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Eleytheria Journal: May 2005

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May 13, 2005: The marina is empty

Abe here: We had such a great time in Oaxaca, Mexico City and Morelia, but it was time to get back to Eleytheria in Huatulco. The first thing we noticed upon arrival was how empty the marina seemed without all the cruisers we had seen before going inland. A couple of days before we got back, a large group had taken an opportunity to get across the Gulf of Tehuantepec. We felt alone, once again in the tail end of the cruisers. There were only one or two boats that didn't make Huatulco home, and the owners of those cruising boats had taken a trip back to Canada. We were stuck waiting out the weather to cross the Gulf without anyone to play with. We busied ourselves with movies, card playing, drinking coffee and general relaxation.

Amy here: We were determined not to get involved with any big boat projects because the weather notice could come at any time to leave. The only project Abe decided to tackle was to run wire for the GPS up through our compass pedestal. The problem happened when he opened up the console to get to the wires. At some point, someone, somewhere had used a wrong sized bolt to attach the shift lever. The bolt almost sheared off in Abe's hand. Very great thing that we found it now, it could have been really bad if it had sheared off at any inopportune time. And Murphy says it will only happen at an inopportune time!

Finally about a week before we left, another boat, Solace II, suddenly showed up a couple of slips down from us. Collin and Prune (good story on her name - when she was born, her sister said she looked like a Prune and the name stuck) and kids Rowan and Ella were aboard. A day later Juluka showed up with Arthur, Susan and Angela. We weren't alone! The reason these two boats had moved to the marina (and the reason we hadn't moved to an anchorage to wait for the weather window) was because we saw a Tropical Storm brewing in the Pacific. It looked like it was going to get bigger and meaner, and being tied to a dock in the relative quite of the marina would be a good place to hide. Back to the top.

 

May 18, 2005: Our first hurricane
We were quite bummed that we hadn't had a window to leave Huatulco yet. We have been planning that as soon as we arrived in El Salvador that we would take a trip to the States, and therefore we were quite excited to get a move on. It's time for a trip home! We'd been looking at some weather buoy information at the buoys in the northern side of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. We were also watching satellite and radar images showing the big low pressure system that was sitting out in the Pacific heading our way. It looked like it would be the first Tropical Storm of the season. And surprisingly, I'm very calm watching it build. We were in a pretty protected spot, but generally I'm scared of any wind over 10 mph. Odd that we picked a sailboat, eh?

The first information that we had showed that the Tropical Storm may hit at the southern end of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Not too close, but close enough to feel some effects. A day later, the Tropical Storm was upgraded to hurricane Adrian and was now predicted to hit on the border between El Salvador and Guatemala. Farther from us still. I'm scaring myself that I'm not worried. What's wrong with me not worrying? We're talking a hurricane here. A small one, but a hurricane nonetheless! We were expecting a few thunderstorm and wind, but nothing more. When the hurricane hit, we were safely ensconced in the cockpit of Juluka, enjoying a very fine meal with wonderful company. We didn't even get the wind, and only 10 minutes of rain. Now if we could only spend every hurricane this way.

The hurricane hit 20 miles from where the majority of the southbound boats were anchored in Bahia del Sol, El Salvador. This is where we had planned to be, and would have been if we'd left Mexico when we originally planned. Only one boat was damaged during Adrian, the other 50+ boats were fine. The winds didn't get much over 40 mph. Thankfully no one was hurt and the damage from lightening to Paradiso was not structural.

We had hoped to leave shortly after the hurricane hit, but the weather is still too disturbed to have a safe crossing. We'll just wait some more. Back to the top.

 

May 25, 2005: Departing Mexico

Abe here: Nothing in Mexico is as easy as it should be with the possible exception of doing nothing, and sometimes that's hard to do. At least this waiting got us back in the habit of spending time at a coffee shop, drinking coffee and playing cards. We hadn't done that in a long time - it's been too hot to drink hot coffee. We also got the chance to see Star Wars Episode III.

While Juluka and Solace decided to leave on the 25th, they both wanted to watch the European soccer championship game between Milan and Liverpool. They planned to leave later in the evening to catch the match. We headed out this morning at 10 a few hours ahead of the other two.

