Another Happy Hour!!!

Well Jerry and I still are enjoying the cruisers rally and all the Happy Hours!!!  On Tuesday the 15th we had happy hour and appetizers at restaurant Acajulta.  Earlier that day we pulled our dinghy out onto the dock to do some patch repairs and clean all the sand out from the last couple of dinghy landings in Chiapas.  So we were excited to take our dinghy up the estuary to the restaurant Acajulta, Clause and Lou from SV Whiteshell went with us.  So around 4 we all piled into our red dinghy and started heading up to the restaurant.  No one was quite sure how far up it was, so there were 3 dinghy's just cruising along keeping an eye out for the place.  Once we saw 5 other dinghy's all rafted up, we knew we were there. 

Tom from SV Sunny Side Up enjoying a raw clam, well I don't know about enjoying, but we did all try them...even Jerry and I!

Tom (SV Rio Nimpkish), Bill (SV Mita Kuuluu), Jerry, and Clause (SV Whiteshell).....What ya all talking about boys?

How you enjoying El Salvador?

Yummy dinner Jerry!!

Lobster...yeah mine looks better!!

On Wednesday Jerry and I attempted again to go to San Salvador to get Jerry's back molar pulled.  This time we had Jean on Mita Kuuluu arrange Jose, the taxi driver, to pick us up and take us to the appointment.  For $80 us dollars Jose took us all over, first the dentist. The first dentist did not extract teeth, but for only $25 he did a consult and 2 x-rays.  The dentist himself took Jerry to the other oral surgeon, where Jerry got local anaesthetics, the tooth pulled and stitches all for only $65.  I am now thinking of getting my teeth cleaned while we are here.  After the dentist Jose took us to the mall, a couple of marine stores, ACE hardware, grocery shopping, a solar store (unfortunately they did not have the panel that we are looking for), and even gave us a tour of the historical part of San Salvador.  We got back to the marina around 4pm, just in time for chicken BBQ at Jan's.  Jan came here 7 years ago on her boat, wanted to stay 5 days, and now she lives on the island across the estuary and teaches english in the local school for an hour everyday.

dinner line

Are you hungry?

Ben from SV Lisa Kay played for us after dinner

Jerry and I started to take spanish lessons through Claudia, one of the hotel managers.  After the first time Jerry decided he was going to pass on the lessons, but I am still trying.  So in a couple of weeks hopefully I will be able to communicate better.

Larry and Lisa from SV Lisa Kay, Claudia the teacher, and Lou from SV Whiteshell....What a group

Playing in El Savador!!

Since we had a great trip down, and across the bar we have really been enjoying just lounging around going to the beach and of coarse happy hour by the pool.  The second day we were here was the actual opening party for the rally, there are probably 20 or so boats here now and throughout the next 6 weeks more will come and go.  We are going to stay here the whole 6 weeks, because at the end of the rally there are some really good prizes that they are giving away and we want to win one. 

After the last month of traveling pretty fast trying to get down to El Salvador, SOMF is happy to be tied up with our sun screens up for a couple of weeks to enjoy the relaxing part of cruising.

Jerry and Erin from SV Rio Nimpkish at the pool

In the front courtyard at the hotel there are two parrots that hang out all day

You should hear them squack when Skeeter and I go by

Our table at the opening party for the rally, we met the owner of the hotel, and the managers.  They gave all the cruisers a gift bag with shirts, a hat and an El Salvador flag

Jerry's back molor has been aching and pretty loose for about a month or so now, so we decided it needed to be pulled out.  Jean on SV Mita Kuuluu new of a dentist in San Salvador which is about 2 hours, by bus, away so on Monday morning we decieded to go.  Unfortuently we did not listen to directions of the bus ruete to well and got on the wrong bus and went 2 hours in the wrong direction.  By the time we got back to the starting point we had been on buses for about 5 hours and were pretty tiered of sitting so we decieded to try again another day.  But we did enjoy all the entertainment on the bus, we had a surmen, lot and lots of people get on selling food, drinks, candy and chips throughout every stop the bus made.  The national dish here is Palpusa,which is like a flat bread then they fill them, the most common is queso (cheese).

