For the Wind and Tide
29 April, 2007
Bahia Jiquilisco
N 13º 15.7’ / West 88º 29.4 ‘
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
The rows of sugarcane, uncut blowing in the tropical breeze roll by the window of the taxi as we leave a trail of dust in the air of the dirt road. Mountain peaks like volcanoes disappear in the distance behind us as the mangroves and palms grow larger in front of us. The sugarcane plantations give way to coconut plantations and finally a grass airstrip then the gate to Barillas Marina, El Salvador. We unload Forrest’s things into the dinghy and motor out to Morning Star, lying safely on her mooring in the hot afternoon in Central America.
It wasn’t easy to get into this port, and it was not a planned stop. This paradise I stumbled into once again broken and seeking safe harbor. We had been adrift outside the breakers that line Bahia Jiquilisco for 24 hours. Dave and I had sailed down from Puerto Madero where we had battled corrupt government officials and lost much time. It is a disturbing thing to get conned like a regular criminal.
We sailed from Hautulco through the notorious Gulfo De Tehuantepec known for it’s sudden gale force winds blowing through the valley from the Caribbean. We made our engine repairs and sailed against currents and wind to make fifty miles a day and seek re-provisioning in Puerto Madero. Puerto Madero’s reputation had some how flown under my radar. Notorious for creating more problems and costing sailors more heart ache than it was worth for the stop, when only a hundred miles further lies refuge in Gautemala, or 200 miles to El Salvador. Yet is was a port in which we could settle the paperwork to properly exit the country.
On a deadline with Forrest flying into Costa Rica and needing to get through some squally and unpredictable seas, we stayed only long enough to refuel and take on food and water when I announced, with all the paper work prepared, that I was ready to exit Mexican waters. “Mañana,” the Capitian de Puerto said. Their printer that was needed to print the exit Zarpe was not working.
Mañana and the officials reviewed my paper work and informed me that with all other fees paid I still had to pay the Port Captain. A fee I was unaware of. Ten dollars to be exact. But I could not pay there. I was to take the cab with a receipt from him 30km into Tapachula, a rough little town known for some of its revolutionary activities existing there in the jungle border regions between Mexico and Guatemala. There I was to pay the bank.
However, he regrets to inform me that they don’t have electricity today, so I must come back mañana for the receipt to to take to Tapachula. Seeing it was Friday I asked if he was open on Sabado. He assures me that the Port Captains office is open on the weekend. He neglected to inform me that it was only manned by a guard who was incapable of printing the needed receipt, even if they had electricity and a working printer. So, when I reported to the Capitian De Puerto on Sabado I was greeted by a surprise. Myself, Dave, a Canadian, and a German were assured by this guard that we could exit, but we would need to wait for a few minutes. Shortly after a stalky man with his young fit assistant drove up to meet us.
He assures us that we will be able to make our exit, we just need to pay the fee, and he can get our papers clear, but it is going to cost you he says. “A little something for me.” 30 dollars to be exact. I had already been held here two days longer than intended, and with my American expectations of being treated with some degree of honesty and efficiency, I was somewhat upset. Thinking this is a scam, and thinking he worked for the port captain, I became a little controversial. In typical comical gringo outrage, I informed him this was a government facility and that this was unacceptable. As I argued my point it became clear he was not in fact a government employee but a Ship’s Agent. This was his fee. So I argued the fact that I didn’t need a Ship’s Agent. I needed a receipt so that I could take it to the bank in Tapachula. Then asked if I was to receive reimbursement since it was the Port Captain’s responsibility to provide me with adequate services in which to pay. All of this surely rather amusing to the agent, though he fiend true and genuine concern for our plight.
As soon as I said this I knew how ridiculous the proposal was. He assured me I could get no reimbursement. I admit I was flush, my voice was loud, I called him everything but corrupt, and definitely hit all around that word. So he said, fine, wait until Monday and then pay an extra thirty dollars in port fees as he turned to walk away. I was stuck with thoughts of escaping the harbor in the cover of night arriving at the next port with wet documents and stating something regarding the fact that we got into a squall and some paper work was lost. Dave was opposed to this idea and stopped the man. Realizing that things could get nasty if we left, and that I was stuck with two options. Stay, confront the Captain at first light on Monday and be late for Costa Rica and still pay the fees, or suck it up and take it. I took it. The whole process that followed was a long uncomfortable two hours with little grunts and mumbles on both sides. Perhaps I was unreasonable.
A little comment here from the present day. This was a turning point in the journey, when the romanticism was over, and the journey was turning into a grind.
No, I was not unreasonable, I was just a spoiled American kid with an over inflated sense of ‘right and wrong’ who was quickly running out of funds to get back home. Stressed with a boat that kept breaking and a canal transit to still fund, I was on the brink of not making it. Pressure from family back home and already well past all my self imposed deadlines, I was projecting. Interesting looking back though, it was really a trivial amount of money, but I was just that strapped, but not so strapped I couldn’t head out into the towns and relieve the stress of it all with a few drinks at the local beach side bars.
