Gulfo de Fonseca - Photo catching up

Time to fill in some pics of the 10 days we spent around Gulfo de Fonseca at the southern end of El Salvador. We went down to meet up with Pam and Henry who were traveling down on Rapscullion, Henry’s trick catamaran ride.

El Salvador requires that a boat receive a Zarpe (exit paperwork) even to travel to another port within the country. They make the paperwork very easy and convenient, but it is still an unneeded $40 expense. Next time, I think we’d just get a Zarpe for leaving the country and then go into the Golfo, but not go all the way into La Union, or any of the nearby commercial ports, to check out of the country.

To leave Bahia del Sol we had to head back out across the bar again. Rojelio, the bar pilot, had Tuesday off but he graciously agreed to come meet us 8:30am to guide us out at high tide. The surf wasn’t too bad, but you definitely do want a pilot here. You can see the bar, with breaking waves, in the distance.

The bar breaking on our way out

One of the panga (called lancha here) fisherman tied up to his little black flag 10 miles offshore. These are the flags that are supposed to warn you that their nets are out. If there’s a swell running they can be completely hidden behind the swells, as are the pangas themselves. And guess what, the black flag does not stand out at night. This guy is giving us the international hand signal for it appears if you stay on your present course you are not going to run over my net and foul it in your prop– but watch out for the next one.

Pam needed to check out the boat lift at the Naval yard in La Union to determine how well it would handle hauling her 46ft steel hull boat, Precious Metal. The first few nights in the Gulf, we anchored in Tamarindo Bay just in front of where Giovanni- a real go-getter local who we first met at the lunch we had with the brass in San Salvador- plans to develop a new marina, the first in the Golfo de Fonseca. Giovanni picked us up one day and we visited his development site and then headed over to La Union.

The first pier and beach area for the new marina. This is going to be an ecologically sound development. They finally received their government approvals after two years of work. Interested in investing?

Giovanna on the left, John off Sea Quest in the middle, and yours truly looking at where the dredging spoils will go. John has developed and run major boat yards in California and Mexico and is interested in being involved in the development of a potential dry storage yard in La Union.

Giovanni drove us all up to the town of Chonchaguara(sp) in the hills just above La Union. The church above was originally built on one of the offshore islands. It was moved here in 1700’s (or so) brick by brick to make it more defensible– damn pirates. Gofo de Fonseca was long a haven for forays on the Spanish gold plunder from S. America.

When you head out with Giovanni (right), there always seems to be a good meal involved.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the unfortunate white elephant at La Union, a project not yet complete. This brand new container port was built by the Japanese a couple years ago, with promised French involvement.  Those yellow container lifts are reportedly $10 million a piece. The plan was to build a new container port in La Union and connect it with an existing container port on the Caribbean side of Honduras by taking the old United Fruit Company narrow gauge railroad and rebuilding it into a double rail cross Central America track. This would then give an alternative to some of the container traffic that passes through the Panama Canal- a money maker to be sure.  The Japanese built the port and dredged the entrance. The world market went to hell and the French pulled out before staring the rail line. Not a single container ship has landed here.  This is just not the kind of infrastructure investment that El Salvador needs at this time. It’s too bad, because it seems like the government is really trying to fortify the country’s economy to create jobs for the locals and grow the middle class (and get re-elected). Unfortunately, many Salvadorans invested in businesses that would support the port and they are now hurting- badly.

We also got a good guided tour of the Naval Base. Here’s one of the ships having work done on the Naval boat yard lift. In order to lift Lovely Lady out of the water (for inspection and repairs after her grounding), this boat needed to be moved. The Commander at the base said that they could finish up work on this boat fairly quickly. But before they could put it back in the water- and haul the civilian sailboats- they would need to do some maintenance on the lift itself, which would take a little more time. Pam was glad to hear they were going to do the maintenance before Precious Metal would be hauled.

However, the maintenance didn’t go so well and the boat, and part of the pier, fell over during the attempted launching a few days later. Not sure when this will get fixed. Does not give you a warm and fuzzy about hauling your boat here at this time.

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Isla Meanguera, Golfo de Fonseca

About 10 miles off La Union or Tamarindo is Isla Meanguera. We spent all total about 4 or 5 nights in the peaceful anchorage in the little bay where the La Joya de Golfo hotel is located. This is a four room hotel run by an ex-pat from LA and his El Salvadorian wife (also from LA). The Lonely Planet guide describes it: as a very nice place to stay, and that’s a good thing as it is the only place to stay on the island. The anchorage was nice, but the evening thunderstorms left a little to be desired in the ‘peaceful category’

La Joya de Golfo Hotel

Me and the hotel dog Gordo putting in some deck time

Chris and Rachel, the very talkative and fun hotel kid making sure George the hotel cat is comfortable.

Having a good-bye dinner on the deck at the hotel.

The island has some nice stone paved roads, but no cars. Here’s some of the goods transporters hanging by the docks.

There’s one pupuseria (pupusa – the Salvadoran stuffed thick tortilla) in the village on the island. Check the local green parrots (pets) up in the right side of the roof frame. These guys were just bored looking at us on a hot day until the proprietess came out to talk with them. Then they started singing, dancing and vying for her attention.

Then the boss parrot started tongue kissing with the proprietor

Pam saw a chance for some bird affection and gave it a try while Henry watched and wondered about why not me.

These guys are way cool.

End of photo update Uno.

