Living & Learning Aboard the Good Ship Learnativity

LTY UPDATE: Sunday (yes again) July 25, 2010

LTY UPDATE: Day #2, sailing from Niuatoputapu Tonga to Wallis Island
Sunday, July 25th, 2010*
* Crisscrossing dateline so I'm now on my 2nd Sunday as Wallis & Futuna are UTC -11
18:00 LTY time (UTC -11) = 05:00 UTC
Location: about 75nm SE of Wallis Island
Position: 14 20.016 S, 175 20.168 W (cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)

Wind: 5-10 kts SE kts (apparent)
Seas: 1m @ 8 secs SE
Air temp: 84F 28.9C
Sea temp: 84F 28.9C
Humidity: 77%
Barometer: 1020mm
Weather: sunny, blue skies, some clouds building off to the west, sun setting

Distance traveled last 24 hours: 150nm
Distance to Wallis: 72nm
ETA Wallis: 10am Monday, July 26, 2010

SPECTACULAR SAILING & EATING AFTER A DUBIOUS START

** See photo album at  http://picasaweb.google.com/wayne.hodgins/NiuatoputapuTonga# for more pictures

Got away from Niuatoputapu as expected yesterday afternoon about 16:30 but not without a scary incident on the way out of the tricky pass. The lagoon is very good with all sandy bottom at about 35’ but the pass to come in and out is very narrow and you have to wind your way in through a very convoluted path to get through the coral of the reef. I had the track (electronic bread crumbs) from coming in which had worked well and so was following this back out expecting it to work equally well. However as I rounded the port marker where you need to make a 90 degree turn to head out through the narrow pass I suddenly went aground HARD! From 5kts to zero in an instant! Still not sure how this happened as I was within the two markers on port and starboard and what I thought was the exact path coming in, but obviously not. Thanks to good old Learnativity being very solid steel (over an inch thick at the bottom of the keel) she just backed right up when I put it in reverse, and I moved over to be as close as possible to the starboard marker and we went out fine. Stopped to dive the keel quickly once I was out, and just have some new scrapes in the new bottom paint and otherwise all was well. Whew!

Yet after this dubious start it flipped over to the other side of greatness for the rest of the trip as you are about to read. Once out in the open seas, the wind freshened up a little bit to about 10 knots out of the SE, just as forecast and part of the SE Trades that you expect to be blowing here pretty much all the time at this time of year. The winds had been up about 20 most of my stay, which was great for the wind generator and keeping my battery bank fully topped up, but the forecast was for light winds (under 10) this weekend, building gradually through the week to about 15-20 and all from the SE. This was a bit light but otherwise perfect and I’d waited to Sunday to leave in part to get the slightly higher winds as well as to get the chance to enjoy the Sunday feast with Cici, Niko and others. The timing worked out well.

With the wind out of the SE though, and my heading being NW it means that I’m sailing dead downwind which is a bit difficult for sails. But I live to learn and so I tried out a bunch of different sail setups to see what would work best. Full main and jib weren’t working too well both due to the low wind speed, now under 10 knots and it being right behind me. So I figured I had enough daylight left to get the spinnaker out for the first time this season and also try out my shiny new SS bow sprit! Took quite a while to get everything setup for the first time but eventually got the spinnaker hoisted just as the sun set and the light faded. The new bow sprit setup worked great and was worth all the work to design and build in NZ which added to how good this all felt.

However with the wind directly behind me the main was blanketing the spinnaker too much and so I took down the main and tried the spinnaker alone and that worked best of all. I’ve got what is called an asymmetric spinnaker which is meant to work well in winds from about 60 to 140 degrees (measured off the bow) so wasn’t sure how this would work or how to adjust it as I’m basically trying to get a sail to work well outside its parameters. But more experiential learning (aka trial and error) and I soon had this huge blue and white sail billowing out in front and pulling us along at 6 knots in less than 10 knots of wind. Not bad for this big heavy steel tank of mine!

And that’s been the sail plan ever since, over 26 hours now. I played around with it a bit more this morning after the sun was up to get it to pull a bit more and keep it from collapsing as the boat rolls with the swell of the following seas. The wind is a bit tricky as it crosses over to both sides of being dead downwind and goes up to as much as 10 and down to as much as 5 but I’ve got the tack and the clew lines adjusted now such that the spinnaker moves back and forth with these changes and rarely collapses and when it does it quickly recovers.

It is a thing of beauty I must tell you, to be out here in perfect weather, blue skies and a few scattered clouds, following seas, following wind and a spinnaker puffed out in front pulling LTY, Ruby and I silently through the seas at ideal speeds and motion. As if that wasn’t enough as the sun went down last night the full moon came up in these clear skies and bathed us all with its silvery beauty. And just to top it all off, the moon came up over my starboard aft corner and the small picture perfect volcanic cone of the Island of Tafahi was between us and made for a scene right out of the movies. I wallowed in that all night long as the moon made its arc over top of us and set early this morning off in the west as the sun was coming up to take its place. Can’t get much better than that right? Wrong!

As many of you know I’m big on fish eating but not so much on fishing itself. Actually I’m very much into fish catching, juts not fishing as a sport. I seem to be missing that whole sport gene completely and just don’t get the kick out of things like fishing that so many others do. But I do love learning and I do have some fishing gear and I’ve been pumping all who do catch fish to teach me more. So I finally remembered to put my fishing lure in the water about 9am this morning and about 10:30 am zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing went the line and we had ourselves a fish! It took about 15 minutes to reel it in, doing my best to remember what I’ve read and what all my fishing friends have told me but not being willing to stop sailing so we were still going along at a good clip. (poor fish!) It really was quite a site as this fish would leap out of the water every minute or so and the sun reflected brilliant greens and yellow as it arced through the air fighting as best it could to spit that darn hook out. Unfortunately for the fish and fortunately for me, the hook stayed in and as I reeled it up to the boat I could see that it was a magnificent Mahi-Mahi or Dorado or properly called (according to my book) a Dolphin fish. 80cm long though I’m not sure what the weight would be.  Guess I need to get a fish scale.  I soon had it gaffed and up on the deck as you can see.