As we left Huatulco, the wind was strong and favorable. We raised our sails and took advantage for the 14 hours or so we had it. We made 7+ knots during this time and it gave us a great head start and a big savings in fuel - fuel we would need when the wind died down. We'd heard from other cruisers that they had to motor the entire trip - over 120 hours. Since we only carry 100 gallons in onboard tanks and 15 gallons in jury cans on deck, we had been concerned about having enough to get us to Barillas. With this first day of sailing, though, we were going to be fine. The wind was on our beam at about 20 mph giving us a very comfortable sail. At about nine in the evening, it started to die down, but we had already made almost 100 miles across the Gulf. We're on the road again. Back to the top.

 

May 26, 2005: Bob's (Amy's Dad's) favorite sailing conditions

Abe here: From the time that we told Amy's parents about our plans to sail around the world, Bob had mentioned that he would love to be sailing with us during a storm. I politely told him that if that is what he wanted, he would have to do it without us, since we would be dry on land. Well, on the night of the 26th, Bob could have had his wish fulfilled. Amy was on watch with me asleep in the cockpit. There were several squalls around the area that we could see on radar, and the wind had started to pickup. For about an hour it was steady at 30+ knots and gusting to 45. This is as high as we have seen it while sailing. Once or twice we experienced high winds in the San Francisco Bay, but it was only as high as 35 knots or so. That is what must have waken me up or at least the US flag whipping in the wind. I was worried that the wind would tear the flag off the stand and since we had already lost one flag to the wind god, I thought it best to bring it in. As I looked around I found we were in the middle of three squalls. The darkness prevented us from getting a good clear view of the squalls, but we did our best to try and work our way between them using radar to miss the largest of the clouds. We lucked out and got out with only a bit of adrenaline in our system and water on the deck.

A few hours later Amy told me she was shaken by the 45 knot wind gusts. She was all right during the experience, but it hit her about an hour later. The only thing I could think about the entire time was that Bob (Amy's Dad) would have enjoyed this evening. It was shaking, windy, wet, but short lived. This kind of squalls I can handle, but anything larger, Bob, you have a good time.

Amy here: When the squalls first hit us, I could feel a drastic difference in air temperature and was dressed in full foul weather gear. I had been sitting in the cockpit thinking how nice it was to be cold for a change. At some point, I had to go out on deck to better secure the full jury cans (we carried extra diesel this trip). Since it was my watch, and since I didn't secure them well enough before starting out, it was my job to fix. Besides, going outside the cockpit when I really don't want to is good for me. Face those fears, right? I put on a life jacket, hooked into the jack lines, and off I went. I crawled down the deck to the aft portion where sat while securing the cans. We had one of the largest waves of the night just at that moment come over our decks - completely soaked me from head to foot. I saw it coming and all I could do was duck my head. As soon as it hit, I heard pssssssstttt - my life jacket inflating. We have life jackets that are very compact and comfortable to wear while uninflated. If submerged with water, the CO2 canister goes off and inflates the jacket. Thank goodness it works! Abe heard it from below decks where he had been watching radar. I quickly replied to his, "Are you all right?" question. Just wet, but okay.

I wasn't all that much of a scaredy cat while it was going on, but once the adrenaline stopped and I had time to relax a bit, I realized I had been quite tense. A good cry to relieve the tension and I'm good to go again. Thank goodness Abe is patient with me and just hugs away some of the worry. I tell you, though, those high winds scare me. Good thing we don't see them too often. I wasn't as bothered by these high winds as those we saw for such a short time on the passage from PV to Zihuat so I am making progress. Back to the top.

 

May 27, 2005: Mexican Navy, Part 2

Crossing an international border in the ocean is a guesstimation at best. When you're 60 miles offshore, you are technically in international waters. We knew we were getting close to "crossing into" Guatemala, but weren't sure exactly when we would cross. Abe was on watch, I was sleeping, sometime before midnight. Abe was watching radar as he had seen a radar blip and lights, but the lights had gone out. Pangas normally don't have lights at all, so what was this blip? It started moving towards us at a fast rate according to the radar, and Abe was getting a bit concerned. Were these bandidos (bandits)? We have a flare gun that we can use in a dire emergency if we need to protect ourselves, but that's only for someone at close range. We've felt relatively safe our entire trip, knowing that pirates were rare, and generally limited to specific locations in the world (Philippines, entrance to the Red Sea, etc.). But we also know that there are many impoverished people in Mexico and Central America that may want to steal our goods in order to sell them for a bit of cash. When you see an unlit blip moving very quickly towards your home in the middle of the night, 60 miles offshore, one tends to be a bit unnerved. Fortunately, the radio squawked not long after Abe noticed they were moving towards our position They hailed us, ("calling vessel traveling southbound, at approximate location of X"). Phew! It's only the Mexican Navy. By this time I was awake. They wanted to know the name of the vessel, number of people on board, nationality of people on board, type of vessel and destination. They had a spotlight shined on us even though they weren't too close. They could confirm we were a sailboat with our mainsail up to help keep us steady while motoring. After only a short conversation, off they went. I don't know if they had a list of vessels recently checked out of the country that they could verify (my guess would be no), or whether Abe's Spanish just sounded honest. No boarding, no hassle, they were just checking us out.