Upon arriving in El Salvador my suspicions were confirmed with a few other personal accounts of corruption and a few stories from the Marina Manager. However, to add insult to injury I had taken on sixty gallons of diesel fuel there in Puerto Madero. Four hours out of Port, enough time to burn the fuel from Hautulco through our filters and into the new reserve of fuel I was disturbed from my watch with a loud knocking from the engine like a push rod beating on the crank case. I went below to inspect and # 1 injection line was leaking like a sieve. I tightened it down, kicked her into idle and the knocking went away. I manually controlled the throttle from the engine and increased throttle and it was fine for a few minutes, then knocked again. The irregular knocking was an obvious sign of something in the fuel system gone wrong. I began tracing the lines, bleeding the filters, the injectors and still the knocking persisted. In frustration I bled the fuel water separator to find clear diesel. I smelled the diesel and felt it between my fingers, and my only assumption was that we had picked up bad fuel. We were only miles out of Mexican waters into Guatemala and we were without power.
By now it was three in the morning. I had one hour to sleep before I was up at four for my watch. Dave the whole time lying in bed talking about all the possibilities and commenting on my dilemma and mechanic skills. I took the watch and we were graced with wind until the morning. I spent my watch thumbing through my cruising guides and charts looking for a closer port than Playa De Cocco in Costa Rica still 400 miles away, and with little wind it would take us 8 days. Not to mention my 25 gallon water tank had sprung a leak in Puerto Madero and my bilge pump had simultaneously given up. We did manage to isolate the tank and run with 40 gallons instead of our usual 75, and rewire the pump, but regardless there has been little wind for us since the Sea of Cortez. Under sail we were making 12 hours of good sailing, and 12 or more of idle drifting in the blazing sun. We were getting 50 miles out of her a day.
So I decided on El Salvador. Once again here we were outside the entrance into Bahia Julisqo after a long four day journey. Tired, caked in salt, running low on water, and soon to be stuck with mashed potatoes and canned corn for our meals we were on the radio with the Marina Manager of the closest port begging for a tow. The manager on the radio assured me a tow was impossible, which we later realized was more true than we knew.
There was no other choice. Frustrated and impatient I told him I would get into port on my own. “I would not advise sailing in through the channel, especially without a pilot,” he told us, but this I could not afford. It was a bold, perhaps rash, assessment of the situation. The chart was not very detailed on the entrance and there was nothing in terms of depth in the bay. I could see the breakers in the binoculars and I studied the cruising guide. I read it five times and laid their instructions, which included waiting for a pilot, onto the cart connecting the largest numbers like a connect the dot puzzle. It laid us on a course of 065 for two miles then a cut to 240 degrees until we could parallel the shoreline and came safely into the bay. As I wrapped up my assessment and stepped out of the cabin with a course I studied the wind. There wasn’t a lot. I had all the canvas flying and we were moving slowly towards two sets of breakers. The bay is protected by an arm of breakers coming from the left shoreline and blocking the entrance. On the right hand side Lempa Shoals extended out further into the sea from a sand bar. The idea was to cut in between the two shoals running for the coast until we could get behind the first set and then run a course paralleling them and the shoreline taking them to port and the shore to starboard. The depth of the channel only 24 feet deep, and I was certain that if we needed we could just drop anchor and await assistance.
As we began our first leg a fisherman in his panga wizzed by. Still convinced that with a little money and an offering of rum I could get a tow I flagged him down. After 10 minutes of tangled Spanish and English negotiations it became clear we could not be towed and they would be happy to guide us in. We soon were to learn just how challenging and why it was not advisable to sail into this harbor.
We made the course I had laid for us true to the slightest degree and began to get overtaken by some increasingly steep rolling ground swells that lifted our stern and threatened to surf us down and potentially breech the boat rolling her on her side. The sounds of the thunderous waves breaking around us and the sight of the breakers in the distance most definitely humbled my over inflated sense of seamanship. This was not as I had thought. This was going to be a fight. We came exactly to the way point in which I had laid out and made our cut behind the breakers, bringing the head to port and trimming in the sails to take the wind just a little off of a close haul and hoping there the wind would hold steady enough to keep her head pointing and help to fight off the leeway that was pushing us down on the shoreline. The sea became turbulent as we were caught in the fetch of the water clashing with the shore line and coming back onto us.
The wind increased maintaining us on our course and keeping our sails full. Dave took the helm, I took the roll of tactician. Constantly scanning the horizon for trouble, trimming the sails and guiding him on a good course. We followed the panga and it became clear. We were being looked after by a higher being. If we had had even 3 knots less of wind we would have drifted onto the shoreline. If the tide had been going out we wouldn’t have been able to fight our way in. If the wind direction had changed by any more than 10 degrees we would have been caught in a deadly game of tacking up a narrow channel. beyond the breakers and the channel ship wrecks of old shrimp boats and sailing vessels lined the shore and the two of us kept our calm, and our eyes on the smooth water ahead.
