The Voyage of Padma

I’ve been a little tardy updating this thing. I suppose in some ways this is good, as it indicates what a great time we’ve been having. We haven’t even reached the Sea of Cortez yet, but we love what we’ve seen of Pacific Mexico so far. When I left you last, we were still in Barra de Navidad. After a really nasty weather spell, we managed to pull our anchor out of the mud to make our way around Cabo Corrientes and into Banderas Bay. We took our time getting here and stopped at several small anchorages along the way.

About that weather, we saw 50 knots in the anchorage, but our anchor held beautifully. Can’t say the same for other boats, and thankfully we were upwind and didn’t have to fend anyone off. Boats anchored in La Cruz were beached and some took damage. They had even more wind than us, at 70 knots. You can read about it here: Latitude 38 . There’s been a lot of unusual weather on this coast this season with several frontal trofs coming through. We were told that we’d be lucky to get wind at all here, but that has not been the case, especially with this being an El Nino year. In fact, coming around Cabo Corrientes – one of those notorious capes where one has to double the speed of the stated gradient wind and the height of the waves reported on the grib files – we had a southerly wind of about 15 knots and a leisurely sail all the way around, which is unheard of this time of the year.

At the moment, we are moored at the Marina Nayarit Riviera (La Cruz) and are enjoying a bit of the marina life. When we got here a few weeks ago, there was a construction frenzy going on. People were working day and night to finish the marina for the upcoming MexORC Race, which as it turned out is a pretty big deal. The race is biannual and it features five different yacht classes, including the big and expensive Maxi yachts. In addition, the president of the Mexico came to open the races and then returned at the end of the week to also close the race. Wow, who has ever heard of a head of state appearing twice at one event?

The security, as you can imagine, was something to be experienced. I didn’t take any pics of the security, although I really wanted to. The marines stationed on our dock were packing some serious heat, as were the riot squad, the Policia Federales, and the Mexican Army all stationed and alert in this tiny village.

To get away from the boat for a while, Chris and I went to see Avatar one afternoon– what a great date, by the way. Afterwards we ended up having a drink in Vallarta Marina, where we just happened to strike up a conversation with these guys from Guadalajara. One is a chef (a ‘cordon bleu’ trained chef, nonetheless) at a very popular artsy restaurant in P.V. (He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to be his apprentice next year and the other is an Architect, who also just happened to have a boat entered in the MexORC. This led to Chris being invited as crew for part of the week. I could have gone too, but you know? I’m not really that keen on racing anymore. I used to be, but now I’m…meh.

Anyway, Manuel (the architect) had just procured a sponsor the week before the event, after his boat had been on the hard for three years. His boat, a 37-foot Capri, needs new sails and a bit of work, but he was just happy to get it into the water and into a race.

How did the race go? Well, Chris says that the Mexicans swear much better than we do.

Capri 37

The Crew

El Capitan, Manuel

El Presidente watching the racers.

We especially enjoyed the closing banquette: gourmet food, free flowing drinks, an orchestra and fireworks, all set out on the end of the pier. Also, Manuel’s wife, F. is on the Mexican Women’s sailing team, on a 37 Capri as well. They were being filmed for a reality television series here in Mexico, so there was much posturing in front of the rolling cameras (Jeez I hope I’m not in those shots!), especially after they won third place in their division which beat out several men’s teams.  Chris says that Manuel’s boat pulled ahead of the women at the start line, but then things fell apart going downwind. Excuses. Las Mujeres de Marineras de Mexico is a team to be reckoned with.

Awesome party.

We’re still in Barra de Navidad, anchored in a well-protected lagoon. We absolutely love it here. Any place where we don’t have to do a beach landing is pretty great for us. The friendly owners of the Sands hotel allow us cruisers to tie up our dinghies to their pier. They also provide a free (the cost of a beer) Internet connection, and a swimming pool. Plus the hotel is gorgeous in that moldering sixties style resort kind of way that I absolutely love.

I haven’t been blogging as of late as we’ve had loads of visitors. I hadn’t realized how much time had gone by since we’ve been with people from back home. I have to admit it was a bit of shock for us at first. We had just completed our 1500-mile sail from Nicaragua, and the next day, full on socializing for the next couple of weeks. It was really awesome that friends flew down to visit us. I especially enjoyed the kid on board. What a treat seeing the little person get so excited over dolphins! It reminds me to never take a visit from a pod of dolphins for granted.

