| Goodbye Costa Rica; hello Honduras!!!
Friday 7th September – midday……. So there we were, on a beam reach, screeching along with a reef in the mainsail and a full (155%) light weight Genoa. Costa Rica was slowly dropping over the horizon astern and it was about the best bit of sailing we’d had since leaving the Caribbean, which I guess says a lot about the west coast of Central America. It was such good fun that I hung on to the wheel for most of the day, keeping the power on; making seven knots and more. I only resorted to the Vane Gear when the wind started to drop and she became a little more manageable. The biggest surprise of all however, was that we were still sailing as the sun went down! I guess what we had was a mini Papagayo but at this time of the year the normal howling gale that screams out of the Golfo de Papagayo is reduced to something almost pleasant; in particular when traveling north as we are. By evening we had noticed the thunderheads starting to build over the land and the rumble of the thunder was getting closer; once the sun dipped we got quite a good lightning show. At 2040hrs we were jumped by a heavy cell and had to furl away the Genoa rather quickly, I hung on to the mainsail however as we had a reef in and she seemed to be happy, spilling wind and not putting too much weight on the rigging. We saw a maximum of twenty-five knots but on reflection we could have had an awful lot more and in future I’d either go to a double reef main or no sail at all, most probably the latter! The lightning show was now taking place all around and directly over us and we could see many of the strikes coming down to the sea, it was a cause for some concern…… An hour later the ‘Cell’ moved off and we were left with a lumpy sea and very little wind so we started the motor and moved off under power. After an hour we picked up a nice SEly breeze and were able to charge off at great speed through heavy rain in practically zero visibility under just the reefed mainsail. This was about as much fun as having the lightning all round us as this part of the coast is renowned for having lots of unlit fishing boats and fish nets all over the place! Soon after midnight the rain stopped, the clouds started to clear and the wind went light again. Thus we called on “Mr. Universe”, our trusty engine, to once more get us moving. It turned out to be an eighteen hour stretch which I think is the most we’ve ever run the motor in one go and something we hope not to repeat. We did have a choice however; in fact we had several. Corinto in Nicaragua was fairly close to hand and the anchorage was said to be good, with a small town, shops and services. Puesta del Sol was not far to the North of Corinto and would have definitely got our vote had it not been for the fact they don’t like you to leave your boat unattended on a mooring. Apparently the Puesta del Sol marina setup has improved the once unassailable Nicaraguan bureaucracy, now you know what you are going to pay and it’s all ‘above board’. We did the math however and decided that we were better visiting Nicaragua by bus from Barillas in El Salvador (where we were going anyway to tour into Costa Rica). We entered the Golfo Fonseca at 1500hrs and were surprised by the strength of the outgoing tide; we couldn’t alter that however and had to push almost 2kts of adverse current. On top of this the afternoon thunderstorm came through early and at 1640 we had a heavy frontal type cloud barreling down the mountains towards us from the NE. We furled away and stowed the mainsail for this one! The Blast only lasted about ten minutes and reached 27/30kts after which it tapered off slowly. It did nothing to improve our speed however, thus darkness had already fallen as we powered into Monypenny Anchorage on the Nicaraguan side of the entrance. Here there is a low hook of land behind which vessels can move inshore out of the swell and with some degree of protection. At 1848hrs we dropped our anchor in what was a surprising calm anchorage especially considering it had been exposed to thirty knots of wind just a few hours earlier. I had marked our intended anchor position on the GPS but with our late arrival, on a very dark but calm night, we chickened out early and dropped a little further offshore than we needed to (16ft at LW). This unfortunately left us in the current, which was not a problem other than to have us cavorting about when the breeze sprang up. The next morning was Sunday and a day of rest, it was a most scenic anchorage and with a light breeze we were quite happy with our position. We did consider the possibility of a strong E or NE breeze, to which the anchorage is exposed, however we felt we had the ability to withstand quite strong conditions and room to drag (a whole mile) if things went bad. By this time we were quite keen on going up to San Lorenzo in Honduras as we had been given some glowing reports about its secure anchorage and good treatment for visiting yachts. The clearance fees seemed remarkably reasonable but being a Sunday and not knowing what would happen with the overtime we decided not to take any chances and settled down to a day of doing odd jobs and a little research on the area. I certainly needed to check the engine over carefully after all the previous days motoring. Unfortunately I was a little late in reading up on my notes……. This life is, at times, a steep learning curve, even for those that should know