular nighttime lightning storms (none too close) that produce almost continuous daylight in the distance. We do have our fingers crossed.

Southbound Again

Hola!

We flew back to El Salvador last week landing in San Salvador at 7 AM after an overnighter from San Francisco . Our plans are to spend the next two months sailing along the coasts of El Salvador , Nicaragua , and Costa Rica and into Panama . El Salvador and Nicaragua are uninviting coasts with few shelters, but Costa Rica is supposed to be very nice and Panama is rumored to be a cruising paradise. Our insurance company does not want us visiting Nicaragua anyway. If all goes well we will leave the boat on the Pacific side of the canal in late June and return next October for a canal transit. June through September are the rainy months down here so we’ll try to avoid them.

El Salvador customs was easy and we realized we should have smuggled many more boat items into the country while we had the chance. We got a rental car for two days to help us move our gear and do some shopping for supplies before we headed to the boat.

We rented the car entirely in Spanish which is a good trick for two people who don’t speak Spanish (just sign here, contract in Spanish, gracias), but the rental was a lot easier than the job of returning the car. The El Salvadorans do everything a little differently. The airline terminal here is an international terminal (probably because there are no other airports in El Salvador ) and NO ONE is allowed inside without a ticket. When we arrived everybody meeting the planes (friends, limos, cabs, etc) was required to wait outside the terminal. However the car rental desk was inside the terminal. Two days later we try to return the car we see the problem. The car rental return is inside the terminal, but we can’t go inside the terminal. At this point Budget has an employee inside the terminal handing papers to an employee outside the terminal past the security guards at the door so we can pay our bill. Very amusing. Fun also was the bus trip back to the marina. The trip took a little longer than anticipated because we had to catch three different buses. I kept asking (in my not too good Spanish) when the bus would arrive. Always the answer is “ten minutes, ten minutes”. Always. Only later did I realize that I am probably the only person in the entire country wearing a watch. The buses were not there in “ten minutes”. Tempus does not fugit in Latin America .

The boat survived the winter very well tied to a mooring in the river, and everything seems to work. Our only mishap was the discovery that a colony of bats had taken up residence in our sails over the winter. We didn’t actually see any bats, but the quantity of bat guano was sufficient evidence. At first we thought we had mice, but there was no evidence of mice below decks or in the lockers, and of course we were out in the middle of a river. One of the other cruisers thought that they had very small mice here that were capable of walking on water (Jesus mice?) but I was skeptical. Then we found that bats are common, and we are not the first sailors with this problem. Fortunately bats do not eat sails as the mice would have, and we are none the worse for the wear.

It is still hot here (surprise?) but the humidity is reasonable. Sleeping is a little uncomfortable, and we do little work in the middle of the day. I have reached some compromises with Andrea regarding the quantities of beer necessary to stay hydrated in this heat. We crossed a major threshold when she noted that beer was probably better for me than Coca Cola anyway J. Then shortly into a day that started at 5 AM with me hauling Andrea up the mast early (before the sun and breezes made the trip uncomfortable) and lugging 50 gallons of drinking water to the boat plus 40 gallons of fuel, she suggested that we had earned a cold beer for all our work. I agreed wholeheartedly, grabbed two beers, and quickly drank mine before I pointed out that it was only 9 AM . Breakfast beer and my wife had suggested it. No wonder I love her!!

It has taken us several days to get everything put back together, and now we are waiting patiently for the huge surf at the river entrance to calm down enough to let us get out of the river and back into the ocean. We’ve got a good boat but it can’t handle the 20 foot rollers (remnants of a storm in New Zealand ?) that have been out there the past few days. We are not the only ones waiting. There are at least a dozen other boats here so we spend time talking about plans and enjoying the marina hospitality. The river is pretty and peaceful, especially with the boats floating at anchor and the stunning sunsets, while the surf pounds the beaches on the outside. The next leg of the trip will probably take us 3 to 4 days of offshore sailing to reach Costa Rica so we are resting, preparing and waiting. We expect to be able to cross the bar on Wednesday morning (April 29).

