Paradise lost?

Estero Jaltepeque, El Salvador

How quickly things can change...

Just last week, we were gearing up to leave El Salvador - just had to do some last minute shopping and we would be on our way.  Susanne figured out the best possible day to leave, based on tides and such, and the decision was made to cross the bar at around noon on December 29th (yesterday as I am writing this).   However the fates conspired against us and here we sit.

On December 23rd, I took it upon myself to do some long overdue cleanup in the engine compartment, scrubbing off the accumulated dirt and rust and repainting some of hardware down there.  When I was cleaning up the engine a bit, I found some suspicious residue around the thermostat housing, most likely a result of a dripping overflow tube from the heat exchanger.  I cleaned out the odd, whitish greenish, gunk only to discover a great gaping hole beside the thermostat - in the top of the water pump housing.  Not good news.  A bit of testing (just loosened the radiator cap a bit) resulted in a flood of cooling water gushing out of the hole.  Basically, the engine is totally out of commission until I can get this repaired or replaced.  Unfortunately the timing, just before Christmas and New Years, has pretty much eliminated any possibility of getting anything accomplished until January.  One the plus side, at least we are in a nice, safe spot in which to wait out the time.  We had already planned to be here for Christmas, New Years is just sort of a bonus.

So, we have settled back into the daily life of the estuary.  Because of the holiday season, there is a lot of activity around here right now.  Lots of guests (mostly just day-use) at the resort, and a stream of tourist boats who cruise by our boat to show off the weird foreigners to the local tourists.  Fireworks of some sort or other pretty much every night (and sometimes during the day).  Christmas eve (when the locals actually celebrate Christmas) was a continuous noise-fest of firecrackers throughout most of the night.

Breakfast at the Mar y Sol restaurant on the day before Christmas.
Most locals spend the time with family.

Typical El Salvadorian breakfast.
Scrambled eggs, fried plantains with thick cream, beans and cheese.

A long walk on the beach...

Christmas day, at our friends Lou and Lynn's home, was a great success.  Lots of local families and their kids as well as pretty much the entire current cruising community was in attendance.  We even broke our cardinal rule and stayed till well after 7PM, forcing us to navigate the 3-1/2 miles down the estuary in the dark - it wasn't as harrowing as we thought it would be, and we were able to buddy-boat with another dinghy, just in case.

Yesterday (the day we were supposedly going to be leaving) turned out to be very exciting in a totally different way.  Around noon, we started to see an odd cloud moving in from the west.  Suspecting some sort of storm, we did not venture far from the boat.  As the cloud started to block out the sun, we started to notice some fine dust accumulating on everything, so we closed up all of the ports and hatches to keep it out of the cabin.  At this point all we could think was that there was some sort of sand-storm happening, but we couldn't figure out where it could be coming from.  After a call from Jean (our local host), we found out it was ash coming from the San Miguel volcano.

The ash continued to accumulate all afternoon and made a real mess on the decks - I can only imagine what it must be like closer to the volcano itself - we are nearly 200km away.  Later, looking up on the Internet, we could see that we were right in the path of the ash cloud - just our luck!  A lot of cleaning required.  We just hope this is not going to be a daily chore.  So far today, it looks clear.

Solar power compromised!

Ash cloud right over top of us!

 The worst problem, as far as I am concerned, is that if the ash continues to come, we cannot leave without a working engine!

Regardless, we hope everyone had a great Christmas and we wish you all a Happy New Year!

All shook up!

Estero Jaltepeque, El Salvador

Still just hanging around in El Salvador...

Over the last week or so, we have managed to get away from the boat for a few days.

First, along with another cruising couple (Dennis and Caroline on SV Aztec), we took a little mini-break into the city of San Salvador.  We stayed at a different hotel this time as our usual haunt was booked up.  Nice location, just a 1/2 block behind one of the upscale malls in the city.  It was interesting to see all the Christmas decorations and familiar holiday shopping chaos.

Around 11PM on our fist night at the hotel (Dec 12th), we were treated to our very first experience with an earthquake.  The epicenter was just offshore from where the boat is, but we felt it pretty good in the city.  It was a relatively gentle shake, lasting only a minute or so, and no damage was done.  Upon our return to the boat a few days later, no-one there apparently noticed anything at all.

While in town, we made our usual pilgrimage to the local malls, hardware and grocery stores, etc. to stock up on some much-needed supplies - quite a challenge to get all of our purchases and five people into the taxi for the ride back to the estuary,

Christmas Gridlock

Yesterday, we hired a guide to take us on a day trip to see some the eastern part of the country, which we had not seen before.  Among other places, we visited another estuary at Puerto El Triunfo - no cruising yachts here - just fishing boats and local pangas.  Looks like a pretty cool place though.

We continued on to various small towns at some of the higher elevations inland.  With village names like "California" and "Berlin", it was like a trip around the world.  We saw some beautiful country with great vistas and some impressive, somewhat active, volcanos, and had lunch at a great restaurant boasting a much cooler climate - coffee is a big crop at these higher altitudes.

Along the way, we saw lots of roadside stands selling whatever the local produce might be, from bananas and plantains to fresh turkeys and iguanas (it is almost Christmas after all).

Local transportation

 

Meanwhile, back in the estuary, life goes on.  We spend most of our time reading, swimming in one pool or another, visiting with other yachhties (three new boats came in this week and one left), and generally not much of anything constructive.  Just in front of Lou and Lynn's home, we watched the local kids playing baseball - brings back a lot of memories for us.

 

The one project that I accomplished since the last post was with the ailing freezer.  I managed to find the offending fan, get it cleaned up somewhat and put back together.  So far it is working well.  As for our battery situation, we are now operating with a reduced house bank of 4 batteries instead of 6.  This means we have less overall capacity but with the 2 weaker batteries out of the circuit, it is holding voltages much better now.  Since this is working so well, I am going to leave it this way for the foreseeable future - I just can't justify replacing these batteries when 4 of them seem to be working almost like new.

Our tentative plan right now is to leave here between Christmas and New Years, but as usual, our plans are anything but bankable.



Fun at high tide



Work progresses on Bill and Jean's new dock

Its a rough life...
 {GMST}13|18.3888|N|88|54.858|W|Estuary Mooring, El Salvador|Estuary Mooring, El Salvador{GEND}