11/28/2014

 Just aquick post, we're departing Bahia del Sol, for Nicaragua in a few minutes, after we cross the sandbar! Pictures to follow!

11/22/2104- Bahia del Sol

We've been here over a week now, and it's time to haul in the docklines again!
 Once again, we've found that other peoples opinions of a place, are just that; opinions. Some people really dislike this place, some love it. You never know, 'til you go! We love it, but it's time to continue south..... we'll be heading out Monday for San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

During our stay here,

we've done a tour to one of the islands, made a provisioning run to San Salvador, and taken care of some small projects. We planned on anchoring, but the marina is not too expensive, and it makes it easy to get Jack to the beach.

I was impressed that our Sony CSX-110 video takes pretty good still photo's, and, is conveniently small and easy to carry.

The ladies co-op bag shop

The guy across the trail.

Chicken in the pot.

Checking out the tourists.

Old and new.

Jewelry makers.

Local fisherman.

We've had a great time here, and most of the boats from Chiapas have come in. An American couple that lives here ( Lynn and Lou) have a very nice house on the river, and invite cruisers over on Sundays to enjoy their pool, and have a laid back afternoon. We'll go there tomorrow, and then cross the bar Monday afternoon. The weather looks good for the 48 hour trip, but by Thursday it could get nasty, so hopefully, we'll be at anchor in San Juan del Sur! 

11/16/2014- Chiapas to Bahia del Sol

As usual, I've been slow to update the blog.
We had a fun and uneventful passage. Roughly 250 miles in about 53 hours. Leaving Marina Chiapas at 3 PM on Tuesday; we motored out of the harbor, and in twenty minutes we were sailing along at 4 to 5 knots. Just outside of the harbor, we nearly hit a 5 foot log attached to a net. We started looking for more nets, and there were several we had to avoid. Once we were clear of the nets and floating debris, we set our course, adjusted the sails, and time to try out the windvane!

It works great! It is very sensitive to the slightest sail adjustments, and I didn't have the control line adjusted tight enough. Still, it worked great as long as we had wind. By about 10 pm the wind had shifted, so rather than start the engine, I decided to sail the wind; I wasn't worried about our course so much, as keeping the sails inflated. This led us farther offshore than we needed to be, and we soon entered the shipping lanes. Huge cargo vessels heading for Costa Rica, Guatemala, and who knows where, seemed to be all around us!

Thank you AIS! We were able to see and avoid the traffic.

Eventually, the wind died, and we started the engine. The conditions were calm through the night, and the next day. We were accompanied by many dolphins along the way. The water was crystal clear, and we all took turns on the bow watching the show!

The only incident we had involved our water supply. At some point during my watch, a pot or something slid across the counter in the galley, and turned on the faucet. Luckily, almost all of our 50 gallons went down the drain, until the stopper fell into place, flooding the sink and overflowing! So, we have no water, and a very wet floor.  We decided to start up our water-maker underway. Everything looked good until we started the salt water boost pump, and nothing happened! I found the blown fuse quickly, and replaced it, only to have it blow again.... 3 times. I shook the wires around a bit, removing the short, and we were in business.

Anchoring at night is always a challenge, but we found the waypoint outside of Bahia del Sol, and waited for morning. Our VHF radio was the one thing I didn't test before we left. So of course, that's what gave us problems. We called, and called, and called; no answer. In the morning, waiting to cross the sandbar, we finally tried the handheld, and it worked fine.  We made it across the sandbar with the help of 

Bill and his pilot, and headed for the marina.

Our friends aboard Cetacean crossed the next day, and like us had no problem. It was actually over so quickly, we didn't know we had crossed. That's ok! Our arrival and check in went smoothly, and we decided to stay at the marina a few days so we could get Jack to the beach,

and, enjoy some of the free rum that was offered as part of a fishing tournament being held this weekend!

Bill and Jean, who host the El Salvador Rally, invited us and some other cruisers  to their house for a great BBQ'd chicken dinner. It was a fun evening.  Everyone here has been friendly and helpful; providing information and tips for getting around.

The adventure of taking the local bus is always fun! We made it to town, to try and find a speaker for our VHF... no luck.

But,...Karin got checked out on a new airplane, then we headed back to the boat. The fishing tournament was over...for a trade of two Tecate's, we had about 3 pounds of Yellowfin Tuna! Sashimi tonight.

 Sadly, our #1 crewmember, Mark, had to leave this morning. He's always a great help, and lots of fun to have along. See you next time buddy!

11/5/2014: Final preparations

Hopefully, we'll be heading out on Monday for El Salvador!
The last week has been pretty busy. A couple small projects everyday, but the biggest was our Monitor Windvane.

Fortunately, all of the mounting hardware came with it. We had to order new upper, lower, and diagonal tubes to fit our boat, the hardest part of that was getting the old tubes out. Next, I had to rig something to hang the entire assembly on for measurements. We had two wooden oars from our old sailing dinghy; I lashed them to the wheel, then suspended the windvane over the transom, and drilled some new holes in the boat!

The marina is getting alot of traffic, north and southbound. We were fortunate to meet the crew of Slacker  on their delivery from L.A. to Chile. Two days, several beers and many stories later, they left for Nicaragua. 

We just heard from them on Facebook, that they made it! We really might go to Chile! Who knows?!

Otherwise, the list is getting shorter: oil change, top off diesel, the only problem so far is our Yamaha outboard. After sitting for 5 months, it's apparently normal that the carb. gets gummed up. So, I've been running injector cleaner in the fuel to try and clean it up. The motor runs great, as long as it's at half choke!

I'm confident that we've covered everything, though there's always last minute stuff. We're hoping to go out for a day sail this week, just to make sure everything is seaworthy.

It will be good to be back out at sea!