April 28, 2014
Monday was just another day in El Salvador. I spent a good part of the day working on my
blog with very slow internet and laboriously picking out songs on my new
guitar. Deni delivered another 100
gallons of water and we chatted in Spanish while he pumped it into our
tanks. Scott cleaned the spilled battery
acid out of the battery box and installed the new starting battery. It was hot.
Neither of us felt like doing much.
April 29, 2014
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| Me Sailing Off a Water Slide |
I got up at 5:30 on Tuesday to go running by six. Instead of being greeted by the usual herd of
milk cows outside the gate, I encountered four pretty little Arab horses
grazing unattended along the side of the road.
Later, as I was eating breakfast, Janet stopped by to bring
me a thumb drive with pictures from our trip to the water park. She was going grocery shopping, so I tagged
along. Janet had a truck. We didn’t get out of the neighborhood before
we ran across a pickup truck selling vegetables by the side of the road. I bought carrots, tomatoes, a plantain, and a
cantaloupe for $1.50. We continued down the road and then stopped at one of the
primitive looking stalls made of sticks, palm fronds and corrugated tin to buy
more vegetables. There, I got lettuce,
radishes (Salvadoran radishes are immense!), cilantro, two kinds of peppers, a
cucumber and some limes for $3.00.
Our next stop was at the hardware store. Janet needed a rake and some hose to pump
water from her cistern up to the solar water heating system on the roof. People living on the island have to provide
their own electricity and water. Ten
kilometers down the road, we stopped at a small supermarket. They even had an ATM. The only unprocessed meat offered there was
chicken, so I bought several packages of different cuts and some sausage. Since Janet had a truck, I got beer, juice
and a few cans of diet coke to keep me awake on late night watches if I started
to pass out. I also bought some meat
tenderizer, since the only beef I had been able to find seemed to have come
from former dairy cows that had outlived their usefulness. We turned around at the grocery store,
stopped at a couple of tiendas to look unsuccessfully for soy sauce, and then
finished our errands at a store across the street from the marine store where
Janet bought ice and I picked up a couple of pounds of beef that I hoped would
be more tender than the last batch I had purchased. At $3.50/pound, the beef was kind of
expensive, so I hoped it wouldn’t be shoe leather. It was useful to shop with a local because I never would have realized that half of the businesses were open.
When we got back, we unloaded our booty at the boat launch
ramp and I stayed and chatted with David, the security guard, while Janet went
to park her truck and fetch her launch.
He was very curious about the meaning of all the boat names. Some of them I could translate for him, but
some of the ones that were puns just didn’t make sense in Spanish. Janet dropped me and my groceries off at
Fool’s Castle, where we met Scott preparing to go across the estuary with Venus
to take his outboard to the mechanic. I
had been supposed to go, but Venus had decided to go a bit early. I left Scott with the groceries so he could
work on the boat and jumped into Venus’ launch with Venus and Patrick. We buzzed across the water and left the motor
with Juan Jesus. Scott’s motor was still
working, but tended to stall at full power.
No doubt, it needed to have its carburetor cleaned, also.
Venus wanted to go for lunch at Thomas’ beer and seafood
garden. We stopped there, checked the
place out, and chatted with Thomas, but they were closed on Tuesday. Thomas’ father was from Virginia. He had a very nice place with a bar, pool,
shady palapas with hammocks and tables on the dock. It would have been a nice place to hang
out. Venus told me that they made
fabulous coconut smoothies.
Disappointed, we backtracked to old, dependable Mar y Sol and had
pupusas for lunch. We ran into half the
cruisers in the bay while we were there and shared a table with Bill and
Barbara from the boat next to us. People
stop at Mar y Sol to get their laundry done and buy ice and water, as well as
to eat. It’s a popular place.
After lunch, we headed over to the island to visit Isabel,
an acquaintance of Bill and Jean’s who lived on the island, taking care of her
96 year old father, and enjoying the company of visiting cruisers. Isabel is a seamstress and Venus had left
some clothes to be mended. Patrick
wanted to get some mangoes from her trees.
