El Salvador to Nicaragua to Honduras

El Salvador to Nicaragua to Honduras

I will apologize for the lack of pictures in this blog. I was  too sick to take pictures and David had his hands full. We did try to take some pictures of the town of Ampala but they did not turn out. I guess the phone camera was sick too,

1445: Stay sail and one reef in the main. Only doing 2 knots so the motor is on. But this is probably good for it after sitting idle for a couple of weeks.

Winds are SSE at 8 knots. Course is 130 Magnetic and we are cruising along at 6 knots.

Heeled over just enough for that lovely watermelon to roll onto the floor and crack in two. So I get to go down below and wash the floor and cut up the watermelon for later.

1530: the motor is off and we are still maintaining a pleasant 5 knots with the Genoa out. It is quite warm at 32C on the water. The watermelon is wonderful!

1800: Not much to report. Time to heat up the chicken cacciatore. I am beginning to get a sore throat and a bit achy. So I decided to take a few aspirin and lie down.

2015: I could not sleep so decided to make some tea and relieve David. Motor sailing and watching out for panga's. We moved a little further offshore to make avoidance easier.

2050: I was treated to a fireworks display from San Sebastian. I went on line to try and find out what they were celebrating but could not find out anything. But I did enjoy the show!

Seas are lumpy. It is very difficult to write in my journal. The stars are out but not very clear. You have to look really hard to make out the horizon.

2400: Midnight Location: 12*52.66 N 87*54.234 W

Sky has cleared and the seas have settled a bit but I am not. I am starting to get a fever and ache all over. I suggested to David that we find a port to drop the hook as I did not feel up to another watch. The closest port was Puerto Corinthal in Nicaragua, 50 nm away. 

1750: we were at the lighthouse and entrance to the port. Poor David had been keeping watch since midnight and was exhausted. I was feeling worse. 

We dropped the hook and went to bed. When we woke up the next morning we found ourselves aground on a mud bottom. Nothing to do except wait for the tide to come up. But about 3 boat lengths away we noticed the remains of a wreck. I guess St. Anthony was looking out for us last night - we may have gone aground but at least we missed that wreck. 

I was still unwell, fever  coming and going. Dengue fever has been experienced by some of the locals so I decided to do some research. And I am pretty sure that I had it. Not to worry - you do not die from it or anything. Just a really bad fever for 5-7 days (7 for me) and body ache, and pain behind the eyes. It is usually associated with an itchy rash which I did not get.

But it made us stop and reassess. We are still having a few issues with the boat. And the additional hours on watch for David are difficult. We are both tired - it seems like we are in this race to get to the next place, see what there is to see, fix what has to be fixed, provision and get to the next place. We both just want to stay somewhere for a while, rethink our goals and go from there. 

We are about two to three months behind our original schedule. Now I know that our schedule was not tight but there are some weather issues that one must keep in mind when heading on a journey like ours. Hurricane season in the South Pacific happens in November. Very hot weather and numerous lightening storms occur in Panama and Costa Rico. The delay in getting our parts and them installing them put us into the heat of the summer in Panama. + 40C is a bit much. And lots of boats have been known to have their entire electrical systems wiped out with lightening strikes. This is so recognized that even our deductible on our insurance policy goes up substantially while we are in this area. Panama and Costa Rico are also very expensive. Our original plans would have put us in this area for about two months. With the delay we were looking at a year. Too rich for these pensioners.

So where to go? Well everyone knows how much we loved Barra de Navidad. The summer rate, including water and power and full use of the hotel, would be less than $400.  The town is also close to three other really nice Mexican towns and flights to Canada are reasonable. And of course there is that wonderful pool! We are also close to a fairly good marine store and know people who can work on our boat if we can not.

It does involve a backtrack of about 1000 nm but that is okay. Then next year we can decide to still head to Panama or go directly across to the Marquesa's.

So the decision has been made and we both feel good about it. So that evening we headed back - first stop is the Gulf of Fonseca and Isla Tigre.

2230: course is 315 M, speed is 5 knots . Passing abeam speck reef, 4.5 nm to starboard. There is a light wind on our nose. David is still doing most of the watch as I am still experiencing the fever and body ache.

Sunday, 22-March

0315: rounding Point Cosiquina and entering the Gulf of Fonseca. Still motoring. There are numerous fishing boats but no close encounters.

0800: the El Salvador navy came. Alongside and wanted to inspect our passports and exit papers (Zarpe). We were a little concerned as our Zarpe papers said Honduras but we had actually anchored in Nicaraguan waters for that one night but never cleared in but we did not go ashore. Their were 4 container ships in this little port. And they were really busy so we had hoped that they were not concerned with us. I guess we were correct as nothing was said and our papers were returned to us.

0934: dropped the hook off of Isla Tigre, Honduras and the town of Ampula. We called the Port Captain and tried to delay check-in until Monday but he was insisted that we come today.

I was still feverish and David had to keep watch all night so the last thing we wanted to do was launch the dinghy and go to shore.  But we did. If someone would have got it on video I am sure we looked like we were doing it in slow motion. But the check-in was simple and there was no cost associated with it.

Bob "Roberto" is a local resident and got his sights on us as we were heading to shore. He was there to arrange babysitting for the dinghy and to be our interpreter with the Port Captain. More stamps in the Passport and then Bob took us on a short tour of the town. We went to the local " banker" lady to exchange our US dollars into Lampira's. $1 US to $21 Lampira's. Bob gave us a bit of the history of the place and then back to the dinghy.

Historically this area is quite important. The top of the volcano was home to the CIA during the Honduran/El Salvadorian/Nicaraguan uprising. We decided not to climb up to the top - a five hour return trip - as I was still recovering and David was too tired. Honduras was used by the U.S. as a haven for anti-Sandista contras fighting the communist Nicaraguan government in the 1980's. This area was then hit by A hurricane in 1998. El Tigre Island was the central command post for Sir Francis Drake in 1849. And in 1992' when the Peace Treaty was signed the Gulf of Fonseca was divided up. El Salvador got Isla Meanguera and Honduras got El Tigre.

Money and development went into Puerto Henecan near the town of San Lorenzo. When this happened a lot of the people from 

Ampula moved there. It is unfortunate as the town site has a lot of potential but without any government support it seems quite poor and rundown. It is definitely not a place to provision. We had changed $50 US into Lampira's and had a really hard time spending it. We had heard that another boat went in there and stayed for one month. I cannot imagine what they did there. Middle and high income tourists come from the mainland of the weekends but that is about all the 

Townsite has. 

The anchorage was not very comfortable. Strong winds blow into the 

Bay and strong currents run between the islands. Too bad because the area is beautiful to look at. It reminds me a little of the San Juan Islands in Washington. 

We spent Monday getting back to normal. We checked out with the Port Captain and then walked around town trying to get rid of our money. We ended up with a dozen eggs and lots of pop (Pepsi not Coke) and water and beer. Then back to the boat where I made some curry, pasta, Mu Chu Pork and Carrot muffins - ready made meals for the 300 nm trip back to Chiapas.

Winds finally died down at 2100 so we could bring the dinghy along side and suspended. It was still too rolly to take the motor off and bring the dinghy on board.

0600: awake and ready to get underway. We finally got the dinghy and outboard on the boat. We had a little bit of trouble with the salt water pump but it worked its way out.

Coffee was made. Muffins and cereal for breakfast.

0630: underway and we were kind of glad. We dragged anchor and the seas were really uncomfortable for most of the time. We really do not know what all the hype was about. Except for the nice sunsets!

 Our suggestion would be to pass it by.