12/19/2014: Puesta del sol to San Juan del Sur

Having decided on day sails, we left for Transito.. 50 miles away. We left Puesta del Sol at 6am. Put up the sails and had a good motor sail until the winds got wonky and started pushing the 25+ limit.  Down with the sails and an uneventful motor into Transito.

 A bit of a rolly anchorage, but our standards are still set at Bahia Gonzaga of last season....so nothing like the 35 degree side to side like we had there. We only had 12 or 15 miles to go until  the next anchorage, and with the unpredictability of the wind, we decided to just motor for two or three hours, and stay closer to shore. On the way we hooked a Spanish Mackerel, and let him go. We arrived early, about 2:30 or 3 in Bahia Astillero.

Aside from the strange building, everything was normal.

It's a small fishing village with two small restaurants, and not much else.Some locals in a panga came by the boat, and since a dinghy lauch, and landing would be a chore, I asked for a ride to shore for a tienda to grab some beer and soft drinks. A family and friends were just partying in the panga! They offered me rum, and shrimp ceviche,.....I obliged. The next morning, we planned to motor again to Pie de Gigante, 12 miles. We;re still in Papagayo territory, so we decided on comfort and no stress,

. Gigante was fun, we took the dinghy in, and had lunch at the restaurant, lots of surfers, and a casual atmosphere..
Just a few more miles to go... San Juan Del Sur!

Cruising into the bay,I felt a sense of calm upon our arrival, and, the thought of anchoring for a while.

We'll be here for a little while; it's a nice town, and we still have to watch the weather.

12/11/2014- Puesta del Sol

It's been a fun week here in Nicaragua; explored a little, but mainly we've been watching the weather everyday, trying to find a good window to make the run to San Juan del Sur. We also took care of some small projects; laundry/boat cleaning/ sorting out the problem with the watermaker, etc.

This area is very rural, and remote. Everyone is friendly, with smiles and hello's. We must seem strange, taking pictures of them.

Like the guy with the machete!

Grilled ribs in Chinandenga!

Paddling their dugout canoe.

A skeleton on the beach from some forgotten storm.

We found another pool and palapa on the beach across from the marina, this place is beautiful!

We have to go check out with immigration this afternoon, then just wait for morning to cover  the 50 miles for Transito. It's like it sounds; just a transit anchorage on the way, good for an overnight.

We have some other photo's and stories from here, but they'll have to wait until our next internet.... probably two or three days. 

12/6/2014; Bahia Fonseca to Puesta del Sol: Papagayo's

When we left Bahia del Sol on Friday morning, we knew it was going to get windy. We crossed the infamous sandbar without even seeing a breaking wave. The sailboat Quantum Leap was right behind us, and had a non eventful crossing as well. After waving goodbye to Bill and Sven on the pilot boat, we headed out to sea. Soon the winds came up and we set sail. Looking good! The windvane is still taking some getting used to, but otherwise it looks like we should have a nice day for sailing.

A few hours later, the winds were increasing to the point that we decided to reef the mainsail. Well, without coming up into the wind, and swell, that was going to be very difficult, so being cautious, we decided to start the engine, and drop the sails. The last wind speed we  checked was 25+, and it was picking up.

Quantum Leap had turned in to the anchorage at Barillas, and we bashed along hoping to make it to Puesta del Sol, another 60 miles. We realized that this was "a wind event", and conditions were deteriorating rapidly. The sea state had turned into 6 ft. breaking chop, with the wind directly off the bow. Spray was everywhere, and very quickly, I was soaked and getting cold. Karin and I both donned our foulies, and agreed that we should run for Bahia Fonseca to hide for the night. That was still 4 hours away! As we pounded through the swells, we started seeing flashing lights in the distance. Fishermen were out here watching their nets, and had to guide us around them. It was crazy.... one after another, we had to change course to avoid them. Most of the time, we had to go farther out to sea! Eventually at around midnight, we made it to Ampala, a point on the north side of the bay that offered protection from the swells. The wind was still blowing at 20 to 30 kts, and we had to anchor in the dark. This just gets better and better! We did set the hook at about 1 AM, and because it felt like we were dragging a bit we  let out another 60 ft of chain about  half an hour later. Finally, we got some rest, Karin slept, and I was awake most of the night, checking the anchor, and listening to halyards slapping in the gusts.

We  have re-evaluated our plans, and determined that night Papagayo's are not fun! We'll make every effort to do day sails along this stretch of Central America. That said, we stayed in Fonseca a few days to rest and recover. The island of Meanguera is part of El Slavador, so we sailed for two hours to get to the other side of the island and check out the village.

 On the way we were stopped by the Salvadoran Navy to check our papers. The Lt. was very nice, and spoke very good English. He was also Navy airborne and a surfer so we had a fun conversation.

 On the island they have a small tienda and restaurant, so we stopped in for a beer, and to tried to get Wi-fi.

 The next morning we went to a secluded bay called Guerrero. It was totally sheltered, and we were the only boat. That evening we heard chatter on the VHF that sounded like someone was trying to avoid fishing nets. Karin put out a call to Cetacean, and surprise! They were having almost as much fun and adventure as we did. We told them about Ampala, and they were relieved to hear that it was a good anchorage for the night. In the morning, they sailed over to join us in Guerrero. We all agreed that dodging fishing nets at night is way too stressful, and that we would do a day sail to Puesta del Sol the next morning.

Being a bit gun shy, we resigned ourselves to motor sailing the whole day. Our arrival in Puesta del Sol included a health inspection for fever or any other ailments. (Ebola scare) The resort here is beautiful, and secluded. Our friends Ron and Judy from Cetacean shared a taxi with us for a provisioning run to Chinandenga. It's a busy city, bustling traffic, and great street food.

I also managed to get a haircut, for $1.25!

Karin found some interesting art along the way.

It was a good trip to the city, we had what we needed so, we treated our driver to lunch, and returned to the marina. We plan on departing Tuesday for day sails to San Juan del Sur.

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!