TACA Rocks

We are home. When last seen the boat was floating peacefully on a mooring in a river in El Salvador. Hopefully it will be in the same place, safe and sound, when we go back next Spring to continue our southbound trip.

We got a great flight back from El Salvador on TACA airlines. TACA still serves free cocktails and dinner to all of its passengers, has good size seats in the economy section, and they apparently give extra points for being good looking when they hire the stewards and stewardesses. Just the way it used to be.

For now it is cold weather (actually it is 75 degrees and sunny here so not too cold), taxes, golf, and old friends for the winter months. Sounds good to us.

We had a specatacular time over the past three months sailing from Puerto Vallarta, along the southern coast of Mexico, through Guatemala and into El Salvador. We got to anchor, swim and snorkel on exotic beaches and in remote anchorages, we played with dolphins, we caught fresh tuna, we made quantities of boat drinks, we sampled at least 20 different brands of Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Honduran beers, we spent dollars, pesos, quetzales, and lempiras on our trip, we hung out with sailors from all over the world (though mostly Canadians and Americans), we read a LOT of books, we got tan (and a little thinner, I think), we took wild bus rides, we shopped strange marketplaces, we ate pupusas and tacos and fajitas and ceviche, and we generally "cruised". The current definition of "cruising" is "making boat repairs in exotic locations". Yep, done that. Done a lot of that. But very best of all.... we think that the best sailing and the best beaches and the best adventures are still ahead of us, and we will be back on the boat in May to find out.

Never Leave the Boat

I’ve thrown a lot of stuff into this e-mail, but the past weeks have had some strange and entertaining glimpses of Central America . Hopefully you will be entertained also.

We are still traveling by bus through Central America . The visa we received when we arrived in El Salvador covers the four original Central American countries of El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras and Nicaragua . Belize was a British territory and Panama was a part of Columbia so they were termed Central America at a later date. We will sail on to Nicaragua next spring and Belize will have to wait until we sail north from the Canal on the Caribbean side. This venture is taking us from Guatemala to Honduras to visit the large Mayan ruins at Copan . It is a long trip to Copan , but we figured if there are going to be ancient ruins anywhere they are going to be a little off the beaten path.

Almost all of the shuttle buses leave Antigua , Guatemala for the 5 hour trip to Copan , Honduras at 4 AM . Too early for Andrea who dug her heels in and insisted there must be a better schedule. So we shopped all of the travel services in town until we found a 1 PM bus. Even better… the bus was ½ the price of the other shuttles. Is that great? A promotion they said. And what do we all know about “if it seems too good to be true?”

We ended up in a beater van set up for 15 passengers (which is all we had if you didn’t need a driver, which we did), top speed 40 mph, and which finally left Antigua at 3PM (but not before all 15 passengers PLUS the driver PLUS the travel agent crammed into the van for a ride to the gas station and then right back to the office. Seems the travel agent had to load us in before she could collect the money for the gas and then she had to go with us rather than giving the money to the driver). 16 people in a van for a 5 hour trip is a very tight squeeze. Our scheduled arrival in Copan was 6 PM . We pulled in around 9:30 .

Along the way we had plenty of uncomfortable time to reflect on our choice of transportation. I was reminded of the gunner on the Mekong River gunboat in the movie "Apocalypse Now" who ventured into the jungle, got spooked by a noise, shot up the trees as he sprinted back to the boat, and then uttered the classic line “never leave the boat”.

But, no, that doesn’t tell it all. We had a reservation at a Copan hotel. We don’t usually travel with reservations, but we knew our arrival would be after dark and we were traveling during the holidays. Why not plan ahead. Of course when we were 3 hours late the hotel gave up the room. No, no other rooms available. No, all the other hotels are full. No, you should have taken the 4 AM van like everyone else.

We did find a friendly Honduran who said he knew of an inexpensive room. So we followed him out into the night, along the cobblestone streets, past the cobblestone streets, up the dirt streets and over the hill to the edge of town where he knocked on a small door set in a single story concrete wall. Inside was a very crude home of grey concrete. We walked past the living room, through the kitchen and out the back door to find four concrete rooms for rent. On the plus side the rooms were nicely decorated, had soft beds and clean bathrooms and suicide showers. By now it was 11 PM so we breathed a sigh of relief and shut the door.