In addition to friends, we are also visiting my aunt and uncle, who spend their winters in Mexico. My cousins and their significant others also flew down at the same time. Really great to see my cousin, I just wished I wasn’t so ‘boat-lagged’ when she was here.

I do find that those long passages tend to take quite a bit of out of me. Double-handing up the coast is quite exhausting where you actually have to keep a pretty careful watch. I found our passage from Jamaica to Panama less taxing than sailing along this coast. In the middle of the Caribbean your chances of running over an unlit panga are pretty much nil. It’s the big freighters you have to watch for there, but they all have proper navigation lights and so are easy to avoid. The opposite was true here where you have to dodge fishermen in open pangas dragging nets, sometimes holding up a cell phone for a navigation light or more frequently a dim L.E.D. You also see, our favourite, the ‘shrimpers’, who are well lit, but tend to go around in circles or other odd incomprehensible trajectories. One saving grace of those ‘shrimpers’ is that they are slow, which gives you plenty of time to assess whether they’re going to run you over or not!

We’ve been here for over a month now, but all of this activity makes it seem as though we just arrived. The weather north in the Sea of Cortez is quite brisk, i.e. cold, at the moment, so there is no need for us rush off. Por memento, Chris y yo esperamos para major clima!

Off of Zihuatanejo, Piedras Blancas in background.

Dear readers

I love it here.  It is so bonita. You will never believe what I saw… 16 dolphins, 3 turtles and best of all a whale… soooo cool.  Chris and Anita’s boat is so cool.  They see cool stuff like that all the time!

Click for Baby Dolphin!!!

We’ve finally made it to Barra de Navidad, and you can’t believe how relieved we feel.  From here up to the Sea of Cortez, it will be day sailing almost the entire way, where we can point hop from bay to bay. After 1500 nautical miles all the way from San Juan del Sur, we’re ready for a little relaxation.

The weather is beautiful in Barra: hot during the day and cool, about 15 degrees at night. After 48 hours at sea, we both slept like babies last night.

The journey here from Zihuatanejo was not without incident. The first night out, as we were rounding Lazardo Cardenia we had a little visit from a Mexican Navy gunboat.  Night had just fallen, and there was no moon. Basically, it was like I had a sleeping bag over my head, until I was flashed by a high-powered spot light. I’m generally used to those, as many of the fishermen use them when they want to indicate to you where they and to please not run over them. This one, however, was different. We were sailing along at about six knots when the spot come from the bow into the cockpit. ‘Gosh, that’s close’ I said, as I immediately turned the boat to port about 90 degrees.  The next thing I knew, the gun boat was right up beside us, as they flashed the entire side of the boat to see what we were.

We weren’t boarded, thankfully, but that pretty much scared the bejeezus out of us.  Imagine a fast armored patrol boat with some sort automatic weapon on the top of it coming at you at about 30 knots in the dark of the night. Yeah, I didn’t really like that. There is a drug war going, though, and I suppose they were just checking and doing their job.  These guys did not show up on radar. Scary.

The next night, we met the California Current at about 2 knots and a head wind.  It was pretty ugly as we bashed through some steep, close together waves.  The wind shifted around off the land though later that night, and the waves laid down, so everything was fine once again. We expected some head wind and current, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised at how little of that we’ve encountered on our trip up north. Actually, looking at the chart, we should have been further off shore. We see now that we were sailing along a shelf, while rounding a cape and perhaps this could have been prevented by going further out in the deeper water.  Still learning, never stops, really.

Anyway Feliz Navidad to everyone following our blog, and thanks for reading!

We’ve been on the move for the past couple of days, slowly making our way up the Mexican coastline. The first night was spent at anchor in Jicaral, which is one of the Bahia’s de Huatulco. Most of the little bays of Huatulco are a national park and protected from development. We were the only boat anchored in this bay that evening, and wow, what a beauty. There is no road access, so you’re anchored off tropical forest and a pristine light golden sand beach. Lovely spot.

The only drawback to it was that you do get a bit of swell coming in, especially if the Tehuantepec is blowing. But we set our stern anchor and with the boat pinned into the waves, we were very comfortable for the night.