I considered throwing him back as he was just so beautiful, but fresh Mahi was just too much to turn down and he was just the right size for me to eat so he paid the price. Out came the ice pick (to kill him quick) and a few minutes later I had two big fresh fillets on my deck. Hadn’t realized how much red blood these fish have and so I then set about cleaning off the deck and the back steps. But being the rookie I am as I was doing so a swell rolled us and I paid back some tax to mother nature and stupidity as one of the fillets and my deck brush went back to the sea! Given that I was now down one half a fish and had lots of room in my freezer I put the hook back out and about 2pm the line really went off. This was a MUCH bigger fish and after about 15 minutes he succeeded in getting rid of the hook, which was probably just as well as it would likely have been more than I could eat. I didn't lose my lure though and still had one half a great fish and it alone yielded some super fresh sushi for an impromptu lunch and 6 good sized fillets, one of which I’m about to go cook up in a few minutes as soon as I finish typing this up and sending it. Making this a completely local diner, with thanks to Cici and Niko, I’ve also got fresh papaya, tapioca root and breadfruit to go with my fresh fish diner tonight as well.

And to top it all off, and I even have some bread pudding for dessert! Back in Niuatoputapu I had some bread that was going stale and remember my Mom’s bread pudding being so delicious as a boy, so out came the Joy of Cooking and I soon had a pan full of bread pudding with some dried cranberries, apricots and figs I had around. Delicious and just as I remembered. Thanks Mom!

No internet connection good enough for pictures tonight (since added while in Wallis) but picture me out on the deck, under the full moon that is just now up in full glory after a great sunset, eating this completely local, completely delicious diner. Wish you were here!

Night for now.

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

Posted via email from Learnativity

Living & Learning in the moment

I was just treated to one of life’s wonderful moments when a mother duck and her 5 ducklings swam by the boat quacking merrily and treated me to a display of love, life & learning.  Everything and everyone can be a teacher if you let them.

* In case you are wondering, yes, I can count!  This isn’t my photo nor the ducks in question.  I struggle a bit with finding the balance between fully living in the moment and being able to share these with others such as here on the blog.  Even the word “capture” seems at odds sometimes with the notion of living in the moment and getting the most out of each one.  So I often choose not to interrupt such moments by trying to capture them with my camera and this photo from Flickr will have to do.

All 5 ducklings pursued their curiosity and swam up to one of the tires around the mooring pole I'm on.  While the others were content to explore the tire by swimming around it, two were brave and strong enough to jump/climb up onto the tire and one of these jumped into the water inside. 

But now how to get out?  The inside of the tire was rimmed with a vertical band of steel and too high for him to climb up on. (I assume he was male as girls would have been smarter!)  For a moment I thought I may have to go rescue him  but taking my cue from his Mom who was watching patiently from a distance, left on his own he figured it out and after a few tries jumped/flapped/kicked his way back onto the top of the tire and then back into the outer water to join his Mom and siblings. 

I thought what a great microcosm and vignette of life I was just treated to!  All five were curious and checking everything out.  Two decided to jump up onto the tire to explore further and one heeded the call to learn more and check out that inner water space.  Curiosity can get you into interesting situations but seems to me that those who are confident enough to risk getting into these situations will also usually figure out how to get out of them.

May we all continue to passionately pursue our curiosity and treat learning as a way of being.

Wonderdog #2: Rubi-Tsu

I’m now in Orlando Florida for some business and some time in my other parallel universe; the land of high speed everything and constant connectivity.  Doing my best to catch up with the mountain of backlogged news, info, Emails, Tweets, etc.  And most of all enjoying the chance to spend time with so many of my beloved landlubber friends.

I just had to share this update from Lisa and Garry, who are now back home in Western Australia after sadly having to leave their pride and joy, sv Biscayne Bay behind in Pago Pago as she did not survive the tsunami. 

** If Lisa & Garry and sv Biscayne Bay are new to you please see the previous 3 postings “Doing the Tsunami Tango” for context and info.

On the bright side, after spending so much time with Ruby onboard Biscayne Bay when they so kindly “puppysat” her and especially after the bonding of going through the tsunami together and being responsible for keeping Ruby safe through that incredible experience, they decided they had to have a Ruby too and this is her!  Lisa found and purchased her online while we were still in Pago Pago and they just picked her up when they landed back in Melbourne.  Here are some snippets from a few Emails Lisa sent leading up to this:

Hi Wayne,

I thought you might like to look at the new edition to our family, we have got one of Ruby's people joining us when we return to Aus Land...

We are thinking of calling her Tsu or Nami or Rubytoo. She is still very little and should end up about the size of Ruby, I have checked with the breeder who thinks she will be about 10kg and about 12inches high. She will have poodle wool too. We do not need another dog, but life is very short so I think we will enjoy playing with her.

A picture of our latest family member............Rubi,named in honour of Ruby the Wonderdog aboard SV Learnativity. On our way cross country to Perth with our new baby on board. She is beautiful, with that gorgeous nature your Ruby has.. very bright and so easy to talk to.. we have called her Rubi-Tsu... a little bit of a blend of all the possibilities we thought of.

Talk to you all soon,
Love Lisa and Garry

And so I add two more to the body count of those who have succumbed to the spell of Ruby the Wonderdog’s charm and yet another reason she is so aptly named.  I have no doubt that Lisa and Garry will find Rubi-Tsu to be just as wonderful and we have another Wonderdog in the making.

Wayne

Update from Isla del Coco

It’s quite the feeling, sitting here on what they tell me is the largest uninhabited island in the world, Isla del Coco (5° 31′ 8″ N, 87° 4′ 18″ W); and I’ve got an internet connection to send you this update!  Pretty amazing.  It is hard for me to describe the feeling I have here, the island is lush and very jagged as you will see if you check out links like this and this.  But I get a very visceral feeling of awe from just being here, surrounded by such stunning natural beauty, sitting hundreds of miles at sea away from any other land.  Can’t wait to check it out more, both above and below the water.

Synopsis from the Wikipedia entry on Isla del Coco:

Cocos Island (Spanish: Isla del Coco) is an island located off the shore of Costa Rica. It constitutes the 11th district^[1] (one of 13) of Puntarenas Canton of the province of Puntarenas. [1]. It is one of the National Parks of Costa Rica. It is located in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 550 km (340 mi) from the Pacific shore of Costa Rica,^[2] at 05°31′08″N 087°04′18″W / 5.51889°N 87.07167°W / 5.51889; -87.07167. With an area of approximately 23.85 km² (9.2 mi²), about 8×3 km (5×1.9 mi) and a perimeter of around 23.3 km^[3] this island is more or less rectangular in shape.
Surrounded by deep waters with counter-currents, Cocos Island is admired by scuba divers for its populations of Hammerhead sharks, rays, dolphins and other large marine species. The extremely wet climate and oceanic character give Cocos an ecological character that is not shared with either the Galapagos Archipelago or any of the other islands (e.g., Malpelo or Coiba) in this region of the world^[4]

The sail from Puntarenas Costa Rica, where Learnativity had been since just before Xmas, went very well, enough wind to sail almost all the 150nm and then died out and motored more of the last 140nm.  Only bit of excitement along the way was that I hooked a sailfish or some kind, but only long enough to see him jump out of the water 3 times before he succeeded in getting the hook out of his mouth.  Mostly my inexperience with fishing (about zero) and so in my excitement I just started reeling him in and I now recall that you are supposed to let them “run” for a bit to set the hook and tire them out a bit.  So yesterday, just after the skies opened up on the way in here to Isla del Coco the line when zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing again, thought I had another one, only to find that it was a bird!  A large dull chocolate colored gull of some sort I think, been seeing lots of them on the trip over, and felt just AWFUL that I had hooked the poor thing!  I’d seen them diving after my lure for a few hours beforehand.  I got him aboard, managed to grab his very large pointed beak and get the hook out of his wing and release him, but I fear he was maybe too tired and hurt to survive?  I hope he did though.