The Copan ruins were worth (almost) all of the hassle. We saw the ancient Mayan temples, royal ball courts, houses and statues built by a society that occupied the Copan valley for over 2000 years and then disappeared in the 12th century leaving no clues as to why they would abandon a populous village or where they went. Three hundred years later the Spaniards wandered by and noted the works of an advanced civilization lost in the jungle, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that a real exploration began. Some of the most remarkable structures have only been uncovered in the past 30 years as they uncover layer upon layer of building. Each new royal family would simply build on top of the previous structures creating pyramids in the jungles that are now being uncovered from the top down or explored through deep tunnels.

We also had one of our more memorable meals in Copan , memorable because of the waitresses. We found a pleasant bar with a restaurant specializing in meats cooked over open fires. We ordered a couple of beers and were trying to work our way through the menu when the waitress reappeared with my beer on her head. Through the course of the evening we watched as all of the beverages were served with at least one glass balanced on someone’s head. Milkshakes, juices, beers, margaritas, even appetizers were transported throughout the room and up the stairs with perfect balance. No trays, no special head gear, just bottles and glasses picked off the bar and placed topside center. Nothing was spilled. The waitresses might carry four or five drinks for a large table, but always at least one drink for each table moved across the room at a higher level. Amazing balance and very entertaining.

We took a much more pleasant van (which we shared with three goofy ladies from Great Britain ) for another 5 hour trip out of Honduras , through Guatemala and back to San Salvador . From there we needed to catch a local bus back to the boat so we headed over to the dirt field referred to in San Salvador as “the bus terminal”. Now I know I have told some bus stories over the past two years, but I have not yet referred to the buses as “chicken buses”. No matter what others call them I do not feel you can refer to your bus as a “chicken bus” unless you have actually been seated next to a live chicken on the bus.

We took the “chicken bus” back to Bahia del Sol (most exclusive resort in El Salvador ) and what a trip it was. The total distance was only 30 miles, but the experience took over two and a half hours. First we had to find the bus terminal. No problem, we had a map. The terminal however turned out to be a large dirt field where the buses started their routes and no one had any kind of printed schedule, price list, or ticket booth. Try to find your bus, climb on, and wait. If it’s a long wait you won’t get lonely because a steady line of food vendors will walk in the front door and out the back door… and they all want to see you. The bus moved along well but the route quickly left the main highway for a circuitous visit to a large number of small villages. The bus regularly pulled over at small intersections so more food vendors could come in the front and out the back, and we even had a surprise change of buses along the route. The bus was packed and, yes, Virginia , there were live chickens on board.

Another aspect of local bus travel in El Salvador is the presence of small groups of cows in the roads and the total disdain the drivers have for the cows and that the cows have for the buses. Apparently the best grass in El Salvador is immediately adjacent to the blacktop because that’s where the cows gather. Of course it could be that this is the free grass and if you are a poor vaquero why should you have to buy land to graze your cows when there is free grass along the road. We also noted that the vaqueros all rode bicycles. You can see that it would be difficult to herd cows on a bicycle if the cows were in fields, but if keep you cows on the roads riding your bicycle is much easier.

We survived this excursion. We recharged ourselves with $1 beers at “the most exclusive resort in El Salvador ”, and we are now preparing boat and selves for our trip home for the winter months. We thoroughly enjoyed this trip through Central America . We have ignored the inconveniences and we have put it all down to “experience”. A very good experience.

New Year's in Guatemala

Originally we had planned to leave the boat in Barillas at the end of an extensive river estuary in El Salvador while we returned to the US to work for the winter, but we were enjoying Bahia del Sol so much that we were waffling on those plans. We did sail the 35 miles south to spend Christmas in Barillas in the company of a half dozen boats that we had met at various stops on our cruise south, and we all enjoyed a pot luck Xmas dinner in the jungle, but finally we decided to return to Bahia del Sol. We will spend some time traveling in El Salvador and Guatamala before we put the boat to bed for the winter. In El Salvador December to April is referred to as summer even though we are still in the northern hemisphere. The rainy season from May to September is referred to as winter.

