Location: Puerto
Chiapas, Mexico
We arrived in Mexico on 12-March and will be slowly working
our way up the coast with plans to be in San Diego, above the Pacific hurricane
zone, around 1-June. After leaving San
Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, we anchored one night at a roadstead called “El
Transito” and then moved on to a small marina called Puesta del Sol (translated
to English “sunset”), both in Nicaragua.
The marina owner has dreams of this being a fancy resort: It has dock space for about 30 boats, two three-story
hotel buildings, each with ~10 large suites, two pools – one near the beach and
one near the marina, a club-house and a palapa bar/restaurant. Future expansion plans include a golf course
and other amenities. This is the only
existing marina on the pacific side of Nicaragua, and although it sounds really
nice, the dream and the execution of the dream haven’t quite come
together. A few examples: no hot water in the showers, the food at the
restaurant was fair and the wait staff acted as though you were imposing on
them if you actually wanted to eat there.
We were having some trouble with our dinghy and asked the dockmaster if
he knew an outboard mechanic. He did and
said the guy would come to the boat about 11:00 that morning. Needless to say, he never showed up. Not to complain too much, the beach pool and
palapa were really nice, just like having your own private resort.
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| Marina Puesta del Sol, Beach Pool |
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| Sunset at the beach pool |
There was also an excellent local restaurant in the village
near the marina, Joe’s Place. Mostly a
surf camp/hostel, they cooked delicious meals.
Joe, Portuguese from the Azores, spent much of this life at sea,
fishing, etc. and had some very interesting tales of the sea to share. Apparently, Joe and the marina owner do not
get along very well. The story is something
like this: After the marina was built,
the owner tried to prevent people from anchoring in the river. In most places, rivers, ocean and sea front
(bays, coves, etc.) are public domain and you can anchor for free (national
parks are an exception where you would normally pay a park fee to anchor). In order to make a point, Joe, with
permission from the port captain, anchored his boat in the river, near the
marina. The marina owner had the boat impounded
and there was a year-long battle over anchoring rights. Joe prevailed and now anchoring is allowed in
the river near the marina, as long as you have written documentation from the
port authority. Needless to say, Joe is
not the marina owner’s favorite person, which is too bad, since Joe’s food and
service were much, much better than what we found at the marina.
After staying a couple of days, we cleared out of Puesta del
Sol and headed into the Gulf of Fonseca and El Salvador. The Gulf of Fonseca shares borders with El
Salvador (northwest), Honduras (east) and Nicaragua (southeast), with islands
and coastline split amongst the three countries. We cruised into a cove near the island of Meanguera
and dropped the anchor for the night.
Shortly after getting settled, the El Salvador navy tied-up alongside
and came on board. They asked the usual
questions: Where are you going? Where did you come from? etc., and looked at
our paperwork. We hadn’t cleared into
the country yet, but all of our documents were in order, so they didn’t make a
big fuss. One of the officers had gone
to school in the US and spoke English very well and they were very friendly and
welcoming.
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| Birds soaring over Island Meanguerita |
We spent a peaceful night on
the hook and liked it so well we decided to stay another night. The next day, two local fishermen came by and
asked if we wanted to buy some fresh oysters.
We agreed to buy three dozen and they shucked them for us while we
talked and waited.
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| Fisherman shucking oysters at Meanguera |
From Meanguera, we cruised to Barillas, a small marina up
the river in the Bay of Jiquilisco. In
order to get up the river to the marina, Barillas sends a pilot boat out to
meet you at an agreed meeting point near the entrance of the bay.
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The Barillas pilot (Walter) leading
us up the river to the marina |
One hour prior to arriving at the meeting
point, we radioed the marina on the VHF to tell them we were on our way. The pilot boat was there to meet us as
promised and we followed him (Walter) up the river about 10 miles and into the
marina mooring field. He helped us hook
up to our mooring and then he went ashore and came back with the port
authority, customs and security to check us into El Salvador.
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| Alligator at low tide, near Barillas Marina |
The marina is located amongst the mangroves and is very
peaceful and quiet. The grounds include
a palapa restaurant, lots of mini-palapas amongst the palm trees near the
swimming pool, a mini-mart, a playground for kids, showers (with hot water),
etc. They have a mini-bus that takes
people into town on Tuesdays and Fridays, so we signed up for the ride into
town, Usulutan, the next day. When we
arrived, there was only one other cruiser at the marina, Steve (Witch of Endor),
and he liked it so well he had been there for 18 months. He knew his way around town and let us know
what was available and how to find things.
