www.taca.com

Hey you...yes you! get on the TACA website and buy a ticket to San Salvador right now because if you ever were gonna call in sick for the weekend and visit us THIS IS THE PLACE!!! seriously -there is a direct redeye every night at midnight out of SFO. go get yourself on a plane! I can´t begin to describe the wondrous paradise that is El Salvador.....I mean, Mexico was great and everything but we pulled into Bahia del Sol and I looked around and said "Oh my god, I´m home!" really, I cried. I can´t put words around how amazing this place is....

I guess before I take on the job as Minister of Tourism for E.S., we should let you all know that the Tehuantepec passage was glorious, safe, un-scary, idyllic, wonderful. Six days of turtle-spotting, whale-watching, great sailing, beach-spying, all in the shadow of the Sierra Madre and, towards the end, the verdant chain of El Salvador's enormous (and, in many cases, active) volcanoes. There were some challenges and roller-coaster moments, but I´m gonna have to leave it at that for now - we spent a couple hours getting to this internet cafe on the chicken bus and we're gonna have to catch one back soon to make it during daylight! (Rick, if you want us to keep up the pace of our blogging now that we're in Central, you can always splurge and buy us Sail Mail. And a high-power SSB transmitter and backstay antenna. Otherwise, this is as good as it gets old man!).

I have so much to tell and am having such a difficult time restraining myself...so I'll focus on logistics for the moms & such. We'll probably be here for another 5 or 6 days and then we're off again, very likely a straight shot to Costa Rica but maybe a brief stop in the Gulf of Fonseca if there are Papagallos (Strong and capricious local wind patterns not unlike Santa Anas in CA, that must be given their due respect). Hebe left Zihuat a couple days ago (WOOOOOHOO! go Hebe!) and are trying to cover a lot of ground and, with a little luck, will catch up with us soon. Billy is here - well, his boat is here but he's on an inland jaunt to Guatemala with a bunch of other cruisers.

I guess that's it for the nitty gritty. We are currently anchored in a small tidal estuary that feels like a river. It's only a slim sandbar that separates it from the big blue, so we get the best of beach livin´and the Big Muddy vibe at the same time. My idea of heaven, to be sure. It seems to go by many different names locally but if you have a map handy look for the Rio Lempa, and we're in the bay just west of there, called the Estero de Jaltepeque. Not the you´re just sitting around without anything better to do but look at a map of Central America, but just in case you were, that's the scoop.

Alright I´m off to the duller, more mundane nooks and crannies of cyberspace to do fun stuff like check on our taxes. more soon. much love to all of you from both of us. CORA