While in Barillas we got to visit the town of Usulutan which was a 45 minute bus ride on unpaved roads to a fairly large town with an outdoor market that seemed to specialize in “Chicken in a Basket”. Apparently with little refrigeration available the best way to insure fresh chicken is to buy it live and squawking. As many as twenty chickens and turkeys were stuffed into large baskets with nets over the top and displayed for sale at the market. The old ladies were happy to grab a chicken by the feet and pick through the feathers to show you the plumpest parts of the poor fowl. Pick your favorite and take it home for either dinner or as a new pet.

We returned to Bahia Del Sol shortly after Christmas and then left the boat for a week of travel by bus through El Salvador , Guatamala and Honduras . I should mention that both El Salvador and Guatamala were the sites of civil wars as late as 1997 and there are many, many guns in evidence. Here at the “most exclusive resort in El Salvador ” there are armed guards at all of the gates and armed security (shotguns or automatic weapons) wandering the fenced in grounds. In the city of San Salvador EVERY modern business had armed security at the doors (read Burger King, Radio Shack, Goodyear, Ace Hardware, all restaurants, hotels, bus stations, etc.) and it is considered part of the price of doing business. With that said we have seen absolutely no evidence of crime of any kind while we have been traveling, but we do get lots of warnings in the travel guides.

We rode to San Salvador in the back of a pickup truck and spent a day exploring the city on foot and visiting the anthropology museum to get some history of the country. This is a very poor country (about the size of Maryland ) and approximately 1/3 of all Salvadorans live in the US . Fully 30% of the Gross Domestic Product is money sent back from the US to relatives in El Salvador . We see dugout canoes fishing with nets along the river and we can hire someone to work on the boat for as little as $1 per hour.

From San Salvador we caught the $15 TICA bus for the 5 hour ride across the border to Guatemala City , and then we shared a cab for another 15 mile ride to the town of Antigua , Guatemala . Antigua is the old capital of Guatemala , and they have preserved much of the colonial village with cobblestone streets, buildings opening directly onto sidewalks, a beautiful parque centrale, and the ruins of many of the 38 churches that existed when Antigua was the capital.

I am including a picture of the McDonalds in Antigua because we thought that this has to be the prettiest McDonalds in the world and it reflected the ambience of the town. No golden arches here, just a small plaque on the wall, a rustic door, and inside a tiled restaurant (that I would have loved to own as a bar/restaurant) with an open courtyard for relaxing. The picture is the courtyard with Ron McD lounging peacefully.

Antigua is a destination for all of the tourists in Guatamala and caters to the backpackers, hikers, and volcano climbers from all over the world. Antigua is also filled with many artisans markets featuring homemade Guatemalan goods. It is almost impossible to describe the vivid rainbow of colors involved in these markets as the vendors display woven goods (tablecloths, scarves, shirts, dresses), ceramics, leather goods, wood products, etc. Most of the women were of Mayan descent and dressed in the traditional colorful wraps of the country. Bargaining was de rigeur and original asking prices dropped as much as 50% just for saying “no, gracias” to any offer.

We arrived in Antigua on New Year’s Eve, and it was appropriately crowded with young international travelers and Guatemalans out for the holiday. After exploring the town for most of the afternoon and into the evening we found a beautiful restaurant with a Latin American house band (La Pena de Sol Latino) and enjoyed one of the truly romantic dinners of our entire trip. We wandered through the streets waiting for the New Year’s celebration, and as we gathered near Los Arcos (overhead nun’s walk from cloister to church) we were reminded of the crowds gathering at Times Square with little room to walk, lots of gaiety, restaurants emptying into the streets, random fireworks, etc. At midnight a “2009” lit up in bright fireworks above the arches and then fireworks exploded all around us illuminating the skies with color. On the ground two enterprising celebrants had strapped on their backs large quantities of fireworks on a wooden frame and were dancing along shooting rockets into the air (and walls, and crowds, and trees). Fireworks continued for another hour over all parts of the town and there was even a boisterous (and well organized) explosion of firecrackers and noon the following day. A great New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Bienvenidos 2009!!

