El Salvador Still - Delantares, Stilt Restaurants, Cruiser Notes

These photos are: Randy playing the guitar by the pool; me trying on my delantara in La Herradura and the ladies of La Herradura in their delantaras. Delantares are elaborately embroidered aprons with lace and ribbons. The Salvadorenas use them as an apron/fanny pack/cash register. Almost all rural Salvadorenas wear them. They cost about $10 each.

We also went to Ilobasco, the pottery town. Most of the pottery is trashy touristy pieces with sunflowers and lizards painted on them. However, there is one shop on the main street that sells black pottery and terracotta pottery that is well designed and tasteful.

After a long bumpy trip on a rock (not cobblestone; rock) road we found San Sabastien. The country's famous weaving town. Beautifully woven cotton blankets can be purchased for $10... if you can find the place.

En route we stopped in San Vicente, a town slightly larger than Zapotecaluca, where we had a lovely chicken lunch for $1.50. El Salvador uses the American dollar as its currency. At the market in Zapotec (as they call it) you can get a bunch of radishes for "a quada".

Another interesting mini trip was to the "stilt restaurants". Down the estuary, close to the mouth and behind the bar, there are a few restaurants built on stilts in the shallow waters. The sit about 12 feet above a mid tide made of bamboo, wood and a palapa roof. The women wave and shout trying to lure you from the competition. They serve, ceviche (not as good as mid-Mexico), whole fish and $1.50 beers.

Tomorrow at 3:30 pm we are going to go back out through the surf out to the sea to head for Golfito, Costa Rica. Rojelio, our trusty pilot will guide us safely through the breakers and the bar. His words of encouragement are typically "no problema, no problema".

Other random things to note for cruisers (God I hate that word): Rojelio's brother will clean the bottom of your boat, your propeller and check thru hulls for about $50 for a 50 ft boat; the restaurant will sell you "garafones" of water (about 5 gallons) for $2.50 less your cruiser's discount; get your Zarpe the day before you leave if you can from the navy down the estuary past Mar Y Sol where the huge blue white and blue flag flies; the water at the marina is slightly salty - DO NOT put it in your tanks; Alex (Reflections on VHF 16) is a diesel keener and can fix almost anything.... and he's Canadian; you can provision at Zapotec; Alex also knows everything about this area; Jan (also Canadian) live on the island and teaches English to the island children for FREE. She has a lovely chicken barbeque if there are enough boats..... please go, the funds go to her school and the kids; Jan welcomes volunteer English teachers; you can haul out your boat here (see Alex on Reflections).

More El Salvador

Wooden Canoe Bahia del Sol







Parrot Bahia del Sol



Thea - ready to hoist anchor

Cockpit Underway

Dock Party

Following a terrific dock party organized by SV Effie, we left Huatulco at about 9:30 am on Saturday March 7 to cross the Tehuantapec with Effie, Ecos, Equinox and Inspiration. Lost Elvis arrived at the entrance to Bahia del Sol, El Salvador on Monday March 9 at about 7 pm. We decide on Bahia del Sol rather than Barillas because we wanted to spend some time in El Salvador and Barillas is remote and does not have much to do. See http://www.sailsarana.com/ – they have a whole guide on Bahia del Sol.

The actual crossing of the Tehuantapec was unenventful; other than Effie and Equinox bragging about the Dorado they caught. The gulf was like a lake with no wind. We got a bit of a push from a strong current for the first few hours. The second morning I woke up for my 6 am, 6 hour shift and Randy went to bed for 6 hours as he had just finished his midnight to 6 am shift. It was still flat and calm so I did my exercises on deck, did some Sudokus, read my Spanish for Dummies book and watched the dolphins surfing in our bow wake. The next morning was quite the opposite. I woke up for my early shift and just as Randy was heading below we got slammed with offshore winds of up to 30 knots. Randy didn’t want to leave me up there in that kind of weather so he stayed up in the cockpit. Once the winds diminished to about 15 knots, he went back down to sleep but couldn’t so he rejoined me in the cockpit where within minutes our autohelm quit and the winds picked up again. Exhausted, Randy manually steered Elvis. I relieved him occasionally for a few minutes and my shoulders felt the strain of old Elvis bucking through the seas and the winds. The wind tapered off again and was right on our nose (as usual) so we took the sails down about 5 hours before our arrival. Of course with the wind in our face and no sailing, the seas grew to 12 feet swells on our beam. As our friend Paul says “that was the opposite of ‘fun’”. We finally arrived at Bahia del sol at 7 pm on March 9 but it was too late to cross the bar so we anchored in an uncomfortable swell. The next day Equinox, Inspiration and Effie arrived and anchored with us to wait for the panga to guide us through the surf and the bar. Going through the surf and the bar was a piece of cake. Me raising the anchor in a 12 foot pitching sea just prior to that was more dangerous than the bar. The pilot, Rojelio was an expert and just kept saying “no problem” over the radio.

