Another year in El Salvador

Jaltepeque Estuary, El Salvador

We have survived another New Years in El Salvador.  The sporadic fireworks in the estuary started about a week before the actual event, mostly just firecrackers at any hour of the day or night.  On New Years Eve, the more serious stuff started appearing around dusk, culminating in spectacular displays by dozens of venues up and down the estuary, around midnight and lasting for almost an hour. Apparently they did not use up all of the ammunition though, as there were fireworks on and off for the next week.

So far this year, we have made a couple of journeys into the city.

On the first trip, we travelled by local bus and stayed overnight so we could do some serious shopping, using the first afternoon to scout out the hardware, marine chandler and dollar stores, then hiring a taxi to take us to the same stores the next morning to actually make our purchases, plus stops at our favourite Super Selectos grocery store and PriceSmart (think Costco) to do some provisioning, then back to the estuary.

On the boat front, I was successful in finding a new fresh water pump and a new zinc for the outboard.  We now once again have water in the sinks upon demand - luxury living has returned.

Since I was on such a positive roll, I decided to tackle a project that I have been threatening to do for some time now - the removal of the diesel heater and the associated stove pipe and chimney.  After gouging my leg for the last 8 years, on that sharp-cornered shin-grabber whenever I have to do any sail handling at the mast, all to facilitate a heater that we have not used in those 8 years, or are likely to use again in the near future, I had had enough!  In addition, the years spent in the tropics have not done the heater any good - the none-stainless parts have rusted so bad that the flue was not really attached to the stove any more - if we ever want such a thing again, we will probably buy a new stove anyway.

It turned out to be a pretty easy job to remove everything.  The hardest part was figuring out what to do with the 6 gallons of 8 year old diesel that someone left in the diesel’s day tank, which as it turns out was quietly leaking for most of that time.  Basically another nasty mess to be dealt with.

The space where the stove used to reside is quite a mess too, and we a not sure exactly what we are going to do with all this new-found space.

The second trip into San Salvador was a quicky, mostly to find a suitable cap to seal off the chimney hole in the deck.  A perfect solution appeared in the form of a 4” PVC pipe cap - I could not have designed a better piece of hardware for this purpose.

Meanwhile life goes on in the estuary.  The weather for the last two weeks has been unusually cool, albeit a bit breezy.  A couple of nights ago, we recorded a low temperature in the early morning of 20 degrees.  For us, this is pretty nice.  Otherwise, just the usual social obligations.  Notice Sue’s influence on everyone regarding the dangers of letting your hands get all wrinkly from too much time in the water...

A few new boats in the estuary this week - we may be seeing the start of the busy season already.

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