Sailing Intermezzo: March 2016

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Bahia del Sol: Parts, Surf, Roadtrip, and Beyond

Well, tomorrow we will have been at anchor in Bahia del Sol for two weeks. Two weeks! Parts are purportedly to arrive in Delaware tomorrow and once they are received, John the diesel guru will book his flight to bring them down here. Willy thinks he might get her by the weekend. I sure hope so. That would let us get the work done on the boat on Monday and Tuesday so that we can hopefully get out of here by next Wednesday. We'll leave then, parts or not. That will make our stay here three weeks long. Three weeks! Reminds me of the CCR song, "Stuck in Lodi Again".

As it turns out, we probably can't leave until next Wednesday because the ocean swell is building and it will be too rough to cross the bar for the next week. The surf is forecast to be at 2 meters over the weekend; we're told pilot won't guide you across the bar unless the surf is about 1 meter or less, although it was running at about 1.5 meters when we entered. It's a bit daunting the think of powering through a 1.5 meter breaking wave to get out, but I think we could do it. Not more than that, though. And I would prefer less. So by next Wednesday, the forecast is showing about 1 meter, Thursday less. That's a long way out for a surf forecast, so we will be monitoring closely. I hope we are not "Stuck in Lodi" past Thursday.

We decided to make the most of the time until our parts (supposedly) get here by taking a road trip to the highlands in western El Salvador, along the Ruta de Flores (Flower Route). We'll catch a bus tomorrow to San Salvador, transfer to another bus in Sonsanate and then a final bus to the small town of Juayua which we will stay in as our base to visit other nearby villages and sights. The guidebooks describe a lot of nice hikes, good restaurants, and a famous weekend artisanal market. We're looking forward to exploring this area and some cooler temperatures. We'll head back here on Sunday.

This is the second time we are leaving Intermezzo at anchor, rather than in a marina while we travel. Last time was in Puerto Escondido, where we had folks on a neighboring boat keep an eye on ours while we were away. We're doing the same this time, enlisting help from George, a long time cruiser who arrived here a day after us by way of Puget Sound and before that, Japan.

Given how long we have been sweltering and growing mold here in Bahia deal Sol, we spent some time looking at the calendar and doing some rough planning for the day we might escape. From here we are going to head directly to Puesta del Sol in Nicaragua, put Intermezzo into the marina there and then rent a car to do a week-long loop to Grenada and back. Then we will make our way with purpose to Costa Rica, likely stopping for short while in the "funky" port town of San Juan del Sur to clear out of Nicaragua. We'll cruise northern Costa Rica until the beginning of May, when we're hoping to hook up with Hannah and Nicholas to join us for a week or two and cruise the central coast. We may have found a place to leave Intermezzo for the summer in Puntarenas; now I have to figure out how to get around a 90 day temporary import permit limit in Costa Rica, as we need to leave the boat for four months after being in the country for about 30 days. We'll investigate that when we get to P
untarenas.

It is really hot and the air is really heavy here tonight. I can't wait to gain some altitude tomorrow into coolness.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Bahia del Sol: San Salvador Day Trip

On Thursday we took the bus to San Salvador to have a look around. We started a bit later than we should have, so our time in the city was limited and we suffered on our return trip, but it was worth the effort.

The typical bus in San Salvador is an old, noisy, non-airconditioned diesel school bus, festooned with colorful paint, graphic art and/or chrome accouterments, usually blaring music and frequently blasting its horn. Passengers are aggressively packed onto the bus by the conductor with no regard to safety or comfort, but to snatch up passengers before the next bus and maximize fare revenues. In the tropical heat and humidity, they can be pretty uncomfortable. However, I am grateful for the fact that El Salvador, unlike Mexico, has very few topes (speed bumps), so at least one’s spinal column, internal organs and sanity remain intact.

We rode one of these typical buses for about 45 minutes to a highway junction town called Arcos and then transferred to a microbus designed to seat about a dozen passengers but in our case carrying about 18 at high speed, lots of swerving, horn blowing and screeching to stops to try and pack another passenger (victim) in. About an hour later we arrived in the historic center of San Salvador.

The old center of San Salvador is hot, crowded and dirty. Street vendors pack every sidewalk, selling everything from chickens and fruit to cell phone SIM cards and pirated DVDs. So, as you walk down the sidewalk, on one side you have these small stalls and on the other, established brick-and-mortar businesses. It’s a confusing, smelly affront to the senses.

