so this is how sailing looks like

hanging around

What are the girls doing?
Hanging out with boys...messing around in boats.
This day they went wake boarding on the Bocana.

The story of the crates

Our stuff was diverted out of San Salvador to La Union as a compromise to avoid paying the 15% duty. There was about 30 grand value of stuff in those crates.
La Union is where the main Naval Base is. A friend of ours arranged to have the Naval Captain recieve our stuff until a customs agent could view the crates going on to the boat.
In San Salvador there is no port. We offered to pay for a customs agent to come to our anchorage an hour away from San Salvador but they said we had to sail to La Union which is 18 hours away by sail.
The fact that the "crates" had navigational equipment and other parts that are nessessary for the journey did not seem to change thier mind. I am told that they have no clue as to what is required to sail. La Union is the closest customs on the coast. They like to follow the "rules" here and can't be really creative when the rules don't speak to the problem.
The truck was supposed to arrive at noon. It arrived around 8 in the dark and the naval base dock was under construction. Exposed beams, missing planks and no lighting. We used flash lights and truck head lights to load. I felt like we were doing something illegal.
The Customs guys left shortly after the crates were opened. There was a soccer game on so they stayed the bare minimum.
The Naval unit were really happy to help and stayed behind to help us load. We finished up around 11 pm througly exhausted.

The crates are here

After 4 months the crates have arrived....navigational equipment, school supplies and power source, among other things!

The crates are here

The crates arrive

The crates arrive

The chain gang.
The last of the equipment 500 feet of chain loaded into the anchor locker which
certainly helps trim the boat....the bow was riding rather high. It was quite a story getting the contents of the crates into the boat. Michel was pretty happy to have it all finally here. No more unknowns.

Aduana headaches.

Our crates have finally arrived in El Salvador. They are being held at customs and "aduana" dispite our efforts in hiring a broker to navigate around the paperwork we still are subject to the taxes. The solution was to sail to La Union which is a port with customs so they can witness that the crates are going to a "ship" that is leaving the country. This involves a 13 hour sail from where we are at. The problem is that a lot of the "stuff" in the crates is navigational
equipment. It is a good opportunty for "sea trials"

look ma- I can fly

Coast of El Salvador

Chantal has a "new friend" Charlie a young pilot he offered to take her flying.
Yes, we are crazy letting teenagers fly together- Do teenagers fly as crazy as they drive?
Apparently so....according to Chantal.
Charlie is a real sweetheart we all love him. We have stayed with his familily in San Salvador and we have been invited to celebrate Christmas with them at one of thier holiday places. Genevieve and Chantal flew to Honduras with Charlies family to watch an airshow. Charlie's Dad who is a commercial airline pilot of TACA air lines ( the local equivilant to Air Canada) was flying his stunt plane in the show. Apparently he was the star attraction. Charlies family owns a flying school which seems to be doing very well. The girls enjoyed the show from as Genevieve called it " the other side of the fence"

Anchored....

OK, this is going to sound weird - We are far from pulling up the anchor.
Michel has begun to install some of the big stuff we brought down ie: the watermaker et al.
This involved tearing up the boat floorboards, beds, and all. This was no smooth exersize. I have found out the a "Cruisers wife" sole occupation is packing and repacking boat lockers. Perhaps this is why we seem to be the only ones capable of finding things on the boat.
We were getting in the way and getting on each others nerves. Michel was getting totally frustrated trying to install the watermaker. ( I was told it would take a couple of days - it took 2 weeks) We had a little family chat as I began to want to bail. The resolve was to rent a house nearby for a couple months while the boat gets worked on. Then I rented a truck to haul boat parts around. We have a really nice house with a pool and a beautiful garden. We are getting spoiled. If anyone cares to visit plane fares run around 650 bucks from Seattle and we have lots of room for company. We are landlocked our property is across from the beach.
Here's the girls enjoying the pool....are we going to get any work done?

Josee plays with fish

Beaching it

Returning to our boat after a hard day of surfing. Our boat is parked on Costa del Sol along peninsula. The marina spans both the Pacific side and the River "estaro"
where we keep our boat it is about a 10 minute walk.