I just went along to meet her because I had heard a lot about her. She lived in a simple house on the bank of
the estuary. The kitchen was outside on
a dirt floored porch. She cooked over a
wood fire burning atop a sheet of metal covering a wooden table. There was a hen laying an egg on the counter
and another nearly bald hen and a couple of dogs underfoot. In the middle of this scene, sat a shirtless
American man reading a Kindle. He sat
there like a king on his throne while Isabel waited on him. He seemed to be her boyfriend, although she
was somewhat vague about their exact relationship. It looked to me like he had a pretty good
situation, although he didn’t appear to speak Spanish and I don’t know how they
communicated. Isabel seemed glad to see
us and chatted away gaily. She gave us a
big bag of mangoes and hugged me when I left.
I was sorry that I didn’t have the chance to get to know her better.
I got back about 4:00 to find Scott deep in thought in the
cockpit. He had installed the starter
and, though the engine was turning over, it still wasn’t starting. He decided to move the ground wire from the
bolt securing the starter to the engine block to a stud protruding from the
side of the starter and, after trying it a few times, that appeared to
work. The boat started. It started more than once. Nothing jammed, caught fire, or melted. We were finally in business.
April 30, 2014
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| Fish Restaurant on Stilts |
I had a leisurely morning on Wednesday and then went with
Patrick and Venus at 12:30 to try eating lunch at Thomas’ place once more. When we got there, we discovered that they
were still closed. Thomas had gone
fishing. We went back to the marina to
drop off Venus’s dog, Teja, and tell Scott where to meet us. He had had to stay behind to check out with
the port captain at 1:00 and was going to come in the dinghy and meet us. We didn’t know what would be open, so we took
the handheld radio so that we could call him.
We started to go to La Puntilla, which was close by and offered lots of
restaurant choices, but then Venus decided to go to one of the restaurants on
stilts across the estuary off Tasajera Island.
We had to cross the entrance to the estuary to get there, which gave us
a good view of the bar. I was pleased to
see that it looked pretty calm out there, but it was fairly wet in Venus’ handy
little launch and I didn’t think Scott would want to go over there in our dinghy. I was relieved, therefore, when Patrick
decided he didn’t want to eat fish and we headed back across to La Puntilla.
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| Patrick and Venus at La Puntilla |
We beached the boat in front of the first restaurant that
looked open and they brought a table over close to where we landed so we could
watch the boat. The waiter recognized Venus from Thomas', where he also worked, and flirted with her. I tried to call Scott,
but couldn’t reach him. Since it had
been awhile, I assumed that he had already left in search of us and I knew he
was going to be angry. It turns out that
he had just got in the dinghy and heard me calling, but I couldn’t hear him
when he answered. He was pretty mad that
I didn’t try to hail again. I probably
should have, but wouldn’t have heard his answer, anyway. Scott ended up eating lunch at Mar y Sol,
since that was the only place he knew.
We had carne asada and French fries.
It was pretty tasty, but they only had two knives in the restaurant and
had to rustle up a plastic one for me.
Fortunately, the meat wasn’t tough.
Soon after we returned, it was high tide and time to take
the Castle over to the fuel dock. This
was a tricky maneuver. Scott had to back
in and get the boat stopped and secured in a very small space. For some reason, the security guys who take
lines in Mexico and El Salvador never know how to stop a boat. I had to jump off, push them out of the way
and get a midships line around a cleat quickly, before we smashed into
something. Fortunately, the cleat held. The tide was extremely high. So high, in fact, that the fuel pier was
slightly under water. This was actually
good, since it made it easier to stretch the fuel hose over to the far side of
our boat. We took on nearly 100 gallons
of fuel. Unfortunately, diesel costs as
much in El Salvador as it does in the USA.
Returning to our slip was much less exciting.
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| Jean at the Rum Tasting |
Mike and Holly, from a boat with the unpronounceable name Wanuskewin that ends up just being called Wanna Go Sailing, were also planning to leave the next day and had organized a rum
tasting for that evening. They had seven
different kinds of rum, ranging from $2 Honduran rum, through several different
ages of Nicaraguan Flor de Cana, to $50 Zacapa.