Weather was clear and beautiful until about 25nm away when the clouds rolled in and the downpour started.  Coco get’s almost 300 inches of rain per year so that was to be expected.  It stopped and the clouds cleared long enough for me to find Wafer Bay and get anchored.  I was able to raise the Park officials ashore on the VHF and they came out to the boat and checked us in and collected the fees.  $25/day for the boat and $25/day for each person so $50 total per day.  Reasonable to my way of thinking and feels good to contribute to the upkeep of this amazing place rather than a marina!! 

Today (Sunday March 8th) it is clearing and I’m looking forward to some hikes ashore and to some snorkeling with my new “electric snorkel” from Sea Breathe to check out some of the underwater life that apparently makes this one of THE SCUBA dive spots in the world.

I’m currently in Wafer bay, about the middle of the North side (see map above) and will move around to the NE corner to Chatham Bay this afternoon to check out things there.  It was a very rolly night due to the swell that has been rolling into the bay since I got here, but that doesn’t bother me much and helps to rock me to sleep.  Not that I needed much help with that and I had a great full night’s sleep after 3 days non stop sailing, though I was feeling fine when I arrived.  Right now I’m ashore at the Park ranger’s office to pay for my stay for another day and to get this net connection.  Wasn’t strong enough to pick up from LTY as they just have a small WiFi router here in the office.

This afternoon I’ll move the boat around to Chatham Bay where it might be a bit less rolly and also give me a new area to explore underwater and ashore.  Tomorrow I’ll head out for the crossing to Puerto Lucia marina near Salinas Ecuador.  This is about 600nm and will include crossing the equator and two sets of currents.  Should be more wind but the currents could slow us down so hard to say just how long it will take, but should be between 7-10 days best guess now. 

Need to go explore more now, glad I could post this update for you along the way and will do more when I get to Ecuador.

** NOTE:  I have just figured out how to post “tweet” updates from my satellite phone to Twitter and have these linked here to the blog.  These will now show up in the column on the left side of this blog.  So you can check back here and look at that column to see the more frequent updates that I’ll post there as I’m sailing.

Boys, Beaches and a Bat-dog in Bahia Ballenas

Last night and today was a reminder of what life is all about: sunrises, full moons, fireworks, great friends, good food, good fun, boys, beaches and wagging puppy dog tails.  here is a quick summary of the past 24 hours:

Motored yesterday (20 kts but right on the nose!) afternoon/evening from CRYC in Puntarenas down to Bahia Ballena/Tambor and put down the hook about 7pm along with the great family I’ve been sailing and having fun with on Samadhi V.  Seen in the photo here off our port side.

Phil & Kelly invited me for dinner (again! I am SO spoiled) aboard Samadhi and we had delicious meatloaf wrapped in bacon that Phil made (while underway I might add) with buttered new potatoes a la Kelly, and a salad (my minor contribution) and some good wine.

Sat on the deck to get our moon tan from the year’s fullest moon.  Did you see it too??  And as if that wasn’t enough, we caught the impressive fireworks that the swanky private resort on the far side of the bay put on for some reason (just for us we figure!)

This morning I awoke to spectacular sunrise and read for a while on deck to the unmistakable roar of howler monkeys ashore.

Dove the boat to check out the prop and bottom. Both need a good cleaning. 

• Thinking of investing in a “hookah” Sea Breathe system (electric compressor on boat with long hoses to a regulator)

Lunch of garlic sautéed camerones (shrimp), rice and salad ($7) with the Samadhi V crew at the “Bahia Ballena Yacht Club” which is really a restaurant/bar/nightclub on the bay but was a fun spot for lunch.

Next it was off for a fun dingy ride with Captain Phil and the Samadhi V crew, across the bay to explore the mangrove lined river estuary. 

As you can see Ruby had fun in her role as “bat-dog” extraordinaire as we cruised the mangrove channels and flushed out all sorts of birds.

We continued on in the dingy to explore a local beach complete with wrecked trimaran (now a catamaran, missing one hull) and for some fun in the sun and sand with the boys and Ruby who never stopped racing back and forth between the waves and the sand.

Back on LTY, swam with Ruby off the back of the boat to clean out all the sand she acquired and to cool off a bit.  (90f here today)

Spent the afternoon catching up with Emails and blogs on the very good WiFi connection I’m getting from the small village (pop 40) ashore.

Dinner was a juicy thick pork chop out of the freezer, some new baby potatoes with garlic and butter and a big salad..  Cupcakes a la Kelly and the boys! for dessert, finishing up this blog entry and then off to bed!

Not a bad weekend in paradise!  Hope yours was great too!  More to follow here tomorrow as I continue to try to catch up with all the past photos and adventures.  Stay tuned!

PS.  My dear friends, Kelly, Phillip, Alexander & Nicholaus aboard Samadhi V keep up a great blog and I mean KEEP UP, pretty much daily most of the time with LOTS of great photos and video of them, their two great boys Alexander and Nicholas and some of the strays they pick up along the way.  What I ever did to deserve all their kindness and inclusion is beyond me but we’re sure having some fun times together.  Today was just one of many and you may have read of the ful that we all had when Lia, Brian and Piglet joined us for our trip inland to the Arenal volcano, zip lines and eco farm lodge.  Below is a collection of photos as seen through the beautiful eyes of Kelly over the past few days.  Be sure to check it out, just click below, sit back and enjoy!  We sure did!

What a way to end/start the year!

I received the greatest gift of a full week (Dec.26, 2008 – Jan 2, 2009)with my wonderful daughter Lia, her fiancé Brian and of course their dog Piglet (so Ruby got a great gift too!)