We fought for an hour and a half doing everything right until we came into the gentle water of a magnificent and beautiful bay in which there was a winding mangrove river and at the head volcanic peaks. Now we sailed a perfect beam reach along the shoreline in calm water making our way for the mouth of the river that would carry us to a safe mooring. The fisherman came to us with their eyes wide open after witnessing what we had accomplished. They found me on the bow doing a jig, dancing wildly. I gave them our thanks, and a few dollars along with a pint of rum. They felt awkward in taking it, but I assured them that after what they had done for us it was the least we could do for them, and then they were gone.
Now we sailed into the magrove jungle down a river only a hundred yards wide. Pangas tied themselves to the trees to sleep in the late afternoon heat. The sun was beginning it’s descent behind the trees as my hull pushed quietly and slowly along the river. We sailed for five miles enjoying the peace, almost filling oblivious to what we had gone through to earn the feeling of it. As we came around the last bend the wind was on our nose and we could no longer make head way. Out of control the wind turned her broadside, and the current kept us moving into the marina, slowly. The moorings were within site and I knew that if nothing else we could drop anchor here. But we were still moving sideways towards a mooring ball. I was ready to jump in with a line and tie her off when the Marina Manager came out with a smile and withb a slow clap he congratulated us on our seamanship, or was it luck? He now offered a tow into a good mooring, which we accepted with gratitude. And asking if there was anything we needed, “A cigarette,” I told him, and he smiled pulling a pack from his shirt pocket and handing it across the boats.
Minutes later we were all checked in, and all was fine.
It’s times like this when you look at things and realize that you were about to make a terrible mistake, which would have landed you on the beach among the other shipwrecks. Your gut has once again been your luck. There was bravery, or maybe naïveté, there was skill too, but there also was a lot of luck. If things had been any different we could have lost her. But that doesn’t stop me from telling the story to all those that stop me to congratulate us. We seemed to earn a bit of credit as the crazy kids that sailed in through the breakers. I am always sure to remind them that no amount of skill could have battled a counter current or created wind if it had failed us. They all agree, we had luck, courage, skill, and the perfect combination of them all.
That is how we came to lie on the other side of a shrimp fleet in the middle of a mangrove river. Our fuel disposed of, new fuel taken on. It has been a week now, fixing clogged injectors, and cleaning tanks and lines after taking on so much bad fuel. A mechanic assessed it and concluded that we had 95% diesel and 5% water. An alarming figure. So gladly when I ran into a captain of a personal yacht bound for Puerto Madero to take on 3,000 gallons I told him to pass it up.
Tomorrow we will find out the cost of the new injectors. This once again puts me another week behind schedule and pushing it close to the Atlantic hurricane season. I picked Forrest up in the back of a pick up truck on Tuesday after he changed his flight. It was only minutes after picking up Forrest that we saw Dave off. We took the bus to the near by town of Usulutan, then caught our taxi. This place that we have landed used to be a coconut plantation. Now it is a small marina mixed in with a shrimping fleet. Hidden away from society it is quiet, friendly, and all that is required for rest and recovery. We are now half way through our voyage milage wise. We are directly south of New Orleans, and still moving south east until we reach the canal, and the Caribbean when we will head almost directly north until we round Cuba and sail the straits to Key West.
So far we have come now, and still so far to go. I met a girl sailing around the world. Her friends were visiting and they invited me to go Croc hunting with them. We took her dinghy deep into a mangrove inlet then back to her boat for dinner. Not much older than me and sailing on a $200,000 yacht with all the bells and whistles. I was not impressed at the luxury under which she was sailing around the world. Everything on her boat did all the work for her. She asked why I was not going all the way around. And I asked her what she did in her past life. “Lawyer,” she said looking away distractedly, some shadowy memory in her eyes, “I am a sailor now.”
I told her as I am now telling everyone. I have been away from home for 6 years now. I left Tennessee with six dollars in my pocket and will probably return with four dollars, plus one great boat. I have been away from home for too long, and I miss it. I am tired of missing weddings and funerals. I have been around the world, or at least close enough with enough stories for one man’s youth. I am not throwing out my anchor, but I do long for some good shore time until I become restless again. I look forward for month long voyages along the east coast. Perhaps a run to the Bahamas or Bermuda, but nothing grand for a while. I am tired of seeing my savings disappear. Living idly. I am finding that all the ports are beginning to look the same. It has lost it’s luster. I am home sick. I miss friends. I miss the climate of the Carolinas, and I miss mountains. I have done a lot of soul searching, and have realized many things. Most of all the definition of home has become clear to me.
I am ready to be home and make my home and Morning Star one and the same for the first time. Though this has been my home, it has been my home away from home. How amazing is it to be able to bring your home away from home to your home. That’s why I chose to live on boats. I love them, and I love traveling. It’s just time to take a break. Yet I am only half way there and still hoping for a good wind to carry me the rest of the way. Pray for wind, for I can harness wind, but I cannot create it, unless you count these long winded stories as full of hot air as the Central American coast.