Other people brought a bottle of Panamanian 151 and a couple of kinds of
local hooch. Mike set it up as a blind
taste test. Not surprisingly, the majority
of us liked the Zacapa best. What was
surprising was that the second favorite was the $2 Honduran rum. Of the Flor de Canas, I like the 7 year old
best. For some reason, it was smoother
than the much more expensive older rums.
No one favored the 151. The local
hooch actually wasn’t bad. It was a good
value for the money and would have been fine for mixing. We had also ordered several pizzas and were
having a fine time when a squall hit and put an end to the party by blowing all
our drink glasses away. I got soaked to
the skin just scurrying back to the boat and wetter still by the time I had run
around removing all the hatch covers so that we could close the hatches tightly
enough to keep out driven rain. For the
first time in weeks, I was actually chilled.
May 1, 2014
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| Bahia del Sol Marina |
I got up at 5:30 AM to go for one last 8K run in El
Salvador. I ran into the waiter from La
Puntilla who had been flirting with my friend, Venus, and he greeted me with
surprise. I spent the rest of the
morning stowing the dinghy, motors, extra water, etc. Scott picked up our zarpe (clearance out of
the country) at 11:00. After lunch, I paid the hotel bill and tipped the
helpful desk clerk and bar staff. I said
goodbye to my friends, Venus and Ramona.
We left the dock about 3:30 and motored around in the
estuary for an hour, waiting for the pilot and making sure the engine was
operating properly. Everything seemed
fine. We set off across the bar at
4:30. The bar was fairly calm, but
seemed to go on forever. Finally, Bill
came on the radio and thanked us for visiting El Salvador and the pilot turned
around. All my friends had called to
wish us safe travels. There was so much
radio traffic that it was hard to hear the directions from the pilot.
 |
| Bill and the Bar Pilot |
Wind was light, so we motored off toward the next waypoint
at 5.5 knots. It was Scott’s watch, so I
went below to nap. Just as I dropped
off, Scott ran below to turn off the engine.
Steam was billowing out of the engine room. Scott said the exhaust water
had been dark colored just before it overheated. The engine was too hot to touch, but it
didn’t look good. Scott looked lost and
angry at the same time. We put up sails
and then he looked to me for our next move.
Without an engine, we couldn’t go back over the bar. I briefly weighed
the idea of sailing on to Costa Rica or Panama, but it looked likely we would
be stuck wherever we stopped next and I didn’t want that place to be somewhere
without good support that cost $2/foot/day.
I made the call to return to Chiapas.
Scott jumped on the idea immediately.
We said goodbye to Wanuskewin and
turned our bow to the northwest.
We made 4 knots at first, but glided along at 2.5 to 3 knots
most of the night. We turned on the
generator, but it overheated and stopped 30 minutes later. Scott had closed the thru-hull to the cooling
water. The impeller in the water pump
was toast. Now, solar was our only power
source. We went about with flashlights
and turned off the refrigerators. At one
point, we were visited by fireflies of all things. They looked like little LED lights zigzagging
through the moonless night. The freaked
me out at first, since I had never seen one in person before.
May 2, 2014
The wind picked up for a couple of hours at dawn, but died
down as the sun rose higher. We did 1.5
knots all morning. We gybed just before
I came back on at noon and were making about 2.5 knots during the
afternoon. While it was frustrating to
be moving so slowly, it was much pleasanter sailing than motoring. It was quiet and there was no stinky exhaust
to give me a headache. I slept well.
 |
| Scott at the Helm |
Having turned around, I now needed to consider my
options. Clearly, we weren’t going to
Sweden in 2014, if ever. Having been
stranded without an engine for the second time, and just 30 minutes after
crossing the bar where an engine failure could have been fatal, I started to
doubt the advisability of continuing on a boat so plagued with mechanical
issues. Ingemar had turned out to be
inexperienced at sailing or cruising, instead of the competent licensed skipper
I had been led to expect when we conceived of this journey, and he had not remained with the boat. Scott had been unable to keep the boat running reliably. He was perpetually surly, never seemed to
enjoy anything about cruising, and offended the other cruisers to the point
where I had to leave him behind if I didn’t want to be isolated. As much as I wanted to keep cruising, it was
looking like I needed to find another boat.