* click on any of the pictures below or elsewhere in the blog to see a larger version

I rented a car for their visit and picked them on on Dec. 26th, Boxing Day for we Canadians, and they all arrived at the San Jose airport (near Alajuela on the map below)

right on time and were out in my arms in 20 minutes!  A 2 hour drive West on the Pan American highway and we were at the Costa Rica Yacht Club (CRYC) in Puntarenas and soon had them all aboard the good ship Learnativity, starting to adjust to the heat and humidity, a major change from the cold that was gripping most of the USA and Canada it seems.  Here it is about 85-95F during the day and humidity runs between 60-75%.  Not very winter like but I’m loving it!

We spent the next day just hanging out on the boat, introduced them to my dear friends from back in our time together at marina Barillas in El Salvador, Kelly and Phil aboard Samadhi V and we all went to explore and eat in the local town of Puntarenas.

Lia and Brian and Piglet have stayed with me aboard Learnativity before, but never been out sailing so they wanted to try that out and so bright and early the next morning we cast off at high tide so we had enough water underneath us  to get out of the river estuary.  We ran aground a few times but powered through the mud and soon we were motor sailing (not much wind) south into the beautiful Gulf of Nicoya.  We headed down to Bahia Ballena on the south west tip of the entrance.  This turned out to be a great spot that we had almost to ourselves and Lia and Brian quickly mastered the art of anchoring and we were set for a day of swimming, snorkeling and exploring ashore.

 

We visited the small little fishing dock and got there just in time to see them unloading all the dorado (tuna family).  The one cafe/bar/restaurant was closed so we went over to the hotel on the beach a few hundred meters away and found a great spot for a lunch outside.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beach was very shallow so we had to pull the dingy a long way up and without the aid of the yet uninstalled dingy wheels so we got a bit of a workout before lunch and after.   Then it was back to the boat and into the water for a refreshing swim. 

 

 

 

 

 

New day requires a new view so we pulled up the anchor and headed north to another great anchorage between Isla Tolinga and Isla Alcatraz and found a fabulous beach that we took the dingy over to and where Piglet and Ruby had a total blast chasing each other and the crashing surf.  Another day, another anchorage so we were off to Isla Muertos and had quite the adventure when we went ashore to find the Bahia Luminosa resort.  We actually found the resort fine but it had been sold  5 months ago and they were just waiting for the new owners to come in and apparently put in new condos. 

But we were hungry! and so there was a small village a few KM away and so we got instructions from Fin, the Luminosa manager and set off on what was supposed to be a 20 minute walk. 

Well, Wayne took the wrong fork in the road and we ended up having a very energetic and scenic walking tour of the local hillside.  BUT, check out the great views we got!

 

 

 

But once we found the right road, a pickup truck stopped and gave us a ride into town and we had a great lunch at this little cafe where “Ray” the owner, cook, VERY proudly showed us the 3 new cabinas he had just built.  The FIRST in town (population about 6) 

 

 

 

 

One more day, one more anchorage so we headed up to Isla San Lucas to check out a wreck that was in one of the bays and found a floating restaurant for lunch.  No menus, no problem, we just ordered the daily special of fresh cooked camerones (shrimp) but forgot to ask the price!  Let’s just say it was a very delicious and very expensive lunch! 

 

 

But enough fun in the sun, time to head back to CRYC as it was New Years Eve!  We got back together with Phil and Kelly who had just picked up their two super fun boys, Alexander and Nicholas, and were treated to not only their great company but a great gourmet treat from the talented chef’s Phil and Kelly.  We did our best to stay up to ring in the new year, but we cruisers are used to early to bed and early to rise so we barely made it.

 

Wanting to get the New Year off to a fun start we piled all 5  adults, two boys and two dogs into a van we had rented (thanks to Kelly!) and we were off for a very scenic drive around Lake Arenal.  (see map above)  We stopped for lunch and realized how different the weather was inland and at higher elevations and then it was on to the bit event of the day; zip line tour!

For those not familiar with this, it involves steel cables that are stretched over canyons and canopies of the rain forest and you slide down them while hanging from a small pulley connected to a climbing harness you are wearing. In our case we had 8 different cables, two of which were over 2000m long so you REALLY get moving, up to 45MPH at some points along the way.

 

 

Here is the "before” shot of us all about to get harnessed up, and then the intermediate shot of what we looked like in full gear.

 

But the most fun was yet to come.  It was raining and misty (not called a cloud/rain forest for nothing you know!) and so  as we were zipping along so quickly, the pulley was providing a constant refreshing spray of all the water on the cable……..

 

AND copious amounts of all the grease on the cables to keep them from rusting and wearing.  SO, here is what we looked like afterwards!

Check out those ear to ear grins shining through all the grease. 

What a BLAST and SO much fun to share this as a group. 

Here is me, thanks to Kelly’s shot, zipping in from the last run.   For more great photos and write up on all this AND a great video that will help you life the fun of zip line tours through the eyes of Alexander, be sure to check out the excellent blog that Kelly and Phil (and boys) keep up at http://www.samadhiv.org/  Worth checking in there from time to time in the future as well as looking back a bit to get a glimpse of what the cruising life is all about!

  Believe it or not, this was not even the best part of the day yet!  We no sooner got cleaned up, (took awhile) than we were treated to what is apparently a very rare showing of the Arenal volcano erupting and we had front row seats from up on the platform of the zip line tour.  Now THAT is how to start a New Year off in style!!

 

 

 

 

 

And we never let up.  Thanks to Kelly’s great sleuthing, phoning and Emailing, she found us a fantastic hotel/B&B/farm called Finca Luna Nueva to stay at and so we awoke to a gorgeous day overlooking the rainforest and greeted by the many birds in the area.  This is a fully working farm where they are growing indigenous plants from the rain forest and jungle and other parts of Central America and helping local farmers to introduce more of these plants into their diets and learn the secrets of bio diversity, sustainability and so much more.  The owner took us on a two hour tour of may parts of the farm and we learned and tasted a LOT along the way.

Along the hike Kelly’s sharp eyes spotted this 3 toed sloth way high up in the crotch of a tree!

But it was time to go and get Lia, Brian and Piglet off to the airport so we headed back towards San Jose in the van, got them there in plenty of time and then the rest of us continued on to the PriceSmart (Costco clone) near the airport to do a round of shopping for provisions for our respective boats and upcoming sailing trips.  We got back to CRYC late that night, exhausted but with smiles we just couldn’t stop.

Hope all of you reading this have 2009 off to a great start as well.

