welcome to our blog!

This blog tells the story of our 22-month sailing journey from Oakland, California, to Bristol, Rhode Island, aboard our beloved Bristol 32 sailboat, Ute. Please feel free to browse through the archives (partway down the sidebar to your left) to see pics and read stories of our adventures in North America and Central America . (Sorry the first 3 months of the trip are missing - they vanished somewhere in an internet cafe in Mexico - but all you're missing is CA, Baja and Western Mex).

If you're trying to track us down now that we're landlubbers, try us at uteatlarge at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

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

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where fly into? San Salvador?
PS. Pretty cheap. LAX to SAL $400 with a weeks notice.

Anonymous said...

Indeed -- our map of Mexico and CA has been open on the dining room table for 3 months as we watch and mark your progress!
J & V love you!

Rick Carey said...

Enjoy the chicken buses, kids.

Rick and Ellen

Rick Carey said...

Ellen located the region called Estero de Jaltepeque and then we Google Earthed the location to about 13 degrees 17 minutes North, 88 degrees 53 minutes West. Is that about right?

Glad you didn't try the mouth of the Lempa. That looks like a recipe for grounding (one way, but not recommended, for getting the marine hitch hikers off Ute's hull.)

Aren't "Papagallos" shoes? No wonder you want to avoid them.

Rick & Ellen

Rick Carey said...

Hello, UTEfollowers.
For those who have Google Earth (and those who don't really should download the software and try it, it's benign software) I've created an overlay that identifies UTE's ports of call since leaving Emeryville.
Click on (or copy and insert in your browser's address window):
http://www.rickcarey.com/UTE/Adventures%20of%20UTE.kmz
It will open a Google Earth view of the West Coast of North America with UTE's ports of call placemarked.
I'll keep it updated as Allen and Cora proceed and may try to include links to the UTE blog eventually so location and observations go together.

Rick

Anonymous said...

Well, RICki s giving us google earth tips and overlaying the map with your stops. I'm on my way to El Salvador, may take a few years to get there, and you may have moved on by then. Such fun. All our love, Deb, Ray and Carey