The next day, we set out for the 37 miles to Puerto Angel. Chris and I had been here before about ten years ago, and we were curious to see how it has developed. The wind was out of the south, about 10 to 15 knots and we happily zipped along at 6 knots the whole way there. While the sail to Puerto Angel was great, I’d have to say the anchoring, not so much. Basically, you have to squeeze yourself in between the fishing pangas. Luckily the bay is very calm with little swell and for the two nights that we were there, everything was good.

The village was as charming as I had remembered it ten years ago with subsistence fishing still very much a daily part of people’s lives. We really loved talking and hanging out with the fishermen and could have stayed there for much longer. One guy we were chatting with fishes for shark, caught about 30 miles out to sea, in a 20 foot, open panga. Another guy goes out with his wife every night. We were chatting with him, as she hauled by hand, about 300 pounds of fish from the bottom of the boat up to the pier. She’s about 4’8, and built like a brick wall. You wouldn’t want to mess with her.

Padma, just another panga.

These people lead an almost idyllic lifestyle. Catching fish to make a few bucks, and keeping the rest for their own use. Every night before they set off, they fish for bait, which they share amoung themselves. Needless to say we had some excellent (and cheap!!) food here. We were kind of sad to leave this place, even though the anchoring was kind of bad.

We’re anchored in Puerto Escondido at the moment. This is home to the famous Mexi-pipe surfing destination. The anchorage is also tight, but we seemed to have lucked out and found a much-coveted break between the pangas in which to anchor with enough swing room. Again, we are the only sailing vessel here.

Unlike Puerto Angel, this town has completely changed. It used to be a tranquil fishing village with about 400 families living in it. Now it’s this small town with 36,000 residents. But I have to say, that most of the development is not too bad. The surf break has brought in a lot of money for people and the town feels somewhat prosperous.

Tomorrow we are off to Acapulco, a 187 nautical mile passage. We have a part to pick up there, but we don’t really plan on hanging around there too long. Before we left for our Tehuantepec passage, Chris was checking our transmission oil on the port engine and accidentally sheared off the dipstick when he was screwing it back in. Luckily, there’s a Volvo dealer in Acapulco, where a new dipstick awaits.

Me at Zipolite.

Chris and I are still in Huatulco. We had planned to tear ourselves away yesterday, but like always, small things seem to crop up which require our attention. This time we’ve had a little trouble with our Mexican paperwork. When we arrived in Mexico, a team of officials was waiting at the dock: Immigration, Customs, and Agriculture. Mexico currently has a ban on imported beef products, and this is why Agriculture comes on board to inspect your fridge, then they fill out a form, which you sign.

Once you have your stack of entrance documents, you walk over to the Port Captain’s office where your Zarpe is dropped off and new one is obtained. Sounds easy enough? Sure it is if you’ve managed to sign the document that matches your boat! Yes, somehow in the confusion of our arrival, the agriculture official handed us someone else’s form to sign. Basically, we have someone else’s form with Chris’ signature on it. Oops!

When we tried to fix this ourselves, the immigration lady was teasing Chris about signing a blank check for her. Yes, I suppose we should really watch what we’re signing, and we usually do, but I guess we were so tired that we just signed anything they put in front of us.

Finally, this afternoon we managed to get Agriculture on the phone to fix this. Yes, they had our form. Her solution? Ah, just cross out the wrong boat name and put yours in.

*slaps forehead*

We’re still not done with the paperwork. They can only do half of it here in Huatulco. They can’t issue our T.I.P. (temporary import permit) here. Es muy importante, and it allows you to keep the boat in Mexico for up to ten years and basically exempts you from duty on any parts you need.  We’ll have to sail up to Zihuatenejo for that form.

I never thought I’d see the day where I’m ecstatic over a well-stocked grocery store. Nicaragua was a little light on variety.

It’s just awesome here in Huatulco.

The Mexican government has been promoting the Bays of Huatulco for quite some time as an eco-travel destination. As a result, the whole area is well planned with big wide roads, paved walking trails, lots of taxis if you need one, and numerous, tucked-away bays with golden sand beaches encircling turquoise water. The area hasn’t really taken off as a gringo destination, but it is very popular with middle class Mexicans.  This place definitely makes our favourite’s list.