We ventured to his favorite watering hole , La Pirraya, for a beer and
then went to the supermarket to pick up a few supplies. On the way back to the marina, we stopped at
a roadside restaurant, Palomar, for a bite to eat. While we were in town, a German sailboat,
Bora, pulled into the marina with Gunther, Volker and Brunhilde aboard.
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| Lunch at Palomor, Usulután, El Salvador |
We spent the weekend lounging, swimming in the pool, drinking
coconut and strawberry smoothies, and sharing sea stories. Volker and Brunhilde headed back to Germany and
Gunther new crew-mate, Angelo arrived.
We asked Steve if there was a good outboard mechanic around and he
recommended that we ask Walter if he would look at the dinghy motor. He worked on it for about an hour and got it
running again. The next day we had
problems again and asked Walter to have another look. We had purchased a spare carburetor, but it
wasn’t quite the same as the old one.
Walter puzzled it over and then matched half the old carburetor with
half the new and it has worked like a charm ever since.
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| Dave enjoying a smoothie under a mini-palapa |
On Monday night, Steve invited all of us into town with some
of the marina staff to have dinner at a Swedish restaurant that had recently
opened. What a treat and a cultural
experience, to share a meal with El Salvadorians, Americans and Germans in a
Swedish restaurant in the middle of Central America.
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| Dinner at the Swedish restaurant in Usulutan |
Tuesday was going to town day again, and because they have a
good machine shop, we decided to have our engine room fan housing
repaired. We had taken it apart in Panama
and found it to be severely rusted. We
dropped it off at the machine shop and they promised to have it repaired and
ready for us to pick-up on Friday mid-day.
On Thursday, Dave, Gunther, Angelo and I went on a walk through the
jungle to see a group of monkeys (spider-monkeys and one other kind, which I
can’t remember) that hang around between the marina and the village. Our guide, Mauricio, pointed out different types
of trees and plants, and talked about the wildlife that is typical in the area.
When you arrive at the place where the monkeys hang out, the
men start calling “Pancho… Maria…” and the
monkeys come crashing down through the trees.
We took a few bananas with us to feed to them and they came right up and
gently took the food out of our hands.
We watched them for a while and then started the trek back. In order to get back to the marina, we had to
walk across a small damn, which was very wet and slippery. Angelo slipped on the moss, fell into the
water and cut a huge gash in the top of his foot. Mauricio radioed the marina. They sent the van and Gunther and Angelo
headed into town to the hospital for stitches.
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Cart carrying plantains for the
monkeys, notice the wooden wheel |
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| Monkeys |
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| Monkeys |
Friday, we piled into the van for our trip into town. About half-way there, one of the marina staff
called the driver and said that there was an alarm going off on our boat (Thanks
brother Pete for helping us install the audio alarm system). We decided that once we got to town, Dave
would take a taxi back to the marina to investigate. After picking up a few things at the local
market, I walked over to La Pirraya to meet up with Steve and Gunther. Shortly after I arrived, Dave called from the
marina and told us that one of the generator seawater hoses had split and asked
if Steve could find some replacement hose.
Steve and I walked over to the auto parts store and found a shaped piece
of radiator hose that had the correct inside diameter, so we bought it. Then we proceeded to the machine shop and to
pick up the repaired fan housing. They
decided that it was too far gone to repair and instead built a complete new
housing. They had is reassembled and we
tested the fan to make sure it still worked before heading back to the marina.
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Loading coconuts from a boat
to a cart at the marina |
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Fuel tank cover gasket,
mid-hold, port side |
We were planning to leave and head north on Saturday, but
decided to wait until Monday and do a few chores instead. As reported in an earlier blog, we have had
some issues with the gaskets on our fuel tank manhole covers. The forward port tank seemed the worst and
had leaked when we fueled in Panama. We
had been using the fuel out of that tank so that when it was empty enough, we
could remove the covers, inspect the tanks and replace the gaskets. We had enough buna-N material left to make
gaskets for two covers, so we decided to do the one that was leaking in the
mid-hold and also the one in the engine room.
Sunday we installed the new fan housing and did other “prepare
for sea” type chores. Monday morning we
went into the marina for one last coconut smoothie and to get our clearance
papers and check-out of the country. We
got underway at about 1:30 p.m. and followed Walter, the pilot, back to the Pacific.
Barillas is one of our favorite places to date.
The people are extremely friendly, it was quiet and peaceful, the town
had everything we needed for repairs and provisioning at good prices and we had
a wonderful time. Originally we were
only going to stay for 3 days but we ended up staying for 10 and would have stayed
more if we didn’t have a deadline to get north of the hurricane zone.