Thanks Lia, Brian and Piglet for helping to get 2009 off to SUCH a great start and for all the fun memories. 

Thanks Kelly, Phil, Alexander and Nicholas for making this such a fun group experience. 

2009 is already a year to remember!

Wayne Warning: Deafening Silence about to end!

Yes, just when you thought it was safe to come out and when you least expected it, heeeeeee’s back! 

Hi folks and Happy New Year to all of you!  After a VERY busy and diverse past few months Ruby the Wonderdog and I are back aboard the good ship Learnativity and off sailing again.  Right now we are in Puntarenas Costa Rica at the Costa Rica Yacht Club (CRYC) and will be continuing South from here most likely to Panama, Ecuador, Galapagos and Easter islands. 

I’m now going to be getting back to posting regularly here, but two things to tide you over in the interim.  First a quick synopsis of the past few months since we left you and then a link to another blog by some wonderful cruising friends from Barillas who we are still meeting up with and who are SO much better at keeping their blog up to date!

SYNOPSIS since we last left you:

(take a deep breath)

Ruby and I finished a fantastic experience of spending the entire month of September ashore in three different cities in Guatemala and San Salvador doing some intensive Spanish language learning, living with local families, soaking up new cultures and having new experiences.  Back to check on Learnativity for a few days at the beginning of October and then it was off to the USA and using Florida as a base point for a series of business trips for Wayne to Canada, Japan, and various parts of the US.  Best of all I was able to spend some extended time being the “night time nanny” for 2 day old Jack and being given the incredible gift of being treated as part of the extended “family” of my dear friends John and Michelle.  Blessed to be able to finish up my time in the USA by having US Thanksgiving with John, Michelle and family, a great visit with Eric in Miami Beach and then Ruby and I were back on the plane to Barillas on December 1st.  It was great to be back in San Salvador and even more so back to our all time favorite place and people (and dogs for Ruby) at Barillas marina near Usulután.  But before we even got there we had a welcoming party of fellow cruisers Susan, Arthur and super San Salvadorian friend Guillermo, meet us at the airport when we landed and take us away for a fun evening and then tour of the area around San Salvador and visits to Guillermo’s potential new home on the beach and to his organic coffee plantation and processing plant when it was in full swing.  On Dec.15th, after finally fixing some vexing and unexpected engine wet exhaust problems, and another quick trip to Miami, we untied the mooring lines after SIX MONTHS and sailed out of Barillas down to the delightful Golfito Fonseca which has the distinction of having 3 countries bordering it: San Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.  Best of all, we had the great gift of two VERY dear friends and fellow Canadians, Susan and Arthur come along on Learnativity and we had a great overnight anchor between Islas Meanguera and Meanguerita in Golfito Fonseca.  It was a bittersweet, but the best way I can imagine saying goodbye to San Salvador and such great friends after 6 months there. After a very exciting dingy ride at 5am to drop Susan and Arthur off at the docks on Isla Meanguera to catch the panga over to Libertad and then the bus back to Barillas, Ruby and I set sail for Nicaragua where we had a short but excellent stop at the marina at Puesto del Sol and then pushed on to Costa Rica and some other great stops along the way till we got here to CRYC on December 24th.  We also met up with the fabulous family of Kelly, Phillip, Alexander and Nicholas aboard Samadhi V their Tayana 55 who had left Barillas about a week before us and who we had so much fun with while we are all in Barillas.  And saving the best for last, on Dec. 26th we got THE best gift of all in the form of a week long visit from Lia, fiancé Brian and dog Piglet!  After a day to rest up and acclimate to the heat and humidity, we spent the next 4 days sailing around Golfito Nicoya and anchoring in a different secluded bay each day where we snorkeled, swam and explores the beaches both by dingy and afoot.  New Years eve found us all back at CRYC and ringing in the New Year with Phil, Kelly and the boys.  New Year’s day we all, 5 adults, two boys and two dogs, piled into a van we had rented and drove around beautiful lake Arenal, experienced the excitement and grime (details to follow) of eight zip line rides overtop of the cloud forest around Mt. Arenal only to be topped off by witnessing the eruption of the Arenal volcano and watching the brilliant red and orange lava flows streaming down the mountainside at night.  Then thanks to Kelly’s hard work we were off to a phenomenal overnight stay on a working eco ranch where we awoke the next morning to the sun rising over the jungle complete with birds and animals of all sorts. They served us a great breakfast and took us on a two hour tour of the farm/ranch/jungle and then we drove on to just outside of San Jose to drop Lia, Brian and Piglet off at the airport to catch their flight back to LAX and we all continued on to do some provisioning at the local PriceSmart (Costco clone) near the airport and then back to our boats where we are now, busy getting boat work done in prep for our respective next trips.

As I promised above, I’ll start catching up with details on all these exciting adventures, photos and even some videos, BUT also as promised you can check out the last bit of this story, our time at the volcano, zip line rides and eco farm, by following this link to the Samadhi V blog that Kelly and Phil do such an amazing job of keeping up to date and chock full of great photos, videos and more.  So just click here and you can read all about their version of the stories of our trip to Mount Arenal and then I’ll be back shortly with my versions of this and our other many adventures, photos and videos too.

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope you are as blessed as I am and have your 2009 off to as good a start!

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog standing by

Saludos de Guatemala

Regrets for not being able to get you more frequent updates.  Between guests, work on the boat and travel it’s been extremely busy and just hasn’t left time for getting to postings here but I’ll do my best to catch up in the next while.

(click on any of the pics here to see the large version)

From August 16th to 28th Ruby and I had a great time with my niece Julia (on the right in the picture), my sister Wendy’s daughter, from Comox BC who along with her high school friend Kierra came to visit us for two weeks aboard the good ship Learnativity at the Barillas marina.  They were a great pair and we had a very full range of experiences from dingy trips all around the local waterways, to trips in a fellow cruisers truck to some fun locations in surrounding El Salvador to taking fun walks to explore the immediate areas around the marina which include such things as salt water marshes with what I now know to be (thanks Sandy!) Roseata Spoonbills which we thought were flamingos, to a family of monkeys to cocoa farm.  I’ve got LOTS of pictures from all of this and just need to find the time to get them and some explanations posted here to share with all of you.

But, no sooner had I put Julia and Kierra in the van to the airport (see pic), I turned around and quickly put together all the reservations and logistics to head over to Guatemala for a months worth of exploration of that country while learning how to speak Spanish.  What I had discovered was that Guatemala has turned Spanish language instruction into a major component of their overall economy.  I don’t know the total number but I’d guess there must be over a thousand Spanish language schools in Guatemala.  They all work relatively similarly in that they offer 1:1 instruction as well as most offering the option to stay with a local host family for all your room and board.  So that’s what I’m doing! 