What T-Pecker?

If you read the last e-mail you know that we successfully crossed the Gulf of Tehuantepec and that we are El Salvador . We are, in fact, enjoying life at “ El Salvador ’s Most Exclusive Resort” although how exclusive can it be if they’ll take in two vagabonds from California aboard a small sailboat?

“The crossing” turned out to be boringly placid. If you had asked any of us under what conditions we would have liked to cross the Gulf you would have heard a lot of “flat, calm”, “no wind”, “full moon”, etc. Well that is exactly what we got… and we still weren’t happy. The lack of wind required us to motor almost 200 miles. That’s a long way in a sailboat, and it is extremely boring. We read, we fished, we slept, but we didn’t sail. Everyone says we were lucky. Bah!

We passed out of Mexico and into Guatemala at 3:30 AM on Tuesday (left Huatulco , Mexico on Saturday evening). We bypassed the Guatemalan ports because the country has no attractive stops on the Pacific Coast , and they also charge about $150 to enter the country by boat. It took us about 24 hours to traverse Guatemalan waters, but we took some of their fish with us. I dropped a line from the stern and in less than 15 minutes I had hooked a 20 – 25 lb. blue fin tuna. The blue fin has rich, blood red meat, and he was filleted and turned into a sushi lunch within the hour. We also got several dinners worth of grilled tuna for our efforts.

The winds picked up enough for us to fly our spinnaker for the next two days, and we sailed smartly down the coast of El Salvador . Our next port of call was to be Barillas where we expect to winter the boat, but Bahia del Sol (13° 16.500'N/ 88° 53.200'W) was 30 miles closer and we were very tired. We arrived outside the bar to BDS at midnight (bad timing due to the Tehuantepec calm) and decided to throw down an anchor and sleep. We nosed up to the beach (1/4 mile off actually) just outside the surf line, dropped anchor, and were quickly asleep. The next morning we awoke to a beautiful, palm lined beach with a huge volcano lurking in the background, and after a leisurely breakfast we called BDS for help getting over the bar. Even in Google you can see the large breakers that surround the entrance to the river estuary so it is necessary to have a pilot show you through the surf. The pilot came flying out through the surf in his panga, and then turned right around and to lead us back through the breakers. Hell of job.

Bahia del Sol is a resort, not too fancy, with pool, bar and restaurant some moorings and some dock space. You can pick out the pool on Google (13° 18.000'N/ 88° 53.550'W). El Salvador is typical of the Latin American countries in that there is significant poverty throughout the country. While we sit off the resort coming in to use the internet, buy $1 beers (it is very strange to be using dollars in a Spanish speaking country), swim, and eat we also see dugout canoes (literally carved out tree trunks) crossing the river with multiple water buckets to take home to the island in the river. There are no utilities on the island which is home to a large number of people. Yesterday we motored (dinghy) upriver to the town of Herradura (13° 20.600'N/ 88° 56.800'W) for the Saturday market. The market is a large metal warehouse with rows and rows of vendors selling produce and meats, prepared foods, clothing, and household items. Much of the clothing for sale was used and we suspect this is the final resting place for all those Goodwill contributions we make at home. For a population that speaks no English at all there are a lot of American t-shirts here (today I saw a “Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon” shirt). El Salvador has an 80% literacy rate, but 50% of the population lives below the poverty line, and it is a low poverty line. Before the most recent revolution (we supported the bad guys) 90% of the economic resources were owned by just 2% of the population.

While we were at the market we saw an amusing roadside accident. I am including a picture showing the three vehicles involved. What was amusing is that the accident was between the taxi (three-wheeled vehicle on the left) and the truck. The bicycle belongs to the policeman.