Paul

Passage to Costa Rica

Our last evening in El Salvador, we enjoyed another good dinner on the over-the water patio at the Hotel La Joya de Golfo with Henry and Pam off 'Rapscullion' and Dennis and Virginia off 'Libertad'. Having 3 cruising boats in the anchorage in front of the hotel on Meanguera Island is probably a record. We've been traveling with Henry since Zihuatenejo and traveled to Guatemala with Pam while in El Salvador. We said our goodbyes and hope to catch up with both of them again in Panama. 'Libertad' is off to Costa Rica along with us.
We got up early on Friday and had the anchor up by about 5:15am. Motored out the Gulfo de Fonseca. The gulf is bordered by 3 countries, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, so when you see a Naval vessel, most likely a Vietnam era hand-me-down, you can't tell which country it's from in the distance. Either way, they seem pretty friendly and more interested in the cruisers security than anything else.
Once we got out into the Pacific we had a few false starts of sailing, then got in a good days sail till early evening when the motor had to go back on as the wind died out. There must have been some kind of a no-fishing holiday in Nicaragua as we did not see a single panga or shrimper all day or night. That was a good thing. The night looked clear and the sliver of moon was setting as the Southern Cross rose. There was a lot of phosphorescence in the water, the usual green glow with additional dancing green dots that looked like small galaxies, spun up in the boat's wake. Every once in awhile a porpoise or two would zoom up to play with the boat and leave trails of glowing water in their wake. You could see the trail dart under the boat and then the depth sounder would suddenly register 13 feet depth, instead of infinity.
By night fall we were around 17 or 18 miles offshore. We went this far out to avoid pangas -- apparently the non-existent ones -- and to hopefully reduce the number of storm cells we ran into, as they seem to develop on shore. It looked like a brilliant strategy until about 2am. Instead of just seeing all the lightening flashes on the coast you could start to see some more ahead of us. The storm built and you could clearly see it as a 2 mile by 12 mile long set of cells on the Radar. We spent the next 4 hours trying to out dodge the storm, making little progress toward our destination and moving even further offshore. Eventually it caught up to us and started dumping rain. The wind and the rain are not the real issue -- its the lightening flashes all around that make it a less than enjoyable experience. There looked like a couple of small light rain paths through the storm so we changed direction and punched through it toward shore. An hour later the sun was coming up ad looking over our shoulder to the storm there was a full rainbow.
Today was a boring motor boat ride-- no wind and a need to get to the anchorage before dark. We made it into Bahia Santa Elena in northern end of Costa Rica this evening just after dark. Hope to get in some snorkeling in the morning and hunt down some of the local parrots and monkeys for dinner.
Paul
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Not a good year to be in the inusrance business in CA

This not apparently a good year to be in the boat insurance business in Central America. I checked in with our friends on 'Le Bateau' to see how their passage from El Salvador to Costa Rica went. Kelvin and Jinny made it all the way to Las Cocos, Playa del Cocos in Bahia Culebra. They went in to spend the day with their local friends. The boat got hit by lightening while they were away and fried all the electrical and electronics. Alternator, regulator, windlass, radar, radios, etc. No fun. They are trying to get the boat together enough to sail her to Punta Arenas, Costa Rica, for a haul-out for complete inspection and repair. Second lightning strike on a boat we know and it's just the beginning of the season. we've had big storms, with plenty of lightening and rain, every night since arriving in Gulf of Fonseca.
We left the anchorage on Meanguera Is. and returned to Tamarindo Bay accompanied by Pam and Henry on 'Rapscullion'. With a very large Pacific swell running, it turned out to be one uncomfortable night there- actually two uncomfortable nights. In Tamarindo, We got Jervis on a local panga to take us through the bar entrance into the estuary. We grabbed Oscar the taxi driver to take us into and around La Union, the big town here. We wanted to do our official check in in La Union and check out at the same time, but it turned out that the port captain in town doesn't do this. It is the officials at nearby Puerto Caraison. So we decided it would be easier to bring he boat in the next day, anchor near the Navy base we'd visited last week, and dinghy in with the folks on 'Libertad' to do the paperwork shuffle. We did -- the port guys are friendly and cooperative. That said, next time I'd just check out at Bahia del Sol and not go into La Union with the boat. There are enough anchorages around here that you can skip La Union and just be 'in transit'- we're learning.
We met up with 'Libertad' and 'Lovely Lady' crew in town at the fast food chicken spot, Pollo Campero. After the Navy lift fell over, Rose decided to take the boat back to Barillas where they had now agreed to haul her for the inspection after her grounding there a couple weeks ago week. On the way up it was stormy and there was this large swell running. The fishing pangas here get hidden behind the swells and are very difficult to see, sometimes even in broad daylight as we can attest. It was 4am when they heard a smash on the bow. They'd center-punched a panga splitting it in two. The pangero ended up with a compound fracture of the femur. Fortunately there were other pangas around to take him in to port immediately- they move mush faster than the sailboats can, even under power- and off to San Miguel for surgery. Another insurance claim. 'Lovely Lady' is really due for some no-more-drama time.
We're back in the little anchorage off Isla Meanguera now. If it works out OK, we will leave early in the morning for a 2 day, 1 night passage to the north end of Cost Rica, making for Bahia Santa Elena. We were going to leave today, but it looks like the rain storms, and hence the lightening, might be a little less tomorrow. We plan to keep an eye out for the fishermen and are making sacrifices to Thor that he will take pity on us poor sailors here in the throes of the Central America rainy season.
Pictures and intelligent commentary when we get to Internet access again.
Paul and Chris
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