I figured that being that close to this great resource, having some time yet before hurricane season lets up and I can start traveling South again down the Central American coast to Ecuador and Galapagos, and given that Spanish is the 3rd most popular language in the world, this was a no brainer and a smart thing to do.  There is also a “professional” side to all this as I’ll be studying the whole area of new language acquisition which is going to be an increasingly necessary skill for more and more of us in this truly global economy.  And to top it all off it is an extraordinarily affordable; one week of 1:1 instruction for about 20-25 hours is about $150 and my room and board for 7 days is about $50-75.  How could I say No to that??  So I quickly cleaned up the boat, got her ready to sit safely for a month, packed bags for Ruby and I and left first thing the next day (Sat Aug.30th) 

 Continuing to use synchronicity and serendipity as my strategy for living life to the fullest, I had met a great guy from San Salvador at the marina one weekend and he and I hit it off right away.  Guillermo is a delightful and very interesting fellow and and his hospitality and generosity knows no bounds.  As synchronicity would have it, Guillermo came out to the marina just before Julia and Kierra left and when he heard of my plans he kindly asked me to spend Saturday in San Salvador with him and stay the night at his apartment. 

To add to the fun, another great cruising couple, Jill and Kurt from s/v Fancy, their 50’ Beneteau, said they needed to go into San Salvador to pick up some groceries and boat supplies.  Jill is seen here just after helping to clip Ruby, and Kurt (on the)left is apparently comparing neck muscles with our other great friend Arthur. 

We rented the marina van and driver to take us into SS for the day on Saturday and we visited the farmer’s market which Guillermo now hosts at his coffee processing plant and office.  Then in the afternoon we went with Guillermo in his 4x4 (seen on the left here) up into the hills surrounding San Salvador to get a full guided tour of the his organic coffee plantation and harvesting facilities.  As you can see from these pictures it is a gorgeous area in these lush hills and to have the owner and operator for our guide was pretty awesome!

 After a VERY full day, Jill and Kurt headed back to the marina and Ruby and I stayed on for the night with Guillermo.  Next morning  and were able to walk over to the bus stop as it was just a block from his apartment.  Some things are just meant to be.  And some are not!  We were all settled into our very sumptuous seat (essentially the same as business class on a plane) on the top deck, front row window seat of the double decker bus going to Guatemala City when they decided that Ruby wasn’t going to be allowed on the bus after all.  No amount of discussion was going to work so we got off and moved on to put together plan B, again with the help of Guillermo. 

He drove us to his office and had one of his workers drive us to the El Salvador/Guatemala border, about one hour away.  There we were able to get on what they locally refer to as a “chicken bus” that would take us as far as the capital Guatemala City.  Chicken busses are what all the locals take to get everywhere and anywhere.  Most of these are old American school busses and it was a great experience for Ruby and I.  We started out with just us and one other family of 3 people on the bus and then started picking up people all along the 3 hour route.  To catch one of these you just stand on the road and put your arm out, the bus stops, sometimes just slows down, you throw on your bags on and hop on.  Within about an hour we were sitting EIGHT across each isle with luggage and bags and sacs full of anything and everything spread all over.  Men, women, children of all ages but no other animals except Ruby on this trip.  I was sure that the next person we picked up would have to sit on the roof but this never seemed to happen and it was a blast being part of all this plus seeing the scenery change as it went by. 

We arrived in Guatemala city about 4pm.  We were not there long and so it is just a quick impression but it was a very large, busy and not particularly appealing city on first glance.  From the bus along the way I was able to contact the Spanish school in Antigua by text messages and they arranged to have one of their vans pick us up and drive us to Antigua and drop us at our local host family home.  I’ll leave you with this one street shot of Antigua for now and be back in a bit with more about Antigua, learning Spanish and my host family.

Hasta la próxima vez mis amigos!  <until next time my friends>

w
a
yne
=====

Blissful in Barillas

We are now in Bahía Jiquilisco (hee-kee-LEE-skoh) which is the larger of El Salvador's 2 navigable estuaries, and are tied up to a mooring ball at Barillas Marina Club  Next door is a shipyard for the old shrimper port and miles of mangrove channels - part of a wildlife preserve.  Jiquilisco Bay lies 26 miles SE of Estero de Jaltepeque, 138 miles SE of Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, 32 miles west of Punta Ampala in the Gulf of Fonseca and about 70 miles NW of Marina Puesta del Sol in Nicaragua.  The marina's heliport is busy during the regular season apparently because Salvadoran club members would rather zoom over the mountains than risk the narrow, twisty highways. Barillas Marina Club's heliport handles VIPs, and security is good. A level grass airstrip (5,576' long, 164' wide) handles fixed wing aircraft. You can bring your own, or the club has 2 for charter. Local members keep their boats in covered sheds near the launch ramp, and 2-story bungalows are for rent.  Bahia Jiquilisco is one of the best cruising grounds on the West Coast of El Salvador. A mangrove sanctuary of ecology and wildlife twist and turn in a kaleidoscope of directions. The occasional remote-fishing village charms the shores and palm fringe beaches. There is plenty to explore.  Best of all, for us at least, Bahia Jiquilisco is away from population areas and is far from the hurricane zone. Though a hurricane has never hit the West Coast of El Salvador, should such a phenomena ever occur, the 12 miles of winding estuary that separate the marina from the sea makes Barillas the perfect hurricane hide-out.  So here we are!

Marina Barillas (pronounced "bah-REEahz")

is a private club, but visiting boaters such as ourselves automatically become members when we rent moorings which are very inexpensive at $11 per day.  Unlike most marinas, Barillas does not have has docks or piers where you tie up, except for the fuel pier, and instead has about 80 mooring balls which are chained to the bottom to an anchor consisting of tractor engine blocks embedded in 2.5-ton concrete blocks.  It is great because you have complete peace of mind as opposed to an anchor about any chance of drifting or coming loose and you are nicely on your own. 

The pilot boat that guided us all the way in through the surf and up the river (you can see him ahead of us in the photo here) also helped us tie up to our mooring ball and then brought the custom, immigration and port officials out to us.  Check in could not have been any easier; after a short exchange of documents aboard Learnativity they took me ashore to complete the paperwork with Immigration, get our passport stamped and check in with the Marina officials.  All this for a grand total of $10 by the way and so a VERY nice change from what we became accustomed to in Mexico which took a day or more to complete and typically a hundred or more dollars.  Like I said, I'm liking this place more and more!