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| Sea Turtle |
The distance from Barillas to our next stop, Chiapas,
Mexico, is about 300 miles or 43 hours at 7 knots. Leaving mid-afternoon on Monday, our
scheduled arrival in Mexico was Wednesday morning. We saw the usual dolphins and turtles, were
followed by brown and blue-footed boobies and talked on the radio to a US Coast
Guard cutter patrolling Guatemalan waters. We mostly did 4-hour shifts and overall the
voyage was uneventful, the best kind. We
arrived at the marina at about 8:30, checked in with the Navy and the Port
Captain and headed to the restaurant for breakfast. We unlaxed and rested most of the day and
then went to happy hour about 5:00.
Steve, from Barillas, arrived here a day ahead of us, so we sat and told
stories with him.
We settled in and did chores for a few days and met some of
the other folks in the marina. Since we knew
we would be staying here for a while, we asked the marina if they would
recommend a carpenter who could build some shelves for us in our lazarette (the
storage area behind (aft) of the engine room). Friday morning, Fernando showed
up. He took measurements and worked up
an estimate, so we agreed to have him do the job. Next we had to empty the lazarette and disassemble
the existing shelves, so we did that on Saturday and Sunday. Monday morning Fernando showed up for his
down payment so that he could buy materials.
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| "Stuff" in the lazarette |
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Lazarette empty except for the existing
shelves |
On Tuesday, Dave headed for the airport for a 10-day trip to
Amsterdam and Scotland, leaving me here to fend for myself. Wednesday a group of 6 of us went on a tour
of the local town Tapachula including the museum, city hall and the church;
Izapa, the ruins from a Mayan settlement that may have been settled around 1500
BCE; the border with Guatamala (the Suchiate River); and up into the mountains
and the coffee plantations. We stopped
in some small towns and wandered around the local markets and had lunch at a
roadside restaurant. It was a great
day. We learned a lot about local
culture and history. One of the most
interesting things we discussed was the immigration of the Guatemalans across
the border into Mexico to do farm labor.
The state of Chiapas is a very rich in agricultural, with coffee
plantations, cacao plantations, mango orchards, etc. They don’t have enough local labor to do the
work (or who want to do the work) so most of the labor comes over the
border. Similar to what the US
experiences with Mexicans crossing the border to do farm labor in the states; some
are legal and some are illegal and it is a big topic of conversation.
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| Mural at city hall in Tapachula |
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Stained glass window,
City Hall Tapachula |
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Stained glass window,
City Hall Tapachula |
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| Museum, Tapachula |
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| Museum, Tapachula |
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| Izapa ruins |
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Mexico / Guatemala Border,
Suchiate River |
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| Coffee Plantation |
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| Tour Group, Miguel, Ethan, Anne, Doug, B, Zada, Nancy |
Thursday, Ann (Galivant) and I went into town to do some
shopping at Home Depot and Wal-Mart. We discovered that we both like to read
and traded lots of Kindle books. Friday,
I met some cruisers from Alaska, Jill and Doug, and went over to their boat for
a tour and to get some hints and tips about travel up north. It turns out Jill is a writer and has written
several non-fiction books. One is “Rowing
to Latitude” about their adventures rowing in Alaska, the Yukon and other
places in the far north. I am reading it
now and would highly recommend it. Jill,
Zada (from Eyoni) and I then walked over to our boat for a quick tour. While we were on the bow, Zada looked up and
saw that our sat system antenna was covered with a swarm of bees. They weren’t anywhere else on the boat, so we
left them alone and decided I could talk to the marina about it in the morning.
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| Bees on the Sat System Dome |
I walked over to the restaurant to drink a beer with Steve
and to wish him good sailing. Six boats
had been waiting in the marina for a good weather window to cross the Gulf of
Tehuantepec and Saturday looked like the perfect day to go, very little wind
and calm seas. The port authority and
the navy arrived early Saturday morning to check everyone out and then there
was a parade of boats leaving.
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Paesano, heading north
They had engine problems and
returned late the same night |
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| Galivant, headed north |
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| Witch of Endor, headed north |
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| Eyoni, headed north |
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| Companero, headed north |
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| Sundowner, headed south |
I checked on the bees Saturday morning. They were still on the antenna but had moved
around from the starboard side towards the bow.
After watching everyone leave, I checked again about 11:00 and, as
mysteriously as they had appeared, they had disappeared.
Today, Sunday, there have been a lot of new boats arriving,
most headed south. Speaking of
maintenance, I was happily sitting here in the air conditioning typing the blog
when the engine room bilge alarm went off (Thanks to brother Pete again). I went below to see what was going on only to
find that the seawater supply line to the AC pump was leaking. Shut that down, pumped the water out of the
bilge and am now sitting with all windows and doors open, hoping for a breeze.
Until next time…