We are currently 45 nautical miles from our final destination of Huatulco. It’s taken us a bit longer than originally planned. This is because we stopped for an overnight anchorage - to ‘regain our marbles’, as one of the Chris’ from Iwalani put it. This story contains many Chris’. Iwalani has two on board, (an older one and a younger (13), and the Padma has one. In a way it makes things simpler when everyone is named Chris.

As I mentioned, the Tehuantepec has a reputation for being tough going, regularly blowing gale force and stronger as wind from the Gulf of Mexico passes through a narrow gap. Our strategy for crossing the beast was to leave El Salvador near the end of a gale so that we would arrive during a lull, which would give us enough time to cross before it started to rage again.

The marina in El Salvador is located up an estuary that is reached by crossing a shifting sand bar. This sand bar can only be navigated by following in a pilot on a jet ski. It’s quite the intimidating experience sailing up to these towering breaking waves barring the entrance to the estuary. You think to yourself: ‘We have to do what? Sail over those? You’ve got to be kidding me!’ It wasn’t that bad, though. The pilot judges the timing of the waves for you as he takes you through the deeper waters to safety.

The day we were leaving for our passage, we waited for high tide, which marked our meeting time with the pilot to take us back over the sandbar. Just as we started up our engines to follow the pilot, Iwalani calls us on the radio to tell us that they had just blown their alternator belt. ‘Hold on a sec while we replace it.’ In record time, Chris from Iwalani had a new belt on and we were once again ready to go.

Made it over the bar with minimal slamming. Whew.

Finally we were on our way with a 15 to 20 knot wind on our beam. Up the sails go, and moving along at 6 to 7 knots. This boat is so much fun to sail. We love it. Throughout this whole leg we were squeezing everything we could out of the wind, so that we wouldn’t have to use our engines. This was a long passage and fuel consumption had to be minimized.

Since the Tehuantepec, or “the T-pecker”, as the Gringos call it, was raging at that time, you can also expect the Papagayo winds, which are felt along the Salvadorian coast. As the night wore on, that 17-knot wind turned into something along the lines of late 25 to 30. We’re ok with those winds. Reef down. Bring the cat under control and everything’s fine. Then Iwalani hailed us on the radio.

“How are you guys doing?”
“We’re fine. Just put in another reef.”
“We just broke our forestay.”
“Oh-oh. That’s not good.

(The forestay is a heavy-duty steal cable that holds up your Genoa (or the smaller head sail on the front of the boat). This stay also provides forward support for your mast.)

The closest port was Acajutla about 20 nm away. We slowed down while Iwalani went in to get flatter water. Their cotter pin, brand new, had failed. Faulty pin? Chris (McGyver) was able to shackle in his stay, and we were on our way having only lost about four hours.

Day two, Guatemala. The wind has died and the seas are glass. We were just floating along, and when nightfall came, it felt as though we were floating through space. There was no traffic. Not even a fishing panga to avoid. A red glow, which could be seen on the coast, turned out to be lava flow from a nearby volcano. Sailing past Mount Doom. Hard to focus and stay awake. Dolphins swimming around the boat trailing effervescent swirls through the water were our company for the evening. Chris and I switch off watches every hour to get more rest.

Next morning the wind picked up and we were able to sail. An otherwise uneventful day, but we did notice that commercial fishing traffic had increased. By the evening the coast we were traveling along was thick with fishing trawlers, without navigation lights, going in every direction. Stressful.  When we arrived at Puerto Madero the next morning, the radar screen looked like a windshield on a snowy night, there were so many trawlers. Yucch.

Finally, reached the head of the Tehuantepec. We downloaded several weather files, and after consulting with Chris from Iwalani, who is a professional merchant navigator, everything looked fine for the next couple of days. Should be an easy crossing. There was very little wind, so Chris and I rigged up the light air sail, and we flew that for a while. Save fuel. We also passed a sailboat coming the other direction that reported maximum 28 knots, so all good.

Iwalani was about ten miles ahead of us when they called us on the radio to tell us that a line of wind was on our way - about 20-25 knots. We furled the spinnaker and double-reefed the main and had a great sail across the first lagoon mouth. We left our spinnaker rigged thinking that it would come in handy once we crossed and started heading downwind to Huatulco.

This would be a big mistake.