And for a bit of engine excitement: At some point during the day, we'd given the engine a break. We'd had a slight bit of wind that looked promising enough to cut the engine and try to sail. It wasn't to be, but it gave Abe a chance to check the fluid levels of the engine, check the belts, fuel filters, etc. The alternator belt looked a bit worn, and after much groaning, Abe decided to change it. Groaning because the engine room gets really hot and stinky. Not a fun place to stick your body for 1/2 an hour. The belt was slapping a little against the new, second alternator and getting worn. He was really glad that he decided to change it because once he got the old belt off, he could see just how worn it was. Not fun to have it break while the engine is running. We say over and over again, how much angst we've saved ourselves by giving the engine a pre-start check, and checking it every so often while it's running. Abe did a pre-engine check before we left Muertos and found the water pump was coming loose. He changed the pump with a back up we had in 10 minutes and saved ourselves loads of trouble with it coming off while the engine was running. Loads of angst saved. Back to the top.

 

May 28, 2005: Thor makes an appearance near Eleytheria

Abe here: We had been enjoying the light shows over a couple of days as thunderstorms were hitting the shores of El Salvador. The heat of the sun warms up the land during the day. Along with the humidity, the heat of the earth starts to push the moisture into the sky and creates cumulus and, later, cumulonimbus clouds (thunderstorm clouds). As the evening progresses the light show grows. These shows occurred just about every night of the passage, but until the last night, it had only occurred on shore. We were quite far off shore so they weren't a factor for us.

The evening of the 28th put us on the front seat for the show - actually I felt we were the show. The row of thunderstorms started along the shore, as on previous evenings. At about one o'clock in the morning I noticed a thunderstorm slightly offshore, about 16 miles away. Being cautious by nature, I turned 10 degrees away from shore to put more room between us. As I noticed the lightning getting larger, I saw that the distance between us was decreasing. Time to give it more room. I turned another 15 degrees away. A few minutes later the distance had was less than 10 miles away with even a more spectacular light show. Amy woke up about this time and joined me in the excitement.

Amy here: I can tell Abe is stressed when he gets really quiet and very focused on what he's doing. I didn't say a word because I could tell he was too involved with what was going on. He was quiet as a mouse.

As I started to turn one direction, then another, and then another, the storm seemed to be chasing us. What was actually happening was the storm was growing in all directions along with it's natural path to the ocean. It was gaining on us and the radar showed it at four miles behind us. Until this point, the winds had been relatively calm and so we only had a partial mainsail out (about triple reefed). The wind was picking up and I put out the jib to take advantage of the 20 knot wind. This provided another knot and a half to our escape speed. We made a couple of turns, but the storm seemed to gain slightly on us. At one point we could see the storm two miles behind us, and as I turned I saw a double lighting bolt hit the water. (I (Amy) never saw that or maybe I would have wet my pants.) The cloud was nearly above us continuing to put on a light show. Amy had heard or read that thunderstorm cells have a life expectancy of 51 minutes. I have no idea how long this cell had lasted, but I was hoping that it was close to the 51 minutes. I must have ESP because a minute or so later, we noticed the cell start to decrease the lighting and the radar started to show where the cell was getting smaller - or was it splitting into four cells?

I was crossing my fingers, my toes, my eyes and whatever else might help in wishing that it was dying down. If we could just avoid it for another couple of minutes we would be in the clear. The radar blips were getting smaller and the lighting was almost nonexistent. Soon the radar was clear even though we could still see gigantic clouds behind us. There had been no lighting for about ten minutes when we decided to turn into the threatening cloud. We figured the movement of the cloud, our speed and our desired heading would all work in our favor of getting us away from center stage in a hurry. It worked! Once we were clear, we saw that the cell started to build again, both on the radar and Thor had begun to strike his hammer again. By this time the storm was four miles behind us and moving further away at a snail's pace, but moving away nonetheless.

