SAILtheCHANNELdotCOM

Marc, Monica, and Joel aboard Songline, seek refuge along the coast of El Salvador. The video clip was shot with our little Sony Hi8 camcorder. The clip is also shown on YouTube.

Download Juiquilisco

Most cruising guides tell you that stopping in El Salvador is not a very good idea. They say that the place has no safe harbors and has been at war for a long, long time. But we’d been at sea for almost five days, including the night we spent hove-to off the entrance to Bahia del Sol. True, five days isn’t really all that long, but once you’ve broken stride your expectations change. Breaking entrance waves had denied us access to the promised land of Bahia del Sol—safe harbor, restaurants and swimming pools. Now word had come over the radio of yet another Salvadoran haven, called Marina Barillas. Our correspondent told us that the marina had opened for business just two months earlier and that the entrance, though difficult, should be passable. We carefully noted his waypoint and along with s/v Mimosa, set sail for our new destination, just 30 miles down coast—an estuary called Jiquilisco.

As we neared the designated waypoint we could see very large breakers blocking a direct approach, so we shaped our course seaward and tried a line from the southeast. There we followed a lead between waves breaking to port and starboard and met some fisherman in a dugout. In our best Span-glish we asked if we were going the right way to enter Bahia Jiquilisco. They shook their heads vociferously and pointed us back to sea. Stymied, we tuned-up the VHF radio and started hailing on 16,

“Marina Barillas, Marina Barillas, Marina Barillas, this is the sailing vessel Songline, anyone come-in.”

After several calls a voice blared out of the static. “Switch channel 68”.

“Switching 68”.

“Songline, is that you?”

“Who’s this?”

“This is Paul aboard Sea Fury”.

“Paul, where are you?”

“We’re in Marina Barillas and it’s great! Talk about hospitality! Are you coming in?”

“We can’t find the entrance and the waves are huge out here. I don’t know if we can do it!”

“Look, you guys stand-by outside the line of breakers and I’ll get a guide panga to come out and lead you in.”

“Roger, Roger, standing by.”

About 30 minutes later a panga motored up to us with Paul standing in at the prow. After a few minutes of discussion during which I kept repeating, “are you sure this guide knows how to get in?” we set up to follow his lead. Mimosa went first and we gladly brought up the rear.

Huge breakers were pummeling the entrance bar on both sides of us. If you mess around in boats, you know that seeing the face of breaking waves is intuitively wrong. We were making way INSIDE the break line!

After about five minutes, our guide swung his bow around and waved us back the way we’d come.

I radioed Paul . “What’s going on?”

“Oh, he says everything’s ‘tranquillo’, he’ll get it right next time.”

“Next time?”

We swung around and retraced our course.

Once back to square one our guide struck out on a different line. I sucked in my breath, imagining what might happen if we were caught in a breaker and washed up on the bar. “Am I insane?”

This time our guide seemed more assured and we followed in Mimosa’s wake. A large swell and turbulent water pressed on our beam. To seaward, huge waves built, broke, and then washed toward us, their energy dissipated in the deeper water of the channel. I held my breath and throttled up the diesel for maximum control.

After what seemed an eternity, the line of breakers receded astern and we came to rest inside an enormous estuary—Bahia Jiquilisco. As we caught our breath, Chuck and his daughter Kathryn, from s/v Allie Kat, motored up to us their dinghy. Chuck explained that we’d need to motor about 12 miles up the estuary to reach Marina Barillas.

We arrived at the marina to find that it consisted of about a dozen mooring balls in the middle of the river. Ashore, there was a little open café and a few palapa covered picnic tables. We were told that we were cruising boat number 15 to visit this remote spot in southern El Salvador. It wasn’t much, but it would be a fine home for the next three weeks.

The spirit and energy behind the Marina Barillas enterprise is Senor Juan Wright. We learned that he is one of the most influential people in El Salvador. He told us that he was devoting himself to rebuilding El Salvador’s image in the wake of more than a decade of devastating warfare. The Jiquilisco region itself, he explained, has been the last region of the country to lay down arms.

During the coming weeks, Juan Wright proved to be a generous host. Among the many courtesies he extended to us were a visit to his cashew plantation and a flight to the capital city of San Salvador in one of his private planes.

Check back here for a video clip and story about our time in El Salvador.

* I’m not sure if it was Paul or Chuck aboard Sea Fury, but I think he’ll forgive me if I’ve gotten it wrong.

Share This