Life in the Bahia - April & May
01 June 2008 | Bahia del Sol, El Salvador
by Cheryl
a short walk across the peninsula to Pacific where the boys body surf
Everyone here is really nice. Some cruisers are staying for a couple of months and others blow in and out in 3 or 4 days or stay for a week or so. 2 women we met here had been to Crested Butte - 1 actually lived there for a number of years before Scott! The common name here for us is Jean - we knew of 3 women with that name and 1 guy - Gene! One boat (sv Petra) has a 13 year old daughter and she paid me the best compliment; she told me she was glad to see me (in the pool) because the day before it was all adults and guys.
A couple of days after getting back from our 1st visit with Rob & Jeanie, 6 new boats showed up - 3 of them we knew of so it was fun to catch up with them again and make new friends with the others. 3 of the boats had to anchor over night is some swelly seas outside the bar entrance, the others timed the tides right for an immediate entrance. Their crossing was as exciting or more exciting than ours so we had a lot to talk about. They all ran into a big lightening storm on the way here so that was interesting to hear about too.
Our 1st month here Scott got a cold (a lot of people seem to get one) then I started to get it. In the mean time Scott got a nasty rash that lasted about 3 weeks, then my cold turned into some dysentery with a 103o F fever, then Scott got a sun rash. Welcome to the tropics! We were a mess for a while! Some of this was going on while visiting Rob & Jeanie - they were great for putting up with their invalid houseguests!
Our friends from San Carlos, Debbie & Burt, lent us one of their 3 laptops so we could do some internet - that was really nice. The loner was older and slower so it wasn't like the one that we were used too but better than none. Debbie also lent me her sewing machine so I could make the 3 rain awnings, a new screen and a dinghy cover. A huge Thank-You to them!
Most days we do boat work until noon or 2 pm then go into shore for internet, to cool off and get some exercise in the pool and be social. Sometimes we go in early to do internet and wind up getting into the socializing thing all day and going out to dinner. Other days Scott leaves the boat while I sew since I need all the space I can get. SV Papillon have turned out to be our 'pool buddies' and Scott & Jean Claude like to body surf in the ocean on the other side of the peninsula too. We even managed a walk on the beach one day after the heat subsided.
Jan, a Canadian cruiser wound up buying land here on the waterless & powerless larger island. Her boat sits out front anchored in the water awaiting a new owner, FYI. She runs a free English Language school for the locals and has great chicken bar-b-q's to raise money for supplies. Her land is beautiful and she grows everything: bananas, mangos, pineapples, etc. She even took us into San Salvador on one of her weekly shopping trips for the price of gas so we could get some veggies and other things we needed. She's awesome - a wealth of info too.
Santos, a local young man, has a 'marina' of mooring balls for $3 a day and offers all kinds of boat related services. He's a super nice guy! He took us to a small town via panga for a little shopping for the cost of fuel: Herredura, the town seemed to have most things you would need but the veggie market had too many flies hanging out on the veggies and meat for us though Santos brought us to one stall that had few flies. The small, red taxis there looked like the old fashioned small ski gondolas to me, I think they call them tuk-tuks here like in India. He also took a bunch of us on a panga mangrove tour (Scott was too sick to go): we panga-ed through the mangroves to where he was born, had a $5 fish lunch at a palapa built out over the waters edge (the 'restroom' was also built out over the waters edge) and swimming in the Lempa River - very fun.
Miguel is the bar manager who wasn't here for our first 2 weeks but when he showed back up and introduced himself he leaned over and whispered to me that he had been gone because he had an argument with his boss - he's very funny & nice! He's always quick to help you carry your groceries, welcome you back and bandage your wound from wiping out on the road.
For all you fellow cruisers here's a list of other boats we've seen here:
Papillon, Grace, San Cles, Spirit, Pipe Dream, Paradise Bound, Madwenewe, Mita Kuulu, Petra, Living Waters, CharMel, Hiatus, Yachtsmen's Dream, 401K, Winter Trek, Pelican, Quantum Leap, Harmony, Niaolai, Walrus, Moody Blues, Triple Stars, Carpe Vita, Jolly Roger.
Most have gone south (2 north) either to continue through the Panama Canal or to Ecuador.