I was tired of doing most of the work, all the planning, paying for the majority of expenses,
being treated badly, and missing out on all the fun. I had sorely regretted our having done no
land exploration whatsoever. Scott had
no desire to see or do anything. He was
too wrapped up in being despondent and I had reached the end of my patience
with enabling his bad behavior.
We bobbed along at 2 knots most of the day. At 2:30, Scott decided to work on the
generator. He had to take apart the
water pump and replace the impeller, which required tearing up the floor and
disassembling the generator sound shield.
It was hot steering under the blazing sun. Of course, he couldn’t finish fixing the
generator by 4:00 when his watch started, so I had to steer until 5:15, by
which time I was hot, tired, thirsty, hungry, and generally aggravated. He did, however, manage to get the generator
working again after an additional hose blowout, so we at least had some power
generating capacity.
I cancelled dinner and went to sleep. I came back on at 8:00 PM. At 11:00 PM, I woke Scott to close the
hatches because it was raining steadily.
We had seen lightning all evening.
The rain let up about the time Scott came on again at midnight.
May 3, 2014
 |
| Cloudy Dawn |
It was pleasant when I first came on at 4 AM, but soon
started to rain again. There was very
little wind and it was hard to steer. I
could make almost no forward progress and could only sail slowly south and then
slowly north through the raindrops.
Visibility was poor. The wind
came up briefly and 5 AM, but died again at sunrise. I saw a panga at dawn. They came very close, but didn’t seem to be
trailing a line. At 7 AM, when I was
about at my wits end, I was visited by a huge pod of small dolphins who played
about the boat for some time. They
cheered me up and by the time they left, I was able to get the boat going wing
on wing in the desired direction at almost 3 knots, which seemed quite speedy
after doing 1.5 to 2 all night.
Scott came back on at 8 AM and I went to bed, only to be
awakened half an hour later when the same panga I had seen at dawn approached
the boat. They mainly just seemed to be
curious. They told us the boat was
pretty and tried to sell us mahi mahi or dorado. I found Guatemalan fishermen very friendly
both coming and going. I got the feeling
they didn’t see a lot of yachts. I went
back to sleep and slept very soundly until nearly noon. At noon, it was time to re-open all the
hatches and raise the Guatemalan courtesy flag before taking the helm
again. At first, there was a good breeze
and we proceeded at over 5 knots for an hour and a half before it began to die
down. Still, we were making 3-4 knots, which
seemed rapid. The wind got lighter and
lighter. It didn’t seem to matter what I
did with the sails. Our forward motion
was mostly due to a couple of knots of current, which was fortunately heading
west.
I cooked a hunk of someone’s old milk cow for dinner, which
took half the evening to chop and tenderize.
I took the helm again at 8:00.
The sky was filled with lightning.
We seemed to be skirting a storm and were making 5-6 knots. At 9:00 or so, really strong wind hit. For half an hour, I struggled to control the
boat while we reached speeds of up to 8.2 knots. It calmed down by 10:00, but then it started
to rain. I did my best to steer around
the lightning, which lit up the sky every few seconds. By midnight, we were sailing along through
light rain at 3.5 knots. I went below
and slept well.
May 4, 2014
 |
| Dawn Over Guatemala |
When I came back on at 4 AM, the sky was clear and stars
were out. The boat was practically
sailing itself at 3 knots. We had made
good tome over the past 24 hours and were now just a day away from Chiapas, we
thought.
Scott took the helm at 8 AM.
A yellow warbler visited with him for an hour or so. It had always amazed me when I met them 20 or
30 miles from shore and I wondered what happened to them after they leave my
boat. There was no wind from 10 to 11
AM, but we rocked along on the current at 1.5 knots. Just before noon, the generator quit again.
I came back up at noon, after having passed a restless
morning. It was clear and hot, a good
day for a sunburn. I had been sailing in
my bikini bottoms since we left El Salvador, attempting to tan the tops of my
thighs. Getting dressed for my afternoon
watches mainly consisted of slathering on SPF 50 sunscreen. The boat was sailing itself.