Despite San Salvador’s statistic as having one of the highest murder rates in the world, we felt pretty safe on the crowded sidewalks, which are otherwise a perfect environment for pickpockets and purse-snatchers. Nobody paid much attention to us, those that did gave us friendly smiles more often than not, and people seemed pretty comfortable and at ease. Not bad for a country that ended a brutal civil war less than 25 years ago and a city that currently has a very significant gang problem. I would not walk around most of this city at night, though, just like I wouldn’t in bad sections of Oakland, NYC, DC, etc.

So, while I found the center of San Salvador to be a place better to leave than stay, we did find a gem among all the crap, Iglesia El Rosario. This unique, modern church doesn’t look like much from the outside but inside it is really beautiful. The main structure consists of two large parallel infilled arches, across the top of which spans a concrete roof that follows the curve of the arches in steps. The exterior looks a bit like a very abbreviated European train station, with two arched ends but very little space between. What makes the interior of the church so beautiful are the thick pieces of colored glass that are embedded in geometric patterns into the arch walls and roof. The sunlight streams through these panels of embedded glass producing lovely sparkles of bright colors that brings the dark, cavernous space to life.

Complimenting and in harmony with the interior of the church are a series of concrete and steel sculptures that depict the story of Christ’s crucifixion. In all the churches and cathedrals we visited in Mexico, this story is told in a series of 15 numbered small murals, usually very simple, storybook illustrations clearly designed to reach an illiterate audience. The corresponding 15 sculptures in El Rosario provide just enough imagery so that someone who already knows the story can fill in the blanks. While overall, they are minimalist in nature, the steel story-telling elements are intricately detailed and textured. They are beautiful form of storytelling that are engaging regardless of what one chooses to believe or interpret from the story. I was especially struck by the last sculpture that depicts Christ’s resurrection. Rather than the solid concrete and lifelike steel forms of the previous sculptures, the resurrection is depicted by many small pieces of steel suspended from above that come together create a ethereal, vaporous form that dissipates and diffuses in the air around it.

It is definitely worth riding a crowded bus for hours in the heat, enduring dirty, crowded, noisy streets and the remote possibility of getting caught in gang war crossfire to see this church and, especially, these sculptures.

After visiting El Rosario, we took a cab to a swanky section of town to get lunch. Well, during Semana Santa (Saint’s Week, preceding Easter), swanky San Salvadorans and their neighborhood businesses leave the city and go to the beach, so there weren’t many restaurants open for us to choose from, the shops were all closed and the streets were pretty deserted. We ended up having a passable seafood lunch and were fortunate to find an Italian bakery/gelato place that was open where we picked up some tasty baguettes and croissants and downed some quality ice cream.

To make sure we made our bus connections and not be traveling after dark, we needed to get on our return bus before 4 pm. We got on an absolutely packed microbus with standing room only, which then stopped several times to make sure that every inch of standing room was occupied by a standing passenger, of which I was one. At Arcos, we changed buses and sat in the blazing heat for 45 minutes apparently because the bus was not crowded enough to leave. Then we discovered the consequences of our destination being on a coastal peninsula during Santa Semana, when half of San Salvador is heading to the beach for the weekend and the other half is heading back from spending the week there. Total gridlock. Three hours on an old school bus in 90 degrees, 90% humidity with diesel exhaust leaking up through the floorboards, hardly moving. Fortunately, I am a calm and patient man, or at least I am when I realize that there is absolutely nothing I can do about my circumstances. Our bus driver, however, struggled with this Zen concept and believed that loudly blasting the bus horn every five minutes might shift the order of the universe enough to rearrange the molecules of the vehicles in front of us into cool, fragrant air through which the bus could pass blissfully unimpeded. It didn’t work. We arrived back at the marina hot, tired, sweaty and fed up.

I think I visited San Salvador for my first and last time, but Renee informs me that might not be the case as the art museum is supposed to be really exceptional and she wants to eat at the Italian restaurant which was closed this time. Perhaps if I can see the wine list and it has something decent on it, I can be convinced to suffer another brutal bus ride.

The first bus to San Salvador, before it got crowded

Centro de San Salvador, the clean part, in front of the cathedral

The deceptively unattractive exterior of Iglesia El Rosario

The uniquely beautiful interior of El Rosario

Sculpture- Ponticus Pilate hand washing

Sculpture- Consoling the women

Sculpture- Falling for the third time

Sculpture- Being nailed to the cross

Sculpture- the resurrection

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Bahia del Sol: Morning Run, Parts & Service, Summer Plans

I have found a nice route for my morning runs here. I take the dinghy to the dock at the hotel, bringing stuff to take a shower with me for after my run. I walk up the path to the hotel lobby, which is closed early in the mornings, but in front of which is a convenient clay urn among the landscaping, perfect for storing my stuff while I run. I say hello to the pair of parrots that live in the tree near the lobby; I'm trying to make friends with them with limited success so far. Then I stretch and start loping up the hotel driveway to the main road.