Amy tells me that I was very focused during this entire episode and later asked me if I was very scared. I replied that I had been scared. A sailboat is designed to use wind (even heavy stormy winds) as a source of propulsion. We can reduce our sails if the winds get too strong. We can take fairly large waves without damage to the boat. But, a single lighting strike could damage all our electronic gear onboard and possibly start a fire onboard. Heck, Yes I was scared, but my military experiences taught me to use this fear in a positive manner. I guess what Amy saw as focus came about as my way of dealing with fear.

Oh, well another night in the life of two cruisers! Back to the top

 

May 29, 2005: We arrive in El Salvador, 13°15'47" N, 88°29'17" W

Abe here: When we arrived an hour out from a GPS point set up by Barillas Marina, we called the marina for a pilot boat. By the time we arrived to the entrance to Bahia Jiquilisco (hee-kee-LIS-co) the pilot was ready to guide us into the Marina.

We made our entrance past the breakers without any incidents. Well, at least no excitement, but we had arrived at high tide and we fought a three knot current into the marina. What should have been a relatively brief ride into the mooring had us motoring for three hours into the estuary. We finally arrived and had help getting tied onto the mooring. A couple of minutes later, the Manager of the marina showed up with a sailor from the Salvadoran Navy. After checking our papers, the sailor checked the boat for contraband (I have no idea what he was looking for). Then we took a panga into the shore and to immigration and customs right across from the marina office. We have not had an easier check in since we left San Francisco. After a quick tour of the premises (and it's a very luxurious resort) they let us loose. We have had a hard time relaxing and enjoying the place, Yeah, right! but I will let Amy write about it.

Amy here: We weren't quite sure what to expect once out of Mexico. We'd read that Barillas Marina was a wonderful spot, a good hurricane hole, a safe place to leave a boat while going ashore. We didn't quite expect to land in this amazing resort-like facility. The entrance over the bar can be tricky (not like Bahia del Sol, though which is where we originally planned on going.) We were met by a panga who guided us the 15 miles over the bar and up the river to the mooring field. A mooring ball is a floating ball with a ring on top, attached underwater to a very large and very heavy item - in this case an old engine buried in cement. You tie your boat to the mooring ball (normally with one line off the front of the boat) and swing on the ball instead of hanging off an anchor. The panga tied us to the ball which is a very good thing since we are horrible at catching a mooring ball and couldn't find our Happy Hooker. (I just like saying, "Happy Hooker," but the Happy Hooker is a hook on the end of a boat hook that makes tying to the mooring balls very, very easy.) Abe and I have had lots of practice mooring on two balls - one off the bow and one off the stern. He likes to joke (I hope) that we've almost come to divorce over mooring and the problems we've had. We were extremely happy the panga helped.

We're moored on an estuary in the middle of a mangrove field. Lovely.

We were greeting on our boat within 15 minutes by the manager of Barillas Marina, Heriberto, and a representative from the Navy. On a Sunday!! The gentleman from the navy cleared our boat and then we all rode into shore in the panga. Heriberto showed us around the property and walked us to Immigration. We were all cleared into the country within 30 minutes. On a Sunday!!

This property is amazing. It has a pool, small convenience store, palapas with internet connections, helicopter landing pad, a grass runway, planes to rent, guided tours, 24 hour security - the list goes on and on. Abe and I both agree that we feel completely at ease with leaving our boat here while we travel back to the States. The moorings are reasonably priced even if the rest of the property tends to have some high prices. But since the El Salvadoran president comes to visit here, I guess they can charge what they charge.

Abe hard at work at the palapa. How in the world can we have that much stuff? Yes, two computers, notebooks , camera (for all these lovely photos) - all the stuff on this palapa table is ours.

To top off the day, we had a nice dinner at the restaurant/bar and slept like the dead. Back to the top.

 

May 30, 2005: Memorial Day
Happy Memorial Day. Thanks to all servicemen and women past and present who have served, fought and protected us over so many years. You keep us safe and free, and we are forever indebted to you. Thank you seems so insufficient.

We awoke with the primary goal of securing our flight back to the US. We will be flying Space-A military hops from Honduras. The book we have indicates the flights leave every Thursday, but we needed to make sure and get ourselves in gear to get moving. We need to get the boat ready and it will take a couple of days to get to Honduras from here. I was surprised to learn anyone was working on Memorial Day (even on a base in Honduras), but we found out our flight out would be on Tuesday not Thursday. There's no way for us to make it by the tomorrow, so we have a couple of days to relax and get the boat ready before heading to San Salvador and onto Honduras.

