Crossing the bar at Bahia del Sol, El Salvador

Crossing the bar at Estero Jaltepeque (Bahia del Sol).

This is an extension of our Passage Notes from Puerto Chiapas  (couldn’t fit it all in one post!)

We’ve grown accustomed to dredged channels, long jetties,
rivers, coast lines and estuaries tamed by machine and rock. In the Pacific Northwest  our home states have been struggling to secure
the necessary funding to keep small channels dredged. It’s expensive and time consuming and
the federal government can’t foot the bill. It’s a constant
challenge to maintain a straight, deep channel on a metamorphosing coastline. Dredged
and straightened channels are more predictable and can be especially
important for the safe transit of commercial and recreational traffic as well as economic development.

Satellite view of the entrance and estuary. (Source: http://www.geoelsal.lybelula.net/zona.html)

Bahia del Sol, also known as Estero Jaltepeque is the
terminus for many small tributaries in the Rio Lempa basin (Rio Lempa is the
longest river in El Salvador).
The Bahia del Sol entrance is marked by breaking waves rather than fortress
walls and colored buoys. Her lines are not tidy. The dance between river and
tides and currents determines where the channel lies on any given day, month,
year. It swings and shifts and curves and remains elusive to foreigners such as
ourselves. Crossing the bar into Estero Jaltepeque requires either some serious
(p)luck or local knowledge – we opted for local knowledge, though (p)luck still
factors in to a degree.

As with any bar entrance it’s best to wait for slack tide at
the end of a flood. This is generally when the channel is the deepest and the
conditions are calmest. For the entrance to Bahia del Sol it’s also unwise to
attempt an entrance at night or when the swell is exceptionally big. On the Friday
of our previous passage, the only high tide during daylight was at 7:00am and
given our slow pace, we missed the window by several hours, meaning that we
needed to wait for high tide the following morning at 8:00am. This may actually
have worked in our favor since, according to local sources, the swells on
Friday were large.

On the last day of our passage we only had about 35 miles to
cover, so we decided to take it easy and recover from the unrelenting onslaught
of thunderstorms. We entertained anchoring at La Libertad, a popular surfing
spot, but the SW swell was large and intimidating, so instead we sailed three
miles out and drifted. I cleaned up the interior of the boat while Jeff worked
on a few projects. We had a nice lunch, relaxed and went swimming. Aside from
the licuado (basically a smoothie) that fell off the table and splattered
everywhere in the rolly swell (amazed I have to keep relearning that lesson), Friday
afternoon was one of the few highlights of the passage.

That night when there was finally enough wind to sail by we
made our way towards the entrance to Bahia del Sol and, after enduring another
storm, we drifted 5-7 miles offshore, keeping a semi-regular lookout to make
sure nothing we weren’t obscuring anyone’s path. We were awake and motoring by
5:30am to be at the entrance by 7:30, thirty minutes to high tide. Prior to
leaving Marina Chiapas we had been in touch with Bill and Jean on S/V Mitä
Kuluu, who live in Bahia del Sol most of the year and organize the El Salvador Cruiser’s Rally each spring. Bill arranged for a pilot boat to escort us across
the bar.

Bill hailed us on the radio at about 7:00am just to make
sure we would be at the entrance on time. We confirmed the time and place. Had
it not been for a parade of large fishing boats charging over the surf, we
wouldn’t have known where the entrance actually was. The swell was tame, but
the breaking waves at the bar entrance still looked menacing. We readied the
deck, secured any loose items, dogged our hatches and got the video recorder
ready.

At 8:00am on the dot Bill hailed us from the panga that
would be leading us in. Jeff was on the tiller, I was on the radio. My hands
were shaking and my knees felt a bit weak looking at the waves roll and break
in succession. The captain of the pilot boat, Rogelio, had us wait for the
perfect set of waves then instructed us on when to kick Serenity into high gear
(all of 4.5 knots).

After the first several waves my heart beat slowed and the
uneasiness in my stomach dissipated. Jeff was a boss on the tiller and we made
it in without any issues whatsoever. A
simple, painless crossing. Only swell, no breaking waves. Jeff likened it to
our entrance at Gray’s Harbor on a particularly rolly day. We were both so
relieved to be done with the passage and the bar crossing. Exiting the bar may
be another story…but we don’t have to worry about that for awhile.

The top priority on Jeff’s list once we had cleared customs
was to have someone else cook breakfast for us and catch up on the latest news.
And that’s exactly what we did.

For those entertaining crossing the bar at Bahia del Sol here
are my two cents. Our experience was good and the people here are well equipped
to make sure you have a safe and uneventful crossing.** Plus, you get some pretty
sweet pictures of your boat surfing. The pictures alone make it worth it – but you
know how I feel about going places just for the photo opp. Oh, and Bahia del
Sol is really really lovely. A wonderful stopover.

Thank you to Bill of the Annual El Salvador Rally for the pics! Be sure to check out their website. My apologies for the long and shaky video – taking quality video wasn’t my highest priority at the time.

**The cost for the pilot was $25 (the service used to be provided gratis by the hotel, but policy must have changed).  I’m not sure if this also covers the cost of exiting the estuary, or if that will be another fee. I’ll update this once I’ve figured it out.