Bahia del Sol, El Salvador
We left Chiapas at midnight motoring with calm weather. The next day we were able to sail for a few hours, but had to motor again when the wind came around and was right on the nose. We saw a sailfish jump out of the water five times in a row-pretty exciting! Also, we saw several turtles, some were quite close to the boat, and one had a bird catching a ride on his back. We were motorsailing with the main sail up when, in the middle of the night on Larry’s watch, the wind increased to 28 knots (still on the nose), so he reefed the main and the ride was more comfortable. Later the wind died down to 12-15 knots and we arrived at Bahia del Sol around noon. Bahia del Sol is a resort hotel and marina that’s inside an estuary and to get to it we had to cross over the sand bar at the entrance of the estuary. This can only be done at high tide and with a guide to escort us in because he knows where the channel is through the sand bar. High tide was around 4:00 p.m. so we had to anchor off the beach in an open and rolly roadstead and wait. It was a little nerve wracking to watch the breakers rolling into the beach, knowing that we would be going through them to get into the estuary. Actually the waves are smaller over the channel in the bar at high tide, so it’s not as bad as it looks. Our guide came out on a jetski and we followed him to a location outside the waves then we turned toward shore and gave it full throttle. The waves would come up behind us and pick us up, then the boat would surf the wave, then the wave would roll under us and continue toward the shore. It was quite exciting, we felt like we were on a giant surfboard. After riding several waves we made it into the calm waters of the estuary and on to the dock where the immigration people were waiting to check us into the country. After that we went up to the pool and jumped in to cool off and relax. Whew!! We had made it!