Turning left, I run down the road towards the entry to the inlet into the bay, past some rural homes and then to the cluster of scrappy palapa restaurants on the beach. Turning right on the beach, now have miles of nice firm sand on which to run with the morning sun on my back and the surf to look at to my left. No marathons, no indigenous women racing me, just a nice natural setting with a comfortable, resilient surface. I can return to the hotel through it's beach access pathway to create a nice circuit, recover my stuff from the urn, and finish with a refreshing lukewarm shower.

I was wondering what was going on with my parts, so I emailed Willy to ask him. He suggested I call his boss, John, directly in Delaware. John told me that he had most of the parts in stock, but a few were due to arrive at his shop in a day or so. When I asked how he would ship them to me in El Salvador, he told me he would put them in his suitcase when he flies down here in a week to ten days, to help work on my boat. I wasn't expecting that, but it sounds generous. I find it interesting that all this has been going on in the background in Delaware without me, or apparently, Willy, knowing anything about it or any money involved, yet. If this all works out, I will have received the parts I need in a very reasonable amount of time and have access to a level of expertise that would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to find on my own. Funny how things work out.

Since we are going to be waiting a week or more for John to arrive, we're starting to look at inland trips we might take in El Salvador or perhaps across the border in Guatemala. People speak very highly about the highlands of Guatemala and we've been reading about some interesting places in El Salvador, too. Tomorrow we're going to take a bus in to San Salvador to check out the old part of town and then taxi to high end shopping district to pick up some "delicacies" that we won't be able to find further south until we get to Panama.

I've been researching alternatives for where we will leave Intermezzo for the summer. It's not as straightforward as I thought. We've decided not to transit the Panama Canal this season because to do so is an "all in" move that costs a lot of money and leaves us committed to sailing in Caribbean and Atlantic. So that means we'll leave Intermezzo on the Pacific side. Pacific Panama doesn't have a lot of places to leave boats, is somewhat expensive and has LOTS of lightning in the summer. Costa Rica is also limited, is very expensive and has as much or more lightning. Nicaragua has a couple of spots that sound promising, is less expensive and has less lightning. Where we are in El Salvador is a good option, but it isn't below 12 degrees latitude as required by our insurance and would require a significant backtrack. So I'm hoping we find a good place in Nicaragua. If we do, we'll cruise around Costa Rica until mid-May and then head back north lay up Intermezzo for the summer
either in a marina or "on the hard" in Nicaragua, so that we can head back home in early June. I'll be communicating with our insurance company to maximize our permissible options.

This sailing life can get quite complicated at times.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Bahia del Sol, El Salvador: Photo Essay

I finally got around to pulling together this photo essay of our time so far in Bahia del Sol.

Here I am striking the Mexican flag as we crossed into Guatemalan waters.

This is the tricky bar crossing into Bahia del Sol. The waves are bigger than they look in the picture. Note the small pilot boat to starboard. It turns out a boat was lost the day before we entered. It was small cruising sailboat, underpowered with an outboard engine that couldn't keep up with the breaking surf. It broached, rolled and is now broken up on the beach. It's owner survived the foundering thank goodness; I feel sorry for him, losing his floating home like that. We saw his boat in the Chiapas marina while we were there.

A panorama of the Bahia del Sol estuary anchorage.

Sunset in Bahia del Sol

One of our local neighbors in the anchorage, bringing drinking water home from the tap at the other side of the estuary.

This and the next two photographs were taken in the little village of Heradura, about three miles up the estuary from where Intermezzo is anchored. We stopped here to pick up some basic provisions.

We enjoyed lunch at a waterfront restaurant in Heradura after getting our shopping done, complete with live music as part of a Miller beer promotion.

Here is Miller Beer's new "Most Interesting Man in El Salvador" posing for publicity photos with the chicas.

More Heradura restaurant scenes.

Dugout canoes, unchanged for thousands of years, still being used as basic transportation on the estuary.

Renee's Pictures: Pelanque, Tonina, Ocosingo

Here is a big posting of pictures that Renee took on our Chiapas land trip. She takes great pictures, but my blog publishing deadlines often come before she has sorted and edited. So these might be a bit late, but beautiful pics nonetheless, worth sharing.