We had mixed feeling about leaving Mexico, for it has been a wonderful home for us. The people are welcoming, the cities beautiful and the shores incredible, and we hope that Central America will be as memorable and pleasurable. We came back from our inland trip and each boat decided at noon to try to check out that day, Friday. The day the Port Captain closed at 2 pm. It took them five hours, but they did it - the Port Captain agreed to let them drop off the paperwork after hours. Over the weekend other boats returned from their inland trip, and more boats crossed the Tuhaunapec. Ten boats checked out the next Monday, and it took them 11 ½ hours. We stayed ahead of the pack leaving for El Salvador.
We had planned for a slow trip. We have motored enough, and wanted to sail. The favorable tide for crossing the bar into the estuary was at 7 am, and only at 7 am. We didn't know if we could sail the 230 miles in less than 48 hours. The navy was late checking us out - five hours, so I had my doubts we could make the tide. When we were in Palenque we learned that the Mayan's have T shaped windows for the wind gods. We don't have any T windows, but we talked highly about the wind gods, maybe it helped. We sailed all the first day, most of the night. When I woke on the second day Dave asked me to help him reef. There was no wind, but Swift Current was 15 miles ahead of us, and had 20 on the nose. We tucked in the reef and sailed all day. It died a few hours before sunset, and the seas were sloppy, but by my watch the seas were calm and we had an easy light air sail. We could have come in with five hours to spare, but we decided to sail slow, and not anchor outside the bar.
Dave and I have very little experience crossing a bar. As it was Howard's birthday, we let Swift Current take the lead. The pilot boat, a red jetski, came out to lead them through the deep water into the channel. Serendipity was second, and since there were four boats, and a short slack tide, they tried to bring two boats in each set of waves. Serendipity got sideways and almost broached - turn on their side. The water come over the side, flooded the cockpit and flowed down below. They are still assessing the damage, but after two hours they noticed they were missing their outboard. The outboard was clamped and locked to the boat, yet was stripped off. We went after Serendipity. Bill the interpreter for the pilot asked if I was nervous. "No, I'm terrified." The instructions were clear, and Dave followed them to the letter. He kept perpendicular to the waves, and then we were slammed by the big one. We started to ride it, and then ride it, and then ride it. I never knew a wave could be that long. By looking at the pictures we deduced we rode the wave for over 25 seconds. We had two smaller waves, and then we were in, all safe. Kara slept through the whole thing. Our GPS has a new maximum speed - 19.2 knots. It was exhilarating, but I'm still scared.
The pilot went out to bring in Hotspur. They were offered the option of waiting until the next day, but they wanted to give it a try. They had a fast ride, and more big waves, but all was well.
El Salvador is lovely and the people welcoming. I'm glad to be here.