So close!

Paradise Fishing Lodge, El Salvador

So that is why so few sailboats come here!

My initial plan was to travel up the estuary just before high tide, arriving at the Paradise Fishing Lodge at slack to make it easy to get into our slip.  However, the two high tides right now are too early in the morning (we would have to leave in the dark) or too late (we would arrive after dark).  So my new plan was to leave just before low tide, conveniently around 1PM in the afternoon.  I figured if we got stuck, I could always wait until the tide reversed and we would float off as the waters rose.

Great plan, and in fact it did work.  We got almost 2/3 of the way, seeing depths of between 7 and 10 feet most of the way, until we suddenly came to an abrupt halt, in about 5 feet of water.  I was going extremely slow and it was a very soft landing in the mud, but we were firmly attached and there was no way we could get off until the water rose some.  The most annoying thing was that the marina was just around the corner up ahead.

We sat quietly for about 2 hours, providing lots of entertainment for the passing pangas and power boats.  Of course we tried to give the impression that this was what we planned to do all along, as we sat reading nonchalantly in the cockpit.  Once we were free, we motored slowly to our slip at our new home here in Paradise fishing lodge.  This small marina (10 slips) will be our base of operations for the coming months.

All that happened yesterday. 

Today we spent a hard-working day trying to get the boat ready to be left on its own for a month or two.  Tomorrow we are going to make our way to San Salvador, there to catch a bus the next morning for Guatemala city, then on to the city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city, where we will be living in someone's home while attending a two-week immersion Spanish course.  What we do after that may depend upon how well we take to the language.  Regardless, we will be spending more time in Guatemala for sure.

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