About 2:00, it clouded over.
I could hear thunder. The wind
went forward. It became difficult to
hold a course. After sailing dead
downwind for three days where we could sail a half-assed wing on wing and still
get somewhere, now the wind was dead on the nose and it was hard to make
progress. We bobbed. All afternoon. All night.
Sometimes we went backwards. We
could have walked faster. I made chicken
breasts in Guajillo chile sauce for dinner and then took the helm at 8:00. The night was clear and moonlit until 11:00
or so. I couldn’t help but think that it
might be my last night at sea on Fool’s Castle.
Between 8 PM and midnight, we made two miles. Between midnight and 4 AM when I came back
on, we made another two miles.
May 5, 2014
Dawn brought a light breeze for an hour or so and we made a
mile, but then started slipping backwards.
I tacked. It didn’t help. The instruments quit due to lack of power
about 4:30. I felt like I had slipped
back to a time where I had only wind to propel me and only a compass to guide
me.
Sailing with no wind was incredibly loud. The sails snapped continually, blocks
squealed, and halyards banged against masts.
Metal objects clanged in the lazarettes and doors banged in the cabin. The constant bobbing addled my wits until I
just wanted to scream. It was not a good
situation to be in when our relationship was already strained. When Scott took the helm at 8 AM, we had gone
forward 1.5 mils and then backwards for 0.75.
There was no point in trying to steer.
 |
| Spinnaker Hanging Limp |
I slept until 10 AM while Scott worked on the generator. He added oil and replaced the solenoid, but
maybe it had only been overheated. We
couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter why. It was working again. At 10, Scott woke me to help him raise the
spinnaker, which we hoped would allow us to move forward. When I came up at noon, we had lost another
mile and there was still no wind.
Usually, flying a spinnaker is a somewhat stressful
experience requiring constant attention.
It was so calm that Scott had stayed in the cabin, ignoring the sails
and hiding from the merciless sun. Even
the swell was dying and the water looked glassy.
The wind filled in about 1:30 and we started to move in the
right direction at 2.5 to 3 knots.
First, we made up our lost ground and then we finally moved
forward. We passed into Mexican waters at
about 2:00 PM. We tore along at 3.5 to
5.5 knots. The wind was puffy and
required concentration. I sighted land
for the first time in four days at 3:30 PM.
We proceeded at a good pace until 6:00 PM, when we dropped the kite so
that we could head further upwind towards Puerto Madero. The wind held and we covered the remaining 10
miles to the port in a couple of hours.
We had intended to sail into the port and drop anchor to wait for
morning when we could push the boat into the marina with the dinghy or call for
a tow. Unfortunately, clouds obscured
the moon and it was very dark. The red
light at the harbor entrance was out of service and we could not see the jetty. As we got closer, it became apparent that we
could not sail in the direction necessary to enter the harbor. We decided to continue past the entrance and
anchor in the open roadstead to the north.
Even this proved to be difficult, as the lack of wind and adverse
current made this a long, drawn out process.
It took us and hour and a half just to clear the main entrance channel
and drop the hook.
May 6, 2014
 |
| At Anchor Outside Puerto Madero |
We spent a rocky night at anchor, but the holding was
good. We were a bit bleary in the
morning, but otherwise fine. At nine, we
called Marina Chiapas on the radio and were relieved when Enrique, the
harbormaster, greeted us cheerfully and immediately offered to come and tow us
to the marina. It took them until nearly
noon to arrive, which was fine. It was a
relief to know they were coming.
Eventually, Memo (the assistant harbormaster) and a couple of marina
employees arrived in the marina’s launch and they towed us into the
marina. I had to admit it was nice to
have Memo to talk to the port captain for me.
I had not been looking forward to having to explain, for the second
time, why we were being towed into his port.
 |
| Being Towed into Puerto Madero |
It took a large part of the afternoon for the customs and
navy to arrive to inspect our boat. They
were the same two gentlemen who had come the month before. They were so polite and friendly that it was
difficult to believe they were officials.