It is almost Christmas here. We have listened to Christmas carols at the bar in 90 degree temperatures, and we have seen a Santa entertaining the kids in full beard, red suit and boots. He must have been the hottest guy in town. We will make one more sailing trip before Christmas and then we will start exploring the interior of El Salvador . The country is about the size of Maryland . Our visa is for four countries ( Guatemala , Honduras , Nicaragua and El Salvador ) and there are numerous volcanoes, ancient ruins, and colonial cities to see.

Merry Christmas to all!

Last Stop in Mexico

Our last e-mail had us heading from Puerto Angel to Huatulco on the southern coast of Mexico . Huatulco will be our last stop in Mexico and we have covered over 2400 miles (at about 5 miles per hour) since leaving San Diego and Ensenada.

Huatulco and the town of La Crucecita turned out to be one of the nicest places we have seen on this trip, and Andrea and I agreed that if we were to choose to live in Mexico that this would be the place. Because the town was “planned’ it has wide boulevards leading to town and the small streets in La Crucecita are all paved. The result is much less dust, fewer bouncing undercarriages, no small restaurants in the middle of the street, and a more pleasant, modern feel to the town. The town square (zocalo) featured many shade trees and a gazebo and was surrounded on three sides by nice restaurants and cafes an. The fourth side features a new church (20 years) built to resemble an old church. Huatulco is in Oaxaca , Mexico (remember this is the Etados Unidos de Mexico and they have about 30 states) and the indigenous background of the population is much more visible than in other areas we visited. There is very little English spoken here despite the prevalence of American music on the radio and TV. Oaxaca features some of the best food in Mexico and that added significantly to our experience here. We ate in the restaurants nightly and had one excellent meal after another (although if you were in NYC you wouldn’t cross the street for the “Best Pizza in Mexico ”).

We were again in Mexico for the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe and again we gaped at the parades and bands that wove their way through the streets to the church. Same song, over and over, played on trumpets and saxophones with a strong drum accompaniment. For variety the bands would break into a rendition of Cielto Lindo. And the culmination of the evening was the tremendous (different) fireworks display. Outside the church they had constructed a giant erector set with 8 foot metal wheels lined with fireworks. At dark they lit the lower levels of the fireworks which created spinning outlines of dolphins and stars, and circles and squares. As each level burned out it would ignite the next level up until it reached the top some 70 feet in the air which was an outline of the Virgin along with a spinning, multicolor display of fireworks that spelled out “Virgin de Guadalupe”. Then the big fireworks started looking very much like our own Fourth of July celebrations.

We stayed in the Marina Chahue which is a small, well protected marina where all the boats (power and sail) crossing the Gulf of Tehuantepec wait for a favorable weather window. Our entire trip south from Puerto Vallarta has been with a wary eye and ear towards Tehuantepec, discussing best times to cross (May), worst times (Dec/Jan) and whether a full moon is necessary. The advice from all is to keep within ¼ mile of shore (even with rolling breakers nearby) and follow the 30’ depth line all the way around the Gulf along the beaches. Death (or at least severe discomfort at sea) awaits those who challenge this wisdom by cutting across the Gulf. Our next stop will be El Salvador (about 500 miles), and we will only be exposed to the dreaded T-Peckers for about the first 200 miles. Of course it takes us almost 2 days to cover a 200 mile stretch. We waited for 7 days, experiencing only mild breezes and hot weather in the marina, while just 40 miles east there were huge wind gales blowing through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec . We had several boats for company, and we had good weather reports available so everyone waited patiently for what is usually 5-7 days of waiting in order to get a 3 day weather (low winds) window. On Saturday night (Dec 13) around 6 PM we left the safety of the marina to challenge the Gulf of Tehuantapec along with 4 other boats ranging in size from 30’ to 50’ (Manana is a modest 33’ long).

We are safe, we had a good crossing (5 days at sea), and I am sending this e-mail from Bahia Del Sol in El Salvador . We have spent the past 3 days enjoying the hospitality of the Bahia Del Sol Resort with its swimming pool, ocean beaches, and bar overlooking the anchorage. More later.

Best to all,

Tom and Andrea