Very colorful buses

they were all decorated inside

Monday evening we had a tour of the estuary on the hotels cateraman

Clause and Lue from SV Whiteshell

The scenerary during the tuor was great

What a group!!

Even Ben from SV Lisa Kay got to drive for awhile

We got to see a beautiful sunset

We have been haveing a great time and can't wait for the rest of the activities and to do some of our own inland traveling ourselves.  Jerry's sister and friend Dar are comming down on Saturday so we are going to try to take a trip up into the mountains for acouple of days.

We arrived in El Salvador....!!!

We made it to Bahia Del Sol in El Salvador, Yeah!!!!  After another 230 miles and 42 hours we made it, we left Chiapas around 9:45am after the Mexican Navy came and searched the boat. They bring their dog on board so I we kept Skeeter on a leash and had to put Shiraz in the bathroom, so needless to say they were not happy campers.  After they navy left we pulled anchor and headed out with SV Sunny Side Up right behind us.  We arrived at the entrance around 3am but with there being a large bar you have to cross, we had to circle around till 7am when they sent a jet ski out to guide you across the bar.  It took about 5 minuets, but with lots of anxiety built up watching the waves breaking for 4 hours, I was happy to get across. 

The Jet Ski guiding us in

We saw only about 7.5 knots on the speed, Bill said that we had one of the easiest crossings.

There is an awesome beach that skeeter loves to run and run on in the morning, especially with his girlfriend Erin

Crossing the Gulf of Tuanatepec!

We left the marina of Huatulco at 4pm on Thursday the 3rd of March, SV Whiteshell left right before us, with Sv Rio Nimpkish and SV Sunny Side Up right behind us.  It was a 257 mile trip across the Tuanatepec, and with all we have heard and been listening we picked a really good weather window to cross.  We had an easy, smooth, calm ride, we did not fish nor put the sails up. We just wanted to be prepared in case we ran into some wind.  We arrived in Puerto Chiapas around 1:30pm on Saturday, we were the last ones out of the 4 boats to enter, but we made it with a great trip. 

A couple of pangas fishermen came up to the boat while out wanting soda, water, they had to show all hammer head sharks..this is why they are endangered, so small.

Puerto Chiapas Anchorage

It took us three times to anchor, we kept dragging, with was what we pulled up on the second try..we think is was a rudder and a large rock.  It was so heavy we are lucky it did not screw up our windless

From the anchorage we took our dingy to check out the shrimp boat the fuel dock, the water was so oily and gross that we decided to not get fuel here, we could make it to El Salvador on the fuel we already had

Of coarse I had to take a picture of the church in town, the town is called Puerto Madero

Erin from SV Rio Nimpkish and Lou and Clause from SV Whiteshell at dinner overlooking the tuanatapec!

Monday morning all four boats decided it was time to go and get checked out of the country to get ready to leave and to go to El Salvador.  It was a very long day having to go to the port captain, API ( to pay to anchor), Immigration at the airport, and with many wrong turns and miss hap's  we finally were checked out and just needing the Mexican Navy to search the boat to exit the county.  Erin from Rio Nimpkish decided that we needed to have a race on who all could get it all done first.  Even with the wrong turns SV SOMF and SV Sunnyside Up won...Go America ( rio nimpkish and whiteshell are from Canada, while Sunnyside up is from Ventura California.

Volleyball in the center of town, I think the whole town was there

Strike a pose!

the main mode of transportation was either by bicycle cart or by seats in the back of a pickup truck...We went with the truck, I would feel guilty sitting a cart while these boys are pedaling in 90 degree weather.