We relaxed by the pool all day, read and napped a little. Close to sunset, we decided to go for a run. I tell you this because of our escort. We ran out the main gate of what I now call The Compound and down the road next to the landing strip. We'd been told by another cruiser that the guards at the gate strongly recommend that you don't go farther than the landing strip except in the van. Since it was a mile long, and we hadn't run in awhile, that was fine with us. We ran to the end of the strip, and as we were turning to come back, we noticed a gentleman on a bike. We turned back, and he turned with us. Not in a threatening manner, but you could tell he was following us. Abe asked him if he were keeping an eye out for us, and he said yes. We had an armed escort for our run. Westerners are targeted for kidnappings (so we hear) and there are wild animals (so we hear). I tell you, though, there's nothing like a stranger on a bike riding behind you to make me move faster. How embarrassing that I run so slow and like a girl. I had to pick up the pace so I don't embarrass myself. I was sucking wind by the end of it. I don't think I've ever run that fast. I apologized to him as we came back through the main gate for being so slow. He just smiled. How polite not to agree with me! Back to the top.

 

May 31, 2005: El Salvador outside The Compound
I'm not sure how true this is but after seeing the small town today I'm guessing it is true. El Salvador had quite a bit of rebels and guerrillas some years ago. Many natural disasters hit during a relatively short period and the country was doing very badly. Somehow, everyone decided to band together to get the country back on it's feet. Great. But now you have a whole lot of ex-guerrillas with guns and nothing to do. It seems that these guys are now employed by many different companies. Everywhere we went today, we saw guys with shotguns. I felt quite safe actually because these guys all looked very respectable and security conscious. At least they had nice uniforms. It was quite surreal, though, to ride on the van to town with the driver in the left seat and an armed guard in the right seat. Nice shotgun.

Parts of Mexico felt like what I imagined a third-world country would be like. But it wasn't until we got into Usulutan that I had my first true experience with the third world. The Compound's bus dropped everyone at the gringo's grocery store - at least it was priced for gringos - expensive. Since we are leaving on Friday we didn't need to provision at all. We're turning off the refrigerator while we're gone (our solar power can't keep up with the refrigerator) and are trying to empty it out. We decided to take the van just to explore town. There is a market similar to the Mexican mercados, but this market has less organization to it. There were hoards of people under umbrellas, if they were lucky to be shaded), rows upon rows of merchants with tables or cardboard boxes showcasing their wares. We saw live chickens for sale (not sure if for eggs or for killing), live crabs with claws tied together with hemp rope, underwear, t-shirts, belts, shoes, vegetables, fruits - everything you could imagine. There were no real isles to this outside market. People just set up wherever they found a spot. There were also many people walking around with trays of goodies. Some ladies even carrying nail polish and other fru-fru things in a tray similar to what old time cigarette girls carried.

Not a great picture of the entire market, but you can see the entrance. We'll try to get a better one when we get back from the States.

We stopped in one tienda looking for a duffle bag to help carry stuff back to the States. Very expensive for a very cheaply made duffle at $24 USD. It's very odd to pay for things with dollars outside the States - maybe it's because we've been using pesos for 6 months. The legal currency in El Salvador is the US Dollar. We heard that this is because the third largest industry in El Salvador is natives sending money back here from working in the States. Instead of the banks changing all those dollars to the old currency of Colon they just decided to stay with the US Dollar.

The streets here are very dirty compared to what we saw in most of Mexico. It seems that most of the people we saw are in survival mode. It's not that they don't have time to relax, but they have to work so very hard just to eat and put a roof over their heads. However, we didn't see many people begging. They all were working hard no matter if it were just to sell the small crabs that they picked up on the beach. It's difficult to witness such poverty, and I imagine that we have wealth like these folks would never comprehend. It's not that we're wealthy by US standards, but we are beyond comprehension by Salvadoran standards. We have heard that Mexico has problems with illegal immigration from Guatemala and the rest of Central America. People flock to Mexico for a try at a better way of life like some in Mexico flock to the US. Our impression is that Mexico has a better handle on keeping the illegal immigration down than we do in the US. Even those in Mexico have wealth beyond comprehension for some of these folks. Back to the top.

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