sailing

I am happy to say that we are sailing and our posts will be a little more infrequent as we are exploring.

Chantal's dining experience

Chantal considers the risks involved, and suddenly the greasy taco does not taste so good.

chalets

Always the 'risk' taker Chantal is so hungry that she orders a taco from this little "chalet" Amazingly enough she survives without a problem. These little shops offer only one or two items usually fried in old grease.

fish processing

It is really amazing how many types of fish are processed in this small little town of Tamerindo El Salvador. These "EEL" type fish were pretty vulgar looking.

A visit from the boyz

While the girls were getting ready to go snorkeling we had a surprise visit. These two boys paddled from thier village to our boat in laundry tubs.
They were pretty excited to see us, or should I say the girls.

Bucket boyz

Michel offers our curious mariners a ride back home = bucket surfing.
We later hear from our friend Rachel that one of the boys is in love with Josee and he is going to marry her.

Isla Meangura anchorage

anchored at Isla Meangura

Rachel and her friend

Rachel's parents run a small boutique hotel on the Island of Meanguera; a small island populated by fisherman. (pop 1000) The hotel is beautiful with 5 amazing rooms all with exquisite furnishings and view.
Ratchel was our waitress for one day. The next day she decided to join us eating our appetizers with gusto trying to remove a wiggly tooth. We made a light comment about waitress's serving the food not eating it. She surprised us with, "it's my house and took the salsa away from us. It was pretty funny.

Langosta

While my parents where here we have a Few feeds of langosta, which is lobster without the claws. I cooked up a batch of small ones for a feed. A few nights later a Panga (fishing boat) saw us anchored and offered us two huge ones for a few bottles of water.

our catch

One of the benefits of being anchored at a fishing village is first dibs on the best catch. This grouper was purchased for 2 bucks a pound, basically it is the best tasting fish in the area. Our friend here is Ervine, he is helping us work on the boat for about 10 bucks a day.

Tamerindo

We moved Jovietal to a smaller "Estero " after our crates arrived. It is a much easier anchorage to leave for a "day sail". Our former anchorage involved negotiating a surf which is damn dangerous. This new anchorage is a welcome change. We find ourselves anchored with fishing pangas and can leave for daysails on any high tide. There is an amazing amount of fish that comes out of these waters. Here are some women processing the days catch.

La Libertad

While Michel "tinkered" away on the boat, we took a side trip to La Libertad the surfing hot spot in El Salvador with my parents. It is a real mecca for surfers on low budgets. You can get breakfast for 2 bucks and lunch for 3. I had a sea food cocktail that had something called concha's on top. When I squeezed my lime on them they moved. My parents lost their appetite as they watched me eat these squirmy little things that looked kind of like snails. We had a pretty rough sleep that night with a Bar playing Salsa music till 3 am. At about 3;15 there was a cat fight on our deck we chased them away then the dogs got them. The cat and dog noise lasted about 20 minutes then....silence until about 4 am when the roosters start. This place is loaded with roosters> does anyone know why they crow 1 hour before sunrise? This place is best left for the 20 something crowd.
Lynda

Low flying

I imagine that there are not too many flying restrictions here. We did quite a lot of low flying. This was my favourite part of the trip cruising the coast.

Flying around

There are miles and miles of beaches here ready to explore. If you don't like the sea there are rivers and lakes that offer great swimming to.

over the volcano

Illapango lake is really beautiful to swim in. The temperature is cooler than the coast and the water is warm enough to stay in for hours --just floating around on a noodle.

Christmas In El Salvador

We just had an amazing Christmas with The Dardano Family. The Salvadorians love to party. Christmas Eve was crazy with fireworks going off for hours. These guys are crazy for fire works. It was better than the symphony of fire.
On Christmas day we headed off to lake Illapango. This lake is in the centre of a Volcano.. we partied with a lot of families all interested in sharing with us stories about El Salvador. We water skiied, wake boarded and went sailing.
On boxing day Carlos Dardano took us on an amazing flight around the country
we flew over volcano's and estuarys. We buzzed by our friends houses which scared the crap out of me....apparently there are no rules for the Famous one eyed pilot.
New Years we had a party with more food and massive amounts of fireworks complete with a bush fire.
We are still at the lake waiting for my parents to arrive Michel is back at the boat today,looking at property... Yikes.