Behind the fountain gardens and pools, you'll see the marina office on the right side of the street. General manager Heriberto Pineda is a former cruiser, and he has a very significant staff, I'd say at least 20+ at any one time from what I've seen so far and they are all super pleasant and helpful.  Heriberto also spent 13 years living in Victoria and Vancouver so we had lots to talk about and he just loved the area and his time there.  Obviously his English is outstanding which is a great asset as my Spanish is still in the pitiful category!

Marina Barillas has more amenities within the huge gated compound than are found in most US marinas.  Security guards and a shore boat constantly patrol the moorings; security is excellent in a comforting sort of way.  You just know that people are always around any time of the day or night looking out for your well being and there to be of any assistance you might need.  At night the security guards take a slow and quiet run through all the boats that are moored and checking all along the mangrove banks to make sure all is well.  As a result of both this great boat baby sitting service and the excellent protection from the sea and weather, a lot of people leave their boats here for months at a time while they either go on extended tours inland or return home, which for most is either the USA or Canada.  It is the "off season" here now and also rainy season so we are among only 12 other boats and of these less than half have their owners aboard which is great for us too in that we only have about 8 other people to share all these great facilities and staff.   

The fuel dock dispenses clean US refined Texaco fuel.  I have not filled up yet but looks like prices here may be considerably higher than the low ones we were spoiled with in Mexico.  I'll find out soon enough but I'm not burning much now, just a gallon or two a day for the generator to keep our batteries charged up and supply all our electrical needs.  An unlimited amount of pure fresh drinking water is supplied from a deep artesian well apparently so I can give the water maker a bit of a rest and fill up the tanks (we hold about 420 gallons of fresh water) quite easily.

It is incredibly peaceful here, partly because it is so remote, the marina is about all there is and the fishing fleet is not active right now for some reason (contract dispute I've heard) and partly because we are on a river so there are no waves or hardly any water movement at all.  Being on a mooring ball means we don't have any squeaky docks or dock lines either and about the only noise we get, other than the sounds of all the birds and crickets, is the sound of the mooring ball bumping into the hull as we lazily turn 180 degrees each time the tidal swing changes the direction of the flow of this river estuary.  Learnativity is therefore floating peacefully in this river sanctuary, doing lazy about turns four times a day as the river rises and falls and changes directions with ocean tides that are otherwise another world away.  If you are not up on deck or watching out the window to see it you never even know this lazy swinging around is happening and you can see it is pretty ideal conditions for boating or anything else for that matter, at least in my opinion.

Basically, everything this region has to offer is supplied through the marina and its transportation services. The club's beautifully manicured grounds are on a former coconut plantation and family farm enclosed in a high concrete wall, so all visitors must pass through a security gate with armed guards.  Barillas Marina Club is remote, 15 miles from the nearest big town and an hour's drive from the international airport at San Salvador, the capital. But the marina's air-conditioned van shuttles up to 8 guests to the colorful market town of Usulutan for every Tuesday and Friday for provisioning and I went in for the first time yesterday to stock up on perishables such as lettuce, tomatoes, bread and the like.  It was a great adventure and I'll tell you more about it in a future posting.

The clubhouse overlooking the moorings has showers, laundry, patio restaurant, satellite TV and free videos after dark. Nearby are a small air conditioned gym and a convenience store with refrigerated groceries (ice cream).  There is wireless throughout the grounds, though it doesn't quite reach out to Learnativity as we seem to be a bit too far away.  You can see the  "palapas" which are thatch covered tables surrounding the swimming pools and each one has it's own power outlet for laptops and other gadgets, a light for night time and are raised up on concrete with comfy chairs and lounges all around.  If you look closely in the photo (click to enlarge) you can see my backpack and laptop all setup in my new "office" where I get to work several hours every day now.  There are about 50 of these palapas all together, spread out all around the pools and bar/BBQ area complete with hammocks strung out between some of the palm trees and all spread out such that you can never see more than about 10 other tables as it is a very large, lush and beautifully maintained area.  Ruby loves out time here as she gets to race around the grassy grounds, her favorite exercise, as well as meeting and greeting everyone who comes by, be it staff or other guests. 

The weather is very tropical with temperatures running about 90-100ºF/32-38ºC and humidity about 60%.  It is rainy season so there are clouds overhead most of the time and they range from scattered billowy white across blue skies to stormy grey and black and a good tropical shower once or twice a day or night seems typical.  We get very good lightning shows many evenings but mostly at a good distance as we don't hear much thunder.  As you can see there is a very inviting set of swimming pools with the upper one being a heated whirlpool.  Ruby and I are there each day for a few hours, me getting some work done with a good (and free!) Internet connection, comfy chairs and surroundings, pool at my side to cool off and Ruby racing about, getting attention from staff and other cruisers who come by and digging away in the dirt.  (taking after her namesake Rugby our first family dog who was an identical colored cockapoo and loved to dig as well).  Mostly though we seem to have this and the pools pretty much to ourselves or sharing it with a few other cruisers and getting to chat with them.   

What's not to like??  Now you can see why this my kind of place and I'm thinking we may stay here for the rest of the month at least to rest up, get some more boat chores done, some regular Autodesk work looked after, have a mailing address to send in some of the accumulating mail and other supplies from back in the USA and perhaps hosting a few of you who have asked about coming for a visit.  It really is a fascinating area historically as well as just a wonderful spot to relax, listen to the birds, swim, read enjoy living in these moments. 

Blissed out in Barillas,

Ruby & Wayne

Goodbye Guatemala; we hardly knew ya!

Hi folks, been a busy week to say the least and so not able to get you any updates since we left Puerto Angel and Mexico last Monday, March 26th headed South for San Jose Guatemala.  As you may recall from the previous postings and Emails this is a potentially tricky leg of the journey south as we have to sail across the Sea of Tehuantepec which is notorious for sudden severe storms at any time of the year and particularly now at the start of the hurricane season.  There were some storms brewing down south near Panama that were looking like they might produce the first tropical storms of the season and were headed North.  But for Tehuantepec area our weather forecasts said it looked good for the next 3 days and there were some much better protected areas in Guatemala and more so in El Salvador so we decided to take advantage of this clear spell and go for it.

As per the previous posting I sent out just before we left Puerto Angel we were supposed to go to the next port of Huatulco about 5 hours sail to the South, in order to properly check out of the country as Puerto Angel did not have a Customs or Immigration office, however we still had our official check out of the country papers from La Paz when we had originally left there last month for the Marquesas, or so we thought before we had the rudder seizure problems.  So we pulled up anchor at 12 noon on Monday, waved goodbye to the lovely anchorage at Puerto Angel and set sail to cross Tehuantepec on a heading for San Juan Guatemala. 