One foot on the beach is the typical way a small sailboat crosses the Tehuantepec. Literally. You keep on eye on your radar to see the coast line and then use your depth finder to stay in about 15 meters of water. We had read these things, but didn’t feel it was necessary to stay that close to shore at least that evening. The wind was light, so we traveled in about 22 meters, and besides the trawlers, we were fine.

First night out, all was well.

By the time the second evening on the Tehuantepec was approaching, we had finally caught back up to Iwalani when they hailed us again to tell us that their depth sounder had failed. No problem we said, just follow behind and we’ll keep in radio contact every hour or so. The wind was picking up, so to be more comfortable, and lessen waves on the beam, we headed to the 15-meter line. There are only two places where you have to venture out further to avoid shoals. The first one, we had rounded in the daylight. The second one would be at night.

Chart datum is about 2 miles off!

We were approaching the second shoal, and rounding it about a mile off, when the wind really started picked up. And boy, did that wind pick up. I’ve never seen so much wind! The seas were a foaming mess with these ugly steep, close together waves slamming us from all angles. As you may recall, our wind meter is broken, but judging from the size of the waves, the amount of spray and foam, I would guess somewhere around 40 knots.

Chris commented, “Well, we won’t be needing that light air sail!” and as if the sea came out to slap us upside the head, the spinnaker began to unfurl in the strong winds before our very eyes.

We were still rounding the shoal, beam on the wind and waves, and the boat was now pitching badly up and down, the spinnaker shredding as it unfurled, and lines whipping around in the gale force winds. Waves washed over the deck and the cockpit was swamped. My first reaction, “Cut it down!” so I grabbed the sail knife in the nav. Table and handed it Chris, who was suited up and tethered in, as was I (this is one thing we are pretty particular about, even in benign weather, at night). Chris crawled onto the bucking deck, wrapped a leg around the forestay and cut the sheets from the spinnaker.  After letting the halyard out, I grabbed the sail from the side of the boat and with some sort of divine strength, I hauled in that sail, as Chris spread-eagled on top of it to stop it from filling with air again. We pulled it into the cockpit. In the meantime, Padma had increased speed to more than 8 knots and we had to reef quickly to our smallest sail area. Triple reefed. Boat still upright. Drama ended.

As we tried to catch our breath and relax a bit we looked around in the moonless night at the incredible scene of the whole sea glowing faintly with the effervescence from the steep breaking waves.

All we had to do is get back to the protection of the beach and out of the wind driven waves. This would not be as easy as we think.

Both engines at near full throttle, and we were only making a 1.8 knots towards that shore, and that speed only when the wind lulled a bit. That’s how strong this wind and the effect of the slamming waves was.

Meanwhile, Iwalani hails us again to tell us that they absolutely cannot head up back to the protection of the shore. We were heading 295 degrees; they could only point 265 degrees and now their autopilot was cutting out (probably because of the strong waves). Both Chris and I were bowls of jelly after our own little adventure, and we still had to contend with watching that depth sounder and the shoreline and all of the other boats, which were also traveling along the beach.

Chris from Iwalani was hand steering and they couldn’t make any headway towards the more protected beach where the wind was coming from. They kept trying to point as high as possible and move west past this part of the gap. Shortly after, their engine apparently overheated and they were unable to even make that progress. It looked like the bashing of the short steep waves would drive them further out to sea where the waves would just get steeper and uglier.

Horrible. We were all freaking out. But once we all calmed down and looked at the chart, we realized it was only 20 nautical miles west to a very sandy beach where they could anchor. I plotted their position using our radar, and on their way to the anchorage they managed to remove a wrap from the prop and got the engine going. Iwalani-Chris and his partner Lisa did an incredible job sailing that boat to safety. We met them at the anchorage the next morning (yesterday) and all of us promptly fell asleep for about 14 hours.

Lessons learned.

Don’t leave the spinnaker up. Duh. But seriously, no matter how calm the Tehuantepec looks, don’t be lulled into complacency, and be prepared for the worst weather you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s kind of surreal. There is no lashing rain, no thunder and lightening, no clouds, but instead a clear starry night with a hell of a lot of wind. We were calling it a ‘fair weather gale’.

We’ve been thoroughly ‘pecked’ and we can’t wait to get to Huatulco, a little tequila tasting might be in order to soothe our frayed nerves.

Isthmus of Mexico