Window shopping

Michel starts to enjoy shopping through the window buying eggs and Cantaloupes.
I can't believe that he is comfortable driving through the maze of vendors.
Holding the eggs here is Giovani.

voodoo section

Dave and I purchased enough fruit and veggies to last well over a week for just under 5 bucks we literally could not carry anymore. Everything is sold in units of quarters or dollars. A bag of limes 12 for a quarter 3 cantaloupes for 1 dollar.
Here is the voodoo section offering dried animals for all you ailments

El Salvadorian drive through shopping

We are in San Salvador trying to get access to our "crates" the container ship arrived last night and they should be unloaded today. To kill time, the girls went to the mall which is like any mall in America with extravagant prices that go with it. At these malls you can get your car "detailed" and washed while you shop.
I chose to shop where the locals shop "down town". Our translator thought I was nuts. I had a blast wandering through the labyrinth of amazing shops filled with fresh produce. It's really an odd experience I would not stretching the truth to say that I believe that there were over a hundred booths selling the same thing. Thousands of booths that extended for miles. Michel waited in the car with our El Salvadorian friend "Giovani" and I explored a corner of the market with a tall Canadian friend "Dave" who towered over all the vendors. We got a little lost- I was beginning to get a little freaked out - thinking we will never get out - lucky enough we had our cheap cell phones. Michel called us and we were literally a half a block away...it was strange.
Cell phones here are easier to buy than propane we drove for hours trying to find the one propane shop that will fill a barbeque tank.
You can purchase a phone for 16 dollars it comes with 10 dollars worth of minutes and a 10 dollar coupon for "Super Selecto" the equivalent to Super Store.

Trieste at anchor

Camerones

We drank a lot of liquid following Debora's meal of shredded fish and shrimp

a home cooked meal

We did a little side trip last weekend to the Bay of Fonseca. The drive was about 3 hours from our anchorage involving a trip over the mountains and volcanoes that separate the East from the West. These mountains provided a natural boarder for the insurgent gorilla (left) movement and the Military Gov't right. Our journey took us into the "bad lands" of the left. It is in the east where we saw a noticeable change of landscape of rural farms with impoverished farmers working small plots of land with corn and a few cattle. The land reform act enacted with the peace agreement in the 1990's moved the working poor from the servitude of working on large ranches to landownership of small plots of land and co-operative farm arrangements that failed. I am told they failed because the indigenous farmers lacked the management skills and resources to run the businesses. ( sound familiar?) I am not explaining this well but what I see is that the poor believed that owning land made them rich, however unless you do something with the land, it has no value. Pictured here is Deborah who's father was a ranch hand who received a plot of land on the estuary considered prime land. She lives in a humble house with a cook stove and a couple of hammocks. Our friend called her to ask if she would cook us a meal. She was extremely excited to have guests and used all her resources to get us the best seafood available. The result were the largest prawns or "camerones"
that I have ever seen. We sat in broken plastic chairs in her yard to enjoy the salt laden seafood dinner. My tongue singed with the salt and I started to worry about my blood pressure. I killed the salt with lots of limes that were growing over my head.

the land

El Salvador is boarded by 5 Volcanoes, this one San Miguel is still active

More fishing pics

The trophies, Ford Explorer, and outboard engines.

the big dorado

All the "Bill fish" under 600 pounds had to be released. There was one fish brought in at 578 pounds. The boat was disqualified because they were under the required amount. Talk about a bummer....
The Dorado were brought in and these 2 were the winners. There was no "weight" restrictions given on dorado fish, these are known as Dolphin fish, or Mahi Mahi, they are like Halibut in taste and texture.
I enjoyed eating our catch.
( we got 3)

Fishing tourney

Billfishing or game fishing is a huge sport in Central America. Each season there are tournaments hosted by several Central American countries offering prizes of cars and Rolex watches. From my observations of both this years and last tourney it is really an exercise of fun and comradery as well as bravado for the wealthy elite minority of Central America rather than the reward of receiving prizes.
It is obvious there "old money" and "new money" colliding- and I couldn't help but be amused in observing the behaviour involved in the tournament. (Michel says I analyze too much.) Women are virtually non existent at this event ( other than the prize girls) I felt a little awkward . A female judge is considered bad luck, however my boat received me well. I had the best food, and laughs so far in my stay in Central America. It was fun to be invited to participate as a judge and observer I am considering an invitation to Nicaragua for another tournament in December.
My job was to video tape each catch to make sure one individual landed the fish and to record that the fish was indeed caught on the day of the tournament. It was a catch and release tourney. My boat.."Show Time" was a boat of wealthy Nicaraguans who loved to party...the music was cranked, and the rum flowed. We were leading the pack with an early catch of Marlin but fell behind on day two with only Dorado and a couple of Sailfish. Shown here is our Sailfish.
Lynda

Market

it's too hot in there

Genevieve refuses to enter the Bakery because of the bees and heat.

cakes

I suppose they call these "honey cakes" given the fact that they were covered in Bee's

