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The Sail to Huatulco, Mexico

Describing sailing on an ocean passage has challenged far better writers than me through the ages. But nevertheless, the sail down from Acapulco to Huatulco was special. South and east of Acapulco the population diminishes greatly so very few lights appear on shore. We sailed about 12 miles out from land. We had very little moonlight, so at night we could not discern the horizon. The haze made the stars dim and the water was inky black. But, the phosphorescence in the water made the wake behind the boat and the mid-ship wake shine a bright white. The only visual reference for where we were going was a compass.

Ann had taken the toughest watch from 12:00AM to 3:00AM while I slept. When I took over I knew that this inkiness would soon cease in a few hours. My eyelids were heavy. All of a sudden torpedoes came shooting straight for the boat. We were making 6.5 knots and these torpedoes appeared to be closing with us at 20 knots or more. The first four torpedoes headed for our mid-ship. At the last second they swerved and paralleled our course and shot ahead of us. I heard a whoosh and saw the shiny black outline of a jumping dolphin about ten feet off to port. She snuck a breath while she was up and then rushed on ahead. More and more dolphins charged the boat, only to veer off and run parallel for a short distance. Then they peeled off at a 45 degree angle in formations of two to four at high speed in front of us, only to return again. The show continued for over an hour.

On a moonless hazy night you can't make out the dolphins themselves, only the phosphorescence that they excite. That night the phosphorescence was brilliant. Their trails continued to shine for several seconds after they passed. The boat ghosted along making almost no sound. The dolphins made a smooth whooshing sound when they surfaced and snuck a quick breath.

I've never had a show like that before. While we have had dolphins come and play in our wake, I have never seen so many for so long. And that is a taste of the mystery of sailing at night.

La Roja & Dredge

Huatulco, Mexico

Huatulco, Mexico, has nine beautiful bays. It is hot, but the primary bay in which we are anchored is not great for swimming. The Mexican Navy is dredging this bay, and the only reason that we have stayed is that this bay is most convenient to the trips into town that we have had to make. We received some oil and fuel filters for our Mercedes Benz diesel engine from DHL and we also sent our watermaker pump back to Sausalito, CA for repair. We know the area quite well now, especially the DHL office. The young woman who works there, Mary Lou, has a world class smile.

The Trip Around the Tehuantepec

We left Huatulco, Mexico and crossed the Golfo de Tehuantepec, a bay formed at an isthmus where Mexico narrows. It can be a rough two day and two night passage. The gap in the Sierra Madre Mountains at that point venturis the trade winds coming across from the Caribbean. Just as we reached the head of the gulf, at a valley carved out by a river, the wind started to pipe up. By about midnight it was blowing 30 knots in the direction we were heading. The strategy for crossing this gulf is to have "one foot on the shore," which is an exception to all generally accepted sailing rules, all of which mandate that sea room is desirable in a gale, and one should be as far from shore as possible. That means you travel according to the depth at 30-50 feet, less than 1/4 mile off the beach, a bit hairy at night. This is not a lee shore, however, because the wind is blowing away from it. When we moved in closer to shore in early light, the heavy swell from the Pacific rolled into the beach from the West, broke on the beach, and the 30 knot wind from the East blew foam and sand back out toward us. At daylight we set sail (double reefed main). We had a great ride with no waves that close to shore. We arrived safely in Puerto Madero with a sense of relief that although we had 30 knot winds, we did not have a real Tehuatepecker, which produces huge seas, and 35-50 knot or higher winds.

We spent our last night in Mexico in Puerto Madero and had a celebratory happy hour with the other four boats (Adventures, Catmandu, La Roja, and Orinoco Flow) who had crossed at about the same time.

Easter Weekend in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala

We fortunately sailed most of the way from Madero Mexico to Puerto Quetzal,(near San Jose),Guatemala. Just as Ann was raising the new flag on the Guatemalan border, we caught a good sized sierra, a fish that looks like a Northern Pike with measles and tastes even better. After an overnight sail we anchored in the Guatemalan Navy base at Puerto Quetzal. Ann served delicious sierra dinner to Orinoco Flow and we went to bed for a good 10 hour sleep. These overnight passages deprive us old farts of our badly needed rest.

Next we robbed a cash machine for some local currency, quetzals, which we promptly spent to sample the local brew known as Gallo.