better! By mid afternoon we were fairly sure that 50 and 60 knot squalls were not uncommon for this area at this time of the year. We discussed the situation and decided that we’d just see what was in store for us; it was too late to be changing anchorages. As the evening clouds gathered I went to maximum scope for the main anchor and attached my 15kg ‘Killet’, a folding Grapnel Anchor that I let slide about fifteen feet down the anchor rode to improve the holding power of the gear. I also tied a buoy to the end of the anchor rode in case we had to let it go in a hurry. I often take this precaution as it gives another option when ‘all hell breaks loose’; if its well marked you can always return to the spot in better conditions and recover the gear, its much better than sending your wife forward on a violently pitching boat where the bow is plunging under water and the gear is ‘singing under tension’, with the instruction “you heave up honey whilst I motor forward”! When the afternoon blow did arrive, we were ready for it. We’d had a SWly breeze for most of the afternoon and it had been quite fresh compared with other onshore breezes we’d so far encountered. I’m now quite sure that the strength of the afternoon sea breeze on this coast is an indication of how much energy the thunderheads are storing up over the land; the more developed they are the more air they suck in. We could see the lightning activity to the east and northeast of us and guessed that this was headed our way. This is how it went and by all accounts this is typical: 1730: Wind shifts to the ESE and we see a wall of white moving in, within moments we have 37Kts on the anemometer (but I think we under-read a little). The rain hits right behind the wind and it’s like a wall of water 1735: Still blowing 33 / 34 but no longer seeing the 37. 1740: Starting to ease, now 27 / 28 with just occasional 30, however the sea is picking up in the anchorage and we are starting to pitch heavily. 1743: Rain gets heavier and wind now between 24 and 28 1745: A noticeable drop in the wind, now between 20 and 25. Still pitching heavily! 1750: Wind drops 17 to 20, still ESEly. Thunder and Lightning up ahead with a very dark sky. At least the sea has stabilized; it’s no longer increasing! 1800: Wind settles between 15 and 12 (mainly 15) and most of the lightning seems to pass by. The rain has also eased and it’s more of a light drizzle. Whilst all that happened quite quickly it was amazing how quickly the sea got up, by 1740 we were already pitching heavily and close to digging our bow into the waves. It was a startling example of how, when picking shelter from a big blow, ‘fetch’ is second only to the quality of the holding. Like they say in the Property Business, “position is everything”! It calmed down quite quickly (an hour or so) but while we were waiting for that to happen we watched a movie on the computer. I knew things had got a little tense over the past hour and a movie was a good way to distract and relax the mind! Monday 10th of September, we were up and about early and had slept quite well once the anchorage settled down. We were not going to hang about and considered ourselves lucky that we had not encountered more wind. As soon as the tide turned in our favor, we heaved up our anchor and headed up Bahia San Lorenzo at speed! It’s twenty five miles from Monypenny to the anchorage off San Lorenzo town but with a good tide under us we did it in a little over three hours. Our Max Sea electronic charts proved to be quite accurate for the most part and we had no difficulties with the well marked channel. We managed to get the Genoa out a couple of times and at least felt we’d tried not to motor all the way. In fact it was a very pleasant trip and a beautiful morning for admiring the scenery and taking pictures of the many volcanos in view. A little after noon we came to anchor off the San Lorenzo waterfront, just a little to the south of the Porlamar Restaurant. There was just one other Yacht in the anchorage and he was about as surprised to see us as we were him. Not so many boats come up here, and in particular not at this time of the year. It’s only fools like us that try to go north in hurricane season! We launched the dinghy, stowed the gear and went ashore right away to pursue ‘clearing in’ to Honduras. On shore we met with Armundo the restaurants owner; he is and has been in the passed, extremely helpful towards the visiting yachts. Armundo has taken it upon himself to be the unofficial host and tourist help centre for this, the only seaport which Honduras has on the Pacific Coast. Very quickly he arranged that his cousin ‘Fito’ would take us to do all the clearance and introduce us to the town. Actually, ‘Fito’ was an amazing guy and was extremely generous with his time in making sure that all was going well for us. It seemed that both he and Armundo were genuinely concerned that we should have a good impression of Honduras and that no obstacle should get in our way. The Immigration officer was a real ‘gentleman’ and gave us ninety days with a smile, the Port Captain was fair but a little concerned that our ‘Zarpe’ from Costa Rica gave our destination as La Union and that we had not gone there first. This required some pleading about adverse conditions and the need for more fuel but with a goodly amount of help from ‘Fito’ he relented, especially when he saw that Immigration had already stamped us in for three months! At