The 2011 El Salvador Rally promo video

Here are links to part 1 and 2 of the El Salvador rally. We should be down there around March 12th and can't wait!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptaqe7vaf9U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu8MKt1etlQ

Bahia de Huatulco

Well we have been here in Marina Chahue for a couple of days and getting much work done on the boat.  Jerry had done an oil change, changed out the impeller, topped off battery water, fixed the overflow bottle on the fresh water expansion tank, and tightened the packing on the prop shaft, while I cleaned the outside and inside of the boat, so we are ready to leave and head southeast.  The marina's docks are not very long, so we had to improvise with trying off to the dock and especially with the strong surge in here we have lines going from every cleat we could find.  But it is not uncommon, so do every other boat in the marina. 

our neighbor across from us

Bahia de Huatulco is comprised of nine bays and 36 sandy beautiful beaches.  Unfortunately only a hand full of them have the wind and wave protection to be a secure anchorage.  We chose to come into the marina to get work done, which I mentioned above.  We have gone into the town of La Crucecita which as a great center with shops, a market, and even a shopping center "mall". 

Shopping Center

Gotta love the honesty

We have been able to provision, jerry jug fuel (there is not fuel dock in the marina), fill our 5 gallon drinking water containers and even fill up our propane.  I can see why this is a favorite destination lots of Canadians to come and make their winter, or even full time home.  With the bays, the beaches and the green grass this is a very enjoyable stay. 

Outside Senor Puck's

We went to dinner last night with about 17 other cruisers (about 7 boats) that are all heading south across the infamously windy Gulf of Tehuentepec.  It is not unusual for this area to see 35-50 knots of wind during the season.  Well I know for a fact that SOMF and its crew do not want to got through even 25 knots of wind for two days, and I am sure that these other 7 boats do not either.  So we all got together after listening to the Southbound net on the SSB radio, which we were trying to hear Don Anderson's weather report, to talk about when the consensus of a good weather window to leave would be.  Well as always when you get people together lots of talking goes on, but not always about the same subject.  But I do believe that it sounds like we will be taking off Friday morning for our 248 mile east toward Puerto Madero ( Chiapas).  Which is where we will check out of the country and head south to El Salvador, Bahia del Sol.

late post, but we made it to Huatulco!

Well I know this post is a little late, but it has been really hot and I have not been feeling up to par since I got a cold on our travel down here.  We pulled up anchor in Zihuatanejo around 1:30pm after checking out with the Puerto de Capetian and having a goodbye breakfast with SV Cuervo. We were ready and excited to do our 345 mile and about 70 hour trip.  This is the first 3 night trip Jerry and I have done in a while by ourselves.  The first day was great, we had about 8 knots of wind had all sails up, and were able to cruise at 1200rpm traveling about 5.8 to 6.2 knots above water. That night we did pull all sails in because there was very light wind and with only one of us being on watch at a time it gets to be a little to much.  The next morning we had an another adventure with pongas and their long line fishing, this one went about 2 miles, but during our motor parallel with the line and the ponga showing us the way so we did not cross over the line and potentially snag and break it, they pulled up their dorado that they at had caught.  I was hoping they were going to give it to us since they were making us go 2 miles out of our way for them and I reeled in all our poles so they would not snag the line also, but after I knew they were not going to sell it, I thought that hopefully this was going to be good karma for us. 

After we got back on coarse Jerry went below and cooked breakfast.  Now we have met a lot of cruisers, some who love to cook and eat while underway and others that have no appetite and might even get nauseous if they think of food.  Well we were having a great motor sail with all the poles out, flat seas, water temp was 84 degrees, outside temp was about 88 degrees and listening to Jimmy Buffet, what better then to have a delicious, very large and filling breakfast.

we did catch on little fish, but to small so we let him go

The early, early morning of the third day I woke up with a sore throat and a headache as the day went on, the symptoms got worse, by my watches the third night I was not doing so great.  Jerry did take my last watch from 6am to 9am so I could sleep in a little more.  The forth day I slept all day except for when Jerry woke me up saying we were there and to get the dock lines and fenders out.  So thanks to Jerry we made it, but by the time we pulled into our slip in Marina Chahue in Huatuclo we were both exhausted.

I was impressed with their dinghy, bet that would be hard to get up on the beach

There are about 5 or 6 other boats that are going to do the Tehuantepec crossing going south to El Salvador so hopefully we all coordinate a good and easy, smooth weather to cross.