The rest of the day (Monday) went very well with not much wind at all so we motor sailed at about 6.5-7 kts/hr thanks to some following seas that have been helping us for months as we continuously headed South.  I don't envy the folks who are going in the opposite direction headed back for the US or Canada.  Not the time of year to be doing that if you can possibly help it as the winds and the seas are all against you. 

We were again joined by lots of dolphins and here you can see Ms. Ruby at the bow checking them out as they crisscrossed our bow.  She was a bit concerned because these dolphins were quite the show offs and were jumping way out of the water just to show us how acrobatic the could be.

The sail went well for us even when there wasn't much wind we had the seas (waves and current) going our way which makes both the ride and the speed MUCH better.  That evening however we started to pick up a lot of storm and squall action on the Radar and so we spent the night dodging these but were able to maintain our course to San Jose pretty well and we made good progress for the rest of Monday and Tuesday.

Radar Rules!

For those who don't know it, I didn't either till sailing, storms show up quite well on Radar, I believe it is the concentration of water in the air that they pick up.  I have a very good 4kw Raymarine Radar system I installed on Learnativity last year and it has been in use pretty much every day we've been underway.  Amongst its features, you can set up a "zone alarm" either a cone shape or a full circle of whatever size you like and whenever anything enters that zone the alarm goes off.  While I scan the horizon about every 15 minutes for a visual check you can appreciate how valuable this feature is to have to help alert you to what's around, especially at night when some boats are not lit.  Now we were using one of its other features which is this ability to see where the storms are around you and using this I was able to watch the shape and direction of the storms ahead and change course if necessary to go around rather than through them.  Its not so much the rain but the wind gusts and lightening that you worry about and try to avoid.  So with lightning lighting up the horizon all around us we were able to sail through the night without much trouble, keeping the wind below 20kts and no lighting directly around us.  One down side during storms is that they pretty much dominate your Radar screen and so you can't see any of the blips that are ships!  So a keen eye out for ship lights is more called for.  Fortunately traffic has been amazingly light the whole trip and this evening we only passed 3 other boats, all commercial freighters and none closer than about 4nm from us. But with the great natural light show all around and being able to successfully dodge and dart around the storms themselves it was quite an enjoyable sail actually, just not much time for sleep. 

Wednesday morning I was able to get updated weather forecasts (thanks John!) via sat phone text messages and Email downloads.  The storm we'd been watching was in fact starting to turn into the first tropical storm of the season but it would not reach our area, if at all, until about Thursday.  So as the weather, the boat and I were holding up well we decided to sail right past Guatemala and take another day to continue on to El Salvador.  While disappointing to miss out seeing Guatemala the priority was getting south and to a well protected "hurricane hole" if needed to wait out any storms that made it this far north.  So El Salvador it is, full speed ahead Captain!

Spinnaker Wraps are NOT a new dessert topping!

With the wind light and directly behind us I put the spinnaker up to help give us a bit more speed and get to port ASAP.  Spinnakers as you may recall from previous posts are those large billowy sails you often see in dramatic sailing photos and you can see Learnativity's big blue and white spinnaker here.  They work great but are a real handful, especially when you are single handed as they can be a bit temperamental when the wind shifts or dies as they collapse and start to flail all around the rigging on the boat.  And sure enough this happened and so I spent an exciting few hours late Wednesday afternoon dealing with a dreaded spinnaker wrap.  This is NOT a new dessert topping I assure you, but rather a nasty mess where all that lovely blue and white nylon wraps and twists itself all around itself and your rigging.  After a few hours I was able to get it off the rigging and pull the sock down over the spinnaker sail which was twisted into quite a mess.  But I could at least now wrestle the sail down onto the deck and stowed into the bag as we lost our light with the sun going down.

Water Flow; NOT!

It is said that all the nasty problems when you are out sailing occur at about 2am and sure enough at 2:40am on Wednesday the engine alarm (a giant red school fire alarm bell) went off and the indicator lights for lack of water flow was on.  Not good!  Fortunately I had the main sail up and we had enough wind to maintain a forward speed of about 2 kts which was enough to let the auto pilot keep us going in about the right direction while I went below to figure out the problem.  Without going into too many details, you might want to know that marine engines use what is called a "wet exhaust" system where you pump sea water into the exhaust system to cool it down as it exits the turbo charger and then goes out through large rubber exhaust hoses to the back of the boat.  The temperature coming out of the turbo charger is about 600-800º F this would pose a problem trying to route such high temperature pipes through the boat, which in my case is over 25 feet, so by injecting cold sea water into the exhaust pipes you drop the temperature to about 100-120º F and can use large 4" diameter rubber exhaust hoses to transport the exhaust gasses and water that are not hot at all on the outside.  (got it?  there will be an engine quiz at the end of this posting!)

The alarm that went off was from a flow meter that is inline with the hose from the water pump that is pulling sea water in from the ocean and through to the exhaust, indicating that there was no flow of water going through, hence no cooling of the exhaust, hence big problem!  Removing some hoses I found  a bit of sea grass and what I thought at the time was an old bit of rubber from the vanes of the water pump impeller blocking the water from flowing through the inline oil cooler and so I cleared that out, put it all back together and fired up the engine again.  No luck!  The alarm was still going off.  Back down in the engine room (temperature about 120ºF BTW) I was able to determine that there was indeed no water getting through to the exhaust, but not figure out why.  The pump was pumping, hoses seemed clear but it wasn't making it all the way through to the exhaust water muffler.  Blocking off the hose with my finger it suddenly seemed to prime itself and pump water well so I hooked it all back up, started the engine and Voila!  no more alarm!  So at 07:10 we were back underway though we had lost a lot of time and distance towards our destination. 

Look out El Salvador here we come!

Conferring with my charts and shore based "pose" via sat phone I redid the calculations for the port I was heading for in El Salvador, Marina Barillas (13.15.74N 88.29.19W) and realized that we would not be able to get there till Friday and that might be cutting it a bit close with the tropical storm potentially headed north.  Instead I changed course and headed for the closer port and marina at Bahia Jaltepeque (hahl-tay-PAY-kay) also known as Bahia del Sol (13.15.9N 088.53.0W)  We would be able to get there by Thursday just after noon and give us lots of time to get in through the breakers (more on that later) and docked well before dark, which was now happening by about 7pm down here. 

Look out El Salvador and Bahia Jaltepeque, ready or not the good ship Learnativity is on headed your way!