our request we were dropped in town at the Internet but not before ‘Fito’ had presented us a whole stack of tourist brochures on Honduras. Returning a little while later to the “Porlamar” we got into a couple of beers and Armundo insisted in buying us one as it is his custom to offer visiting yachties the first drink for free. Now there’s a great custom which seals a good welcome; there are not so many places left in the world where yachts receive such a welcome! Of course, we remained for dinner and were very happy that we did as we each had a dish of Jumbo Shrimps cooked in Garlic and it was superb whilst at a very reasonable price. It was immediately clear that we’d found a great place to hang out for a while! I have to say that the town of San Lorenzo is not really up to much, however basic supplies are available and with a little hunting, some interesting things can be unearthed. Banks, a couple of supermarkets, a big, covered ‘Mercado’, a few hardware stores and Internet café’s were about it. There was a gas station which ‘Fito’ ran us up to the next day in a truck that belonged to someone in the family so fuel was available if you have enough Jerry Jugs. It was difficult to find anywhere other than the “Porlamar” where we could eat and be certain of the Food Hygiene; we spent ages trying to find somewhere where we could just get Coffee and Cake…….. It is possible but difficult! Still the place has a certain charm, the people are all exceptionally helpful and friendly and at no time did we ever feel threatened in any way. It was in fact very relaxing, especially after Costa Rica! But apart from the security aspect, it was really very nice to be able to wander ashore when we liked and not to have to worry about being exposed to the weather. The absence of swell also contributed greatly to a feeling of ease! One major factor about San Lorenzo is that the Pan American Highway runs right passed and just about all the coaches stop here. It is relatively easy to pick up a bus to just about anywhere in Central America or beyond. After a day or two we got the idea of taking the bus up to Tegucigalpa, the capitol city. The ride was about $2.0 US p/p each way and would take about two and a half hours which seemed quite good. ‘Fito’ however very quickly volunteered to take us, saying it was his home city and seeing as he was going anyway, he’d like to show it to us. Later we concluded that he wasn’t really ‘going anyway’ but with his usual generosity kindly went out his way to ensure we came to no harm in the big city. Tegucigalpa was certainly interesting, we took in a couple of Museums and a couple of Churches of which they had MANY, thankfully for our guide who was able to explain many items and displays as none were marked in English making it rather tough going at times. ‘Fito’ gave us a full drive around tour pointing out historical buildings and parts of the ‘old town’, You could easily tell that he was proud of his country, its past and what it is now achieving. We had a typical Honduran lunch and then, after a few more churches and a walk in the main square, made our way back as the sun set; it had been a very full day out! One thing I shall never forget was the way the Hondurans drive, particularly as we neared Tegucigalpa which must be the world centre for erratic drivers. There were few nice cars and even fewer new cars however there were no nice, new cars; just about everything had a ding or two (or more)! It was most unfortunate that the next day I went down with a very server case of the ‘Honduras Two Step’. This came complete with a Fever of 101 and a little more at the start. The Fever I had for almost thee days and I didn’t really recover for six days; most of which I was very weak and limited in what I could do. Paula remained fine and spent the time nursing me and trying hard to keep my flagging spirits buoyed. We did manage to get some work done on the boat although not as much as we’d have liked. The engine got an oil change and so did the gearbox, I finally managed to re-plumb our Fresh Water System so that we made full use of our onboard filters. Quite a lot of our time was however spent working on our finances which required some urgent attention when the Bank in which we were investing decided to collapse as a casualty of the sub-prime lending debacle. Cruising sure has its fair share of worries; I know everyone on shore thinks it’s an easy, nomadic lifestyle with a carefree ride around the world. Well, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it and I can assure you, we are not seeing too many people doing it round these parts! By the middle of the second week we were ready to move on but were forced to wait a little while as, for our next destination, we had to bring together a low swell, high water at a favorable time and some good weather, all on the same day!!!! To fill time I started a little varnishing work in the hope we’d get a couple of coats on before departure. We also took the opportunity to apply a little polish here and there; there’s always plenty to do! We are however looking forward to Barillas already, somewhere new, somewhere different. We will miss San Lorenzo which has been cheap and exceptionally friendly but it’s time to move on, the Hurricane Season will be ending soon and we have to get north before the winter season sets in. Next stop El Salvador. John & Paula |
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