It did, however, take quite a while to do all the paperwork. Once they had left, we finally got to use the
showers before heading to the office to complete the check-in process
there. By that time, it was 3:30 and
very hot. A large power boat was
arriving. Memo decided he would take all
of us to immigration in the morning. We
were free to enjoy cold beers, eat our dinner and get a good night’s sleep.
May 7, 2014
Memo had told us to be at the office by 8:30 so that we
could get to immigration by the time they opened at 9:00. We arrived promptly, but the power boat had
gone to the fuel dock and we waited until nearly 10:30 for them to arrive. We all piled into a crew cab truck, with a
couple of guys in the back, and drove around to the port offices where
immigration was located. They had opened
a satellite office there since we left in April, so we didn’t have to go to the
airport. Unfortunately, there was no one
there when we arrived. Memo went looking
for the woman while we waited. It was
hot in the lee of the building.
Eventually, we discovered a snack bar around the corner where there was
a cool breeze and we could get cold drinks.
We waited for nearly an hour.
Eventually, the immigration officer, who was actually very
sweet, arrived. She had been out
shopping for office supplies. She
stamped our passports and took the payment for our visas. Having spent a lot of time being an illegal
alien in El Salvador, it was a relief to get that out of the way and even more
of a relief that no one noticed that our passports said we had left 2.5 weeks
before we actually sailed from El Salvador.
It was lunchtime by the time we got back from
immigration. We were hungry, but decided
to go into Tapachula and get lunch there.
Taco Toro was calling our names.
We took a collectivo into town and went straight to the food court,
stopping only to get money out of the ATM so we could pay for lunch. After we had eaten, we went to the AutoZone
and bought some new hoses for the generator.
Scott believed that it was overheating because the replacement hose he
had installed was the wrong shape and was pinching off the water flow. From the AutoZone, we crossed the road and
went to the Home Depot to buy a new tarp.
The one we had been using was on its last legs and the rainy season was
upon us. Any tarp we left covering the
boat would have to last until we returned in the fall.
Our other errands complete, we returned to the Walmart to do
our grocery shopping. It was nice to see
a proper grocery store again. Not
knowing how long we were going to remain in Mexico, we didn’t buy a lot. We picked up some salad fixings, a few
bananas, a six-pack of beer and some bread for Scott. Then we stopped to enjoy some frozen yogurt before
taking another collectivo back to the marina.
It was getting dark by the time we returned. We rested for a while and then had a late
dinner. We were confined to the boat
after dusk because the mosquitoes were very bad. I was glad for our mosquito screens, even if
they did block the air flow.
May 8, 2014
A mechanic came to look at the engine first thing in the
morning. I was in the shower when he
came. He didn’t speak English, so left
for a while until I returned. When I
arrived at the boat, not realizing the floor was out in the main salon, I came
down the companionway and fell into the engine compartment. I hurt in so many places that, at first, I
couldn’t really tell what was wrong. My
foot was turning black and blue and swelling fast, so I concentrated on icing
that. My left shin and right upper arm
were also very bruised. As the day wore
on, the pain in my back where I had landed on the generator housing and buttocks
where I landed on the engine became more pronounced. I could do nothing but lie around and grimace.
Unfortunately, I still needed to translate for Scott and the
mechanic. I propped myself up on the
settee with an ice pack on my foot while the mechanic took the engine
apart. It seemed that the hose running
from the oil pan to the oil pump had broken.
The engine had run out of oil and overheated. The head gasket had blown and at least one of
the pistons was scored. We were looking
at having to haul the boat and remove the engine, which meant disassembling the
cabin top again. That wasn’t necessarily
a bad thing, since it leaked like a sieve from the last time we had done so and
needed redoing, anyway. Still, this
meant at least a couple of weeks and a fair amount of money. I was planning to travel in Central America
while the engine was being repaired, but now wasn’t sure I would feel well
enough to do so. I spent the rest of the
day sleeping in the steamy aft cabin, since it hurt too much to try to do
anything. Scott had to make dinner.
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