David's Tale of the Final El Salvador Leg

Here is David's version of the last few days . . . plus a rant against his sailmaker.

If it seems like we live a charmed life it's because we do . . . in so many ways it's scary. It was time to leave Bahia del Sol. We finally received our new charger that Dan Wacholder sent down, and we had seen much of what the area had to offer, so we made plans to head out through the bar at 11:00 a.m. Friday. One of the old superstitions of cruisers is that you never leave on a Friday. So at 11:00 we were still fueling up, and since the water truck hadn't come as promised, we started loading 5 gallon jugs of water, pouring them in as fast as we could, as the tide window was rapidly closing.

Around 11:45 we headed out across the bar with Rajulio on his jet ski leading the way. The trip out was uneventful until the very end when a set came through that had one wave I could have turned on my board and caught with a three stroke paddle. Sidewinder burst through the lip, sending water everywhere, but came down heading outside, and the next wave was smaller, so no problem. Rajulio came buzzing by on the jet ski, waving goodbye with that great smile of his, and we headed south. Then the engine died. We were not out of harms way by any means, and I freaked out, running forward and raising the mainsail first and the headsail after that, and Suzi was able to keep us slightly off the wind and make headway out to sea. After much research I couldn't find anything wrong, so I tried firing her up, and she started right off. What was wrong? It's anyone's guess: could've been the fact that I had the pedal to the metal more than I ever had before trying to get out of the surf as fast as I could, and she may have revved past her comfort zone and starved for fuel, or she could have choked for a lack of air since we were sucking more than she ever had to before. It's hard to tell, but I was a happy camper when she did fire up.

So on we went, heading to Punta Mango in the far east of El Salvador, ready for new sights and some much needed surf to play in. As the night started to close in around us, the lightning started to flash on the horizon right in front of us, and sure enough we soon found ourselves in the middle of a squall with 30 knot winds and short choppy seas coming from what seemed at the time to be every direction. We had the foresight before it all came down to shorten sail to the staysail with a reefed main, and I felt we could deal with anything that came our way. But that turned out not to be the case.

With pitch black night around us, all of a sudden the staysail ring that the sheets are tied to parted from the sail with a sharp crack, and the staysail started flapping back and forth with the wind. By the time we got her furled up, the sail was thrashed. BUMMER . . . and that's an understatement, and not the word that came out of my mouth, as you can imagine I'm sure. We rode out the squall by motoring into it and limped into Isla Meanguera, forgetting about Punta Mango due to weather that my radar showed all along the coast. [People with Google Earth: Type "Isla Meanguera, El Salvador" into the "Fly to" box to see this beautiful island.]

So now we are without our staysail, which really reduces our sail selection especially for heavy weather. We still can roll up the headsail on the furler and make do, but not having the staysail around has changed our thinking when it comes to weather on the horizon. Hopefully we can get it repaired somewhere down the line and be back to normal. Just another day in the life and times of Dave & Suzi on the water. It's never dull, but just once I'd like a few days to slide by without anything weird happening. That being said, I do feel proud of the way we dealt with it all, keeping our calm and jumping in and stabilizing the situation. It could've been worse, it all could've been worse, and yet I'm sitting here writing about it, shaking my head and smiling about it. But if you ever have the chance to by UK sails, please call me first: this shouldn't have happened, and I'm pointing my finger at UK. The same thing happened to our headsail just before we left, and UK fixed it, saying there must have been some bad webbing that ties the sheet ring to the sail. Well that bad webbing must've been used for the staysail also because 27 knots of wind isn't that much, and our staysail is only a 99 % one; that's not that big. Bottom line: shouldn't have happened.

But we are now anchored in the prettiest little bay we have yet to stay in with a cute little hotel nestled into the cove that has a great bar and restaurant and owned by some ex-pat. gringos. Very charming and close to a small village that has most of what we need, just not a new staysail! So that's where we are right now and until you hear from us again, it's where we will stay for a while. Talk again soon with tales of great surf and clear water and a trouble free crossing . . . RIGHT! Love, David