Cookies

shopping

Shopping in El Salvador is an all day experience. First you have to take the "chicken bus" to town. These buses are usually adorned with either religious or Hollywood icons and almost always have stereos cranked up to the maximum level, often to distortion. If you are really unlucky, you may catch a bus with a boom box as well as the usual large box speakers hung from rusty wires.
I am told that there is one phrase that English people don't have to learn - that is: "can you turn up the volume?"
Here we hope to share some of of shopping images:
This is our trip to La Herradura. We get there by dingy up the estuary it is a rough and tumble town most tourists never visit. I was told that there are a whole bunch of El Salvadorian gangsters who were kicked out of the US for being bad dudes living there. It's a little intimidating walking around this village, as we recieve a lot of stares and comments. Most are willing to help and want to sell something. Long gone are my Superstore one stop shops. We actually have to hunt for stuff around here. Today we are off for produce. Banana's avacados, tomatoes, cukes, cabbage, onions, garlic, potatoes, papaya, peppers limes and smelly cheese is usually what you can find in the Saturday central market. The local stores have little to sell beyond beer, candy and cell phone minute cards.

Kids just wanna have fun

Kids can certainly be resourceful when they want to be. Chantal had scrounged up a surf board from a cruiser here and we rigged up a wake board off of our dingy.
By using a bridal tied to a life jacket for floating line and a chunk of rubber hose for a handle, we constructed a wake board set up. The girls call this land locking. The locals got quite a chuckle watching the girls surf around the estuary. Apparently they started something. Yesterday we saw someone else try the same set up. It is a bit of a chore starting up but one the pressure is off the board its easy. Josee was the first to get up and surf around. These girls had this set up the first week we were here.

Chantal is a good boat operator and is enjoying her time here..its fun to have her here.
Genevieve enjoys meeting all the other cruisers and hearing about the cruising areas around here.
When the swell is good the kids are at the beach...when the tide is high slack they are "landlocking" and then there is school.....

The Rainy Season

I am told there are 2 seasons in El Salvador; the Dry and the Wet. Upon our arrival, we really began to understand wet. We spent the first couple of days in a hotel at the Marina hoping to make the transition from land to boat a little easier. On our first day our toilet flooded the entire room, soaking all our luggage while we were enjoying our selves at the beach. We had not unpacked yet, did I mention we had 500 pounds of luggage? It contained mostly marine electronics so we were pretty freaked out about possible damage. Lucky we fared well, the only damage was a microphone and school text book that some how disappeared in the clean up process.
At first the rain came in fits and starts, mainly in the evening accompanied by thunder and lots of lightning. Then it really got wet just as if someone turned on a shower. This down pour lasted lasted for 6 days...my job was now is mold control.
Here I am wiping off the mildew...vinegar and bleach are my weapons of choice
I purchased an airconditioner in San Salvador - Which changed our lives. Josee and I had been suffering from strange looking rashes due to the moisture. All of our clothing and bedding was damp dispite repeated efforts of drying. The air conditioner sucked out most of the moisture and we dried up the rest using drying crystals and fans. By clearing out all wet material off the boat and ventalation we are dryer. The trick is not to let any wet stuff stay in the boat.

El Salvador History Brief

History
The Pipil Indians, descendants of the Aztecs, likely migrated to the region in the 11th century. In 1525, Pedro de Alvarado, a lieutenant of Cortés's, conquered El Salvador.

El Salvador, with the other countries of Central America, declared its independence from Spain on Sept. 15, 1821, and was part of a federation of Central American states until that union dissolved in 1838. For decades after its independence, El Salvador experienced numerous revolutions and wars against other Central American republics. From 1931 to 1979 El Salvador was ruled by a series of military dictatorships.

In 1969, El Salvador invaded Honduras after Honduran landowners deported several thousand Salvadorans. The four-day war became known as the “football war” because it broke out during a soccer game between the two countries.

In the 1970s discontent with societal inequalities, a poor economy, and the repressive measures of dictatorship led to civil war between the government, ruled since 1961 by the right-wing National Conciliation Party (PCN), and leftist antigovernment guerrilla units, whose leading group was the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The U.S. intervened on the side of the military dictatorship, despite its scores of human rights violations. Between 1979 and 1981, about 30,000 people were killed by right-wing death squads backed by the military. José Napoleón Duarte—a moderate civilian who was president from 1984 to 1989—offered an alternative to the political extremes of right and left, but Duarte was unable to end the war. In 1989, Alfredo Cristiani of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) was elected. On Jan. 16, 1992, the government signed a peace treaty with the guerrilla forces, formally ending the 12-year civil war that had killed 75,000.

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated the country, leaving 200 dead and over 30,000 homeless. In Jan. and Feb. 2001, major earthquakes struck El Salvador, damaging about 20% of the nation's housing. An even worse disaster beset the country in the summer when a severe drought destroyed 80% of the country's crops, causing famine in the countryside.

In 2004, Antonio Saca of ARENA was elected president. The nation implemented a free-trade agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S. in March 2006, the first Central American country to do so.