The marina is part of a quiet hotel complex with a pool, power, cable, a restaurant and $1 beer. The estuary is huge with interesting “stilt restaurants” to have fresh fish and a small town called La Herradura. We are tied up at the marina but may move out to anchor (which is free).

El Salvador seems to have a greater gap between the rich and the poor. That’s probably why the FMLN did so well in the elections yesterday (51%). It is a beautiful country and the people (with the exception of my former cleaning lady in Vancouver) are very nice, honest and pleasant.

We took a quick trip in to San Salvador to go to PriceSmart (Costco) and to Burger King (for Randy). Tomorrow we are going to visit a weaving town, some ruins and a volcano.

I don’t know when I have to return to Vancouver so we might leave here in the next five days or so and head for Costa Rica.

Today I am going to help a local woman from Vancouver teach English. She has about 30 children, twice a week in several classes. She has cashew trees on her property so I have seen the fruit and the nut. No wonder they are so expensive.

El Salvador Details

This blog site is very cumbersome. I will start over with a new post.

Bahia del Sol, El Salvador

We made it to El Salvador after a 2.5 day trip across the Tehuantepec. It was exhausting. Internet and cell phone service is sketchy due to the El Salvador elections on Sunday. I will add more information tomorrow or after the elections.

Next Stop - El Salvador

We are checking the weather constantly and it looks like we will leave Bahia Chahue direct to Bahia del Sol on Saturday morning. The passage takes about 3 days and 4 - 5 sail boats will make the transit with us ( within 6 hour or so ). Seas, winds and currents are all favourable. Check magicseaweed.com or NOAA - UGribs. We also pay for a transit weather service wrix.com (weather routing). They tend to be the most accurate.

So tomorrow will be fixing, planning, stowing and provisioning (Super Che). Most of Friday will be Mexican Customs and port authorities to get our "Zarpa" (exit visa).

We will post our actualy departure as we approach Saturday.

Delivery of SV Endurance

"If it's going to happen, it's going to happen out there" - Captain Ron

His gut told him (mostly literally) to not sail the 70 ft ferro cement schooner. Endurance hadn't moved from her slip in 3 years. It was questionable whether she was up for the 5 straight days from Huatulco (Bahia Chahue) to Opequimar in Puerto Vallarta. But Randy offered to help with the delivery. His dear friend Doug had no other seasoned sailors who could help. On departure day, when his stomach was giving him particularly strong "vibes", Randy tried to back out of his commitment but it was impossible at the last hour to find a replacement.

So off they went with an SSB and a VHF that could only receive but not transmit. Thank goodness developing third world countries have cell phone towers sprouting out of the remotest hills and towns. These were some of the reports I received.

Day 1 (two hours out) - the engine overheated and failed but they repaired it. The radios could not transmit but they could hear me.

Day 2 - Endurance was only trudging along at 2 - 3 knots. At that rate, it would take twice as long to deliver her. It turns out the propeller was covered in barnacles so they dove in and scraped off as much as they could... still not much improvement in speed... hmmm

Day 3 - Food and water supplies were not good due to not enough provisioning or too much consumption or both. Fuel and water tanks are much lower than expected.

Day 4 - Considered stopping at Ixtapa Marina to refuel and fill the water tanks but their maximum draft on a high tide is only 7 feet. Endurance is verging on 10 feet. The crew decided (thanks to Ken and Marilyn's suggestion) to anchor at the Playa Principal in Zihua Bay, have fuel and water supplied by panga and zip in to town (not exactly zip as the dinghy had no engine) for food and drinking water.

Day 5 - After a near miss with a freighter at 2 am and near mutiny on board, they rounded Cabo Corrientes which was pleasantly and uncharacteristically cooperative, but by now the already failing refrigeration and the heads have died. The food that they remained is already starting to get slimy in the heat. Oh, and the reason for the lack of speed?? A built in drogue was deployed. With a simple press of a little button it was retracted and Randy headed old Endurance straight for McDonald's at 8 knots. He just called between bites of french fries and slurps of chocolate shake.

Tomorrow they all return on Mexicana via Mexico City and will be happily back in Huatulco by 3:30 pm.