On route to Barillas, El Salvador

Posted 26 January 2011

We cleared customs on Sunday 23 January at around midday and was ready to go. We had a weather window for 2 to 3 days to cross the Golf of Tehuantepec. Although the weather called for light winds we decided that we will keep close to the shoreline around 10 to 20 nm offshore. We had very little wind and only manage to sail for 3 hours on Sunday. Monday was another motoring day with about 2 hours of sailing, we had incredible bad luck with the fishermen during the night. They rig up around 5 km of line with buoys attached about every 300 meters, which is impossible to see at night. These buoys are not marked and some are marked at the beginning and the end with a black flag. During the day these black flags are quite visible but not at night. After the first running into the lines we decided to head further offshore (we were around 24 nm offshore) and still running into these lines. We decided that maybe we should head closer to land and this was great at about 4 nm offshore, but not before 5 times having to stop the boat and try to untangle the lines from the rudder. We were very lucky that no lines got stuck in the propeller. We switched the deck lights on to have a little more light on the water, so that we could spot these buoys and lines. We were watching the speed like a hawk and any drop in speed we immediately put the engine in neutral. We did not like cutting the lines as this is someone's livelihood, but we had to cut 1 line and also 1 fish hook on another line. We were totally exhausted with the lack of sleep, but Tuesday morning was a beautiful day and Dinis caught 2 fish, 1 17 lbs and another about 7 lbs.

We cross the Mexican/Guatemala border around 4 pm Tuesday afternoon 25 January. We had another motoring night, but kept about 4 nm offshore, had no problems with lines in the water and had a peaceful night catching up on sleep. Wednesday morning and afternoon we had another couple of hours of sailing. Most of the trip so far was motoring, but I rather have a safe trip across than having to deal with gale force winds.

Our ETA is Thursday afternoon. To reach the marina, one have to go through sandbars following a pilot boat. Due to daytime limit the pilot boats can only take you before 3 pm otherwise you have to anchor and wait for the next morning. This is most probably what we will have to do.