Map of Central America

Map of Central America: "Map of Central America"

The Containers

 
One of the most difficult things about buying a boat away from your home port is getting all the stuff you need or think you need to the boat.
Add on the difficulty of getting it through several customs and border hassles this makes for a lot of head scratching.
We tossed around the idea of getting our stuff down via motor home. The idea: we would disguise everying as RV equipment. We nuked this idea after hearing about many horror stories of border crossings involving several bond issues, not to mention getting a truck and trailer suitable for the trip...
I stopped mid stream and as we were purusing RV trailers.. Heck are we sailing or R'Ving!
Thanks to a lot of networking on Michel's part we were able to hook up with an El Salvador business man interested in starting a marina. He really was an asset in getting our ball rolling as far as shipping goes.
So we will give it a shot and wait for the 3 containers to arrive. $$$$$
We are shipping a huge generator, fridges, anchors, chain and lots of other boat paraphernalia...I keep asking about the water line...Michel assures me we have lots of room.
He certainly has a lot of projects in these crates. Being a cabinet worker he just could not resist building something for the boat. He has included a new drawer system, dining table and navigation station cabinet. ( and all the woodworking tools) oh, yeah, apparently I am starting a canvas business too. We could not get our Bimini built in Canada so I have do this myself. Along with all the crates is sunbrella and a whole wack of industrial sewing equipment. Every time I turn abound another thousand bucks falls out of my pocket.
Just to get the girls through the school year cost 1700.00 bucks and 5 boxes of School supplies! This should be interesting at the customs end in El Salvador.

Chantal arrives!

Chantal's, first visit to El Salvador. Michel partakes in the regular routine after the early morning flight arrival ( it's his 3rd trip down)
First stop, Coconut water at the airport then off to the gas station for more refreshments.
Chantal calls on her cell " Mom, its 8am and dad is drinking beer already!
She understands later, after the long drive to the boat where the beer will be as warm
as tea and the heat will be ramped up as well....never mind the humidity.

after the news we're leaving for a year

who needs fresh h2o

preparing the turtle eggs

They tell me these taste great. I can't imagine eating baby turtles.

I kept thinking of the far side cartoon of the polar bears eating an igloo. One polar bear says to the other " hey, this is great, crunchy on the outside with a soft chewy centre"

Turtles are so lovely, I couldn't bring myself to try this delicacy . I have difficulty accepting that others enjoy eating baby turtles....

No, I don't feel the same way about chickens!

This is George holding up our "winning" fish.

It was this fish and a combination of 5 catch and release marlins/sailfish that placed "Monique" second.

George was the most amazingly enthusiastic hard working deck hand I have ever come across. His keen eye and enthusiasm certainly contributed to "Monique's" success.

The Prize a Rolex watch- and a year worth of bragging rights.

My thoughts : I don't think the owner really cared much for the watch -I hope he gave it to George although this is probably unlikely.

Bahia del Sol fishing tourney

Every year there is a Bill fish tournament hosted by Bahia del Sol Marina and Hotel- the Prizes include outboard engines, cars, Rolex watches, tenders, among other things. The event attracts bill fisher's from all over the world, however the majority of entrants were from Central America. The most "valued" prize of course is a year of bragging rights. The officials take the judging quite seriously and previous tournament results have been hotly debated. To resolve this the event organizers have recruited "cruisers" to participate in the tourney as onboard observers, recording all catches on video. Cruisers were deemed to be the best choice for this job as they tended not to get sea sick and are unbiased. I was lucky to be selected as an official on the 58foot viking luxury fishing vessel "Monique" owned by a Casino business man from El Salvador. Some of the crusisers didn't fair as well as I did and had to suffer slogging about in the swell in much smaller boats.

What not to do

A cruising fact of life....

When packing for your trip, clothes and personal items go out and boat parts go in.

Heavy items - carry on

We became pretty creative getting our bags under the 50 lb limit. Having said that, we had a lot of explaining to do when this fuel filtering system went through the x-ray machine at the Seattle airport.

We got every ones attention including Seattle Police.

Jovietal

Hola - El Salvador November 2006

Mom- arriving on Jovietal for the first time

I would of never imagined buying a boat in El Salvador while sitting at home in Canada. Thanks to the techno gods for bringing us Yachtworld.com- which made this venture possible without a hitch.Well.....maybe a few hitches. After the purchase it appears we have been affected by a lightning strike.

Yep' welcome to the yachting world another day another $$$$.00

The boat is parked in Bahia del sol which has a rather tricky bar to navigate to get in and out. You have to pick your days to go over the bar. On my first visit we could not get out for even for a day sail. I spent my time cleaning out lockers at a snails pace because of the heat , humidity and the cervesa's that went along with it.