The El Salvador Submarine

El Salvador cruising and the Submarine

Submarine? Yes, wait for it.

In keeping with our plan to sail from Puerto Vallarta to Panama and back this season, we made a two night passage to El Salvador.

It’s a cool 250 miles from the last Mexican port of Chiapas Mexico. That’s about 48 hours when planning. Sometimes it can get a bit windy.

Level stove

El Salvador takes planning as there’s a bar that has to be crossed to enter Bahia del Sol. By bar, I mean an area offshore where it’s shallow because of the estuary entrance but waves are breaking.

This bar has to be crossed at high tide For our entrance, we saw 9′ under the keel.

Breaking waves from offshore

We timed our arrival offshore Bahia del Sol about an hour before high tide and met our panga pilot Bill just before the crossing. It was a busy day for Bill as there were 4 boats to enter; one at a time. Bill runs the El Salvador cruisers rally and pretty much the whole Bahia del Sol.  Check out the rally here. Annual El Salvador Cruisers Rally

Volare bar crossing inbound

When our turn came up we were told when to power up, and we did! Full throttle as we accelerated just on the backside of a wave. I didn’t look at the speed when the second wave caught us but since we were going 8.5kt before the wave, I’m estimating we went 11-12kts with the wave, if not more. We surfed this wave most of the way across the bar.

Crossing the bar inbound

An exciting entry for sure!

Raising the El Salvador flag

Once in the estuary, it’s a very protected anchorage. The tide is very strong every day but otherwise calm and protected. It is odd though to see Volare with her stern to a 15kt breeze at anchor.  We also met our friends whom we haven’t seen in about 5 years.

Friends from San Diego living in El Sal

With our good friends from Jean Anne, Steve and Chelsea, we decided to explore San Salvador for a few days. It was nice to enjoy the coolness of 8000′.

Hiking to a volcano near San Salvador

Volcano near San Salvador

Fresh berries at the volcano rim

We stayed at an air BNB, shopped at a large mall and enjoyed hiking to a volcano that offered us some much needed exercise.

San Salvador at night from the Air BNB

Next we traveled to Suchitoto. It’s a quaint little town overlooking a large lake called Lake Lempa. Great little restaurants and cool weather. Plus, an amazing waterfall that runs in the wet season.

Cute hotel in Suchitoto – Posada de Suchitlan

Town church in Suchitoto

Even though El Salvador had no reported COVID-19 cases, we started hearing of possible port closures further south.

After provisioning, we hurried back to Volare to prepare to move south, when there was a bar crossing window.

Restaurant way up the estuary in the town of Herradura

Fine local El Salvadoran beer

Exiting over the bar is much more dangerous, coupled with the fact that only 3 boats can leave on the high tide. We had to wait about 5 days to leave.

During this time, arrivals and departures to Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama closed. While El Salvador was also closed to arrivals, a departure was still possible. We made the tough decision to depart and turn northwest, towards Mexico.

It’s a very strange feeling to be in doubt as to where you can go with your house when a country closes its border. We can’t just pull over. Safe anchorage is needed, not to mention hurricane storage considerations.

Many ports either don’t have haul out facilities or they’re smack dab in the hurricane zone. Not a place we would leave the boat for the summer and definitely not a place our insurance company would approve of.

The Submarine trip

Anyway, back to the El Salvador departure. We prepared the boat the best we could. The SUP boards were removed. All cushions and most other items were stored below. PFD’s on, to include Foxy and to include Foxy tethered in, we lined up with Jean Anne and followed the pilot boat out to the bar.

Volare slowed to allow the pilot to guide Jean Anne over the bar. They got a bit wet but made it safely.

Under direction we started out. Today the bar required about a hundred yards of negotiating large 6-8′ breaking waves. Mind you, once you’re in this position, there’s no going back. No turning around. It would be disastrous to get sideways to these large waves.

So we started out. One large wave negotiated, a little blue water over the bow. Second large wave negotiated and so on until the last one. We hadn’t heard from the pilot in a while and we though we were clear.

We were throttling up to clear the bar and then we saw it.

I clearly remember somberly saying, “oh shit”.

Slowing down when I saw the wave: we knew we were in trouble.

I’LL JUST LET THE PICTURES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

It’s a truly helpless feeling to be at the mercy of such a powerful force. We just had to watch it happen.

The wall of water broke just on top of the anchor locker and continued it’s massive march towards us. Jess knelt down near the companionway.

Our stout dodger didn’t stand a chance when the wave reached it. As it shot through and over, the dodger collapsed and folded back between Jess and I.

The wave filled the gunnels and the cockpit as it continued over the bimini and filled the dinghy on davits. There was an immediate stench of diesel in the air and salt in our eyes.

We were all drenched and I couldn’t see forward with the dodger folded in half. Foxy had the saddest look I’ve ever seen her express. Jess was ok due her quick thinking to duck. I was behind the chart plotter else I may have eaten some dodger stainless.

My phone and our coffee containers floated by my feet and upon inspection inside the companion way door, it looked like it had rained in our galley.

Once our Volare surfaced from it’s submarine trip, our immediate concern was control. Jess had to stand in front of the former dodger and tell me where to steer. I had no vision forward.

Destroyed dodger aftermath

When it was clear we had passed all waves of the bar we instantly noticed our port gunnel was full of a diesel saltwater mixture. Has anyone ever tried walking in that mixture? Slippery and stinky to say the least.

Turns out, our mistake of leaving diesel jerry cans tied to the forward rail wasn’t smart. The force applied to them caused them to break loose One of them crashed over with it’s cap ripped off, spilling it’s contents.

After cleaning up the mess, we continued the 250nm back to Chiapas Mexico and checked back into the country. Truly a relief to be back in the same country that we keep our boat in for hurricane season.

Initially thinking the dodger was toast, we managed to fix the stainless issues and then re-sew the ripped canvas. Our dodger is once again stout thanks to the original quality work from Catalina Yachts and a little help from a Sailrite sewing machine.

You can watch the video here –>>  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPd3HS8EPu4

It was a bummer to travel over a thousand miles and be so close so such amazing places, to then have to turn around.

Central America and Volare; The countries shown in gray have closed their borders.

Will we travel this route again in the future? …. who knows… we go where the wind blows…. that’s SO not true as it seems we often motor to the wind.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to check out the rest of our website